PRESS RELEASE
November 1, 2024

PH gov’t role as a serial human rights violator, perpetrator of state terrorism once again exposed in legislative hearings into drug war

After years of investigation and mountains of evidence by the International Peoples Tribunals, Investigate PH, the International Criminal Court and the UN Human Rights Council, Philippine elected officials through the House of Representatives Quad Committee are finally taking first steps toward acknowledging the depth and breadth of the crimes committed by the Duterte Regime. – Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson

ICHRP recognizes the important role of the House Quad Committee on its first steps in the process of investigating the crimes against humanity perpetrated by state forces in the so-called war on drugs, which is an ongoing war on the poor. The work of the House Quad Committee adds to the existing mountain of evidence of the culpability of the Duterte Regime as a serial violator of basic human rights and international humanitarian law. 

Duterte’s recent testimony before the Senate, boasting of extensive rights violations and command culpability for the deaths of tens of thousands of victims, further incriminates him and his murderous regime. “Duterte must be held accountable for gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. He must be indicted, tried and jailed for his crimes in the so-called drug war and his dirty war against political dissent. This is the only way to achieve justice and accountability for the victims and their families,” said Murphy. 

For tens of thousands of families who suffered under the bloody “war on drugs”, the killing of political activists, and the killing of New People’s Army (NPA) prisoners and wounded-in-action, justice demands both accountability and transparency from the highest offices of the state. “ICHRP calls on the Marcos Jr. government to authorize full access to evidence and testimonies revealed in the House Quad Committee’s ongoing investigation,” said Murphy.

The shocking revelations of the Quad Committee hearings have spurred on the Duterte Panagutin Network, and ICHRP vigorously supports their call for Duterte to “take responsibility and for the Marcos regime to push accountability and seek justice for the victims ”.

To fully understand the breadth of state complicity in the War on the Poor and the War on Dissent, ICHRP encourages the Quad Committee to investigate not only the role of the police and military in these rights violations but the judicial system’s role and complicity in the institutionalization of impunity, the failure of domestic remedies, and the weaponization of the law to violate rights of the Filipino people. The 1 July 2016 Command Memo of Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa created Project Double Barrel and its component, Project Tokhang, ordering police to conduct “house-to-house visitations” of “suspected drug personalities.” Warrants were not required, and individuals had no legal recourse to challenge their inclusion on target lists. There was no due process further enhancing the climate of impunity. Tens of thousands were killed, and police killers had quotas and were rewarded for each killing.

The July 2020 Anti-Terrorism Act normalised the executive denunciation of civilian political critics as “terrorists”, a process already running at high speed through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), created by Durterte’s Executive Order 70 in December 2018. During Duterte’s presidency, these political repression campaigns caused 422 cases of extrajudicial killing of civilian political activists, and from July 2022 to June 2024, 105 such cases under President Marcos Jr. Those killed were peasant and union organizers, Indigenous Peoples’ leaders, lawyers, journalists and church leaders. This war on dissent severely curtailed democratic space.

Given the revelations so far, the Marcos Jr. administration must restore Philippine membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and cooperate fully with international investigative bodies. Victims’ families and the Filipino people have waited too long for justice. President Marcos Jr.’s administration must take concrete actions to address this legacy of abuse and impunity, and prevent future violations.

We call for the Philippines to rejoin the International Criminal Court!
We call for the Quad Committee to release all evidence to the ICC.
We call for an end to the “war on drugs” – war on the poor.
We call for an end to extra judicial killings, the war on dissent and all associated military operations!
We call for an end to the weaponization of the courts and an end to impunity.
We call for justice for the victims of these crimes, prosecute the perpetrators! 

Contact: Peter Murphy +61 418 312 301

Statement
October 23, 2024

ICHRP honors the life and legacy of Dante Simbulan – a founding member of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) and a hero of the Filipino people and all those who seek a peace based on social justice. ICHRP extends our deepest condolences to his wife Patti, his children, family and friends – may you find peace and strength in his legacy and impact. 

Born May 3, 1930, Dante became a captain at the Philippine Army and taught at the Philippine Military Academy, where he hosted a lecture of Prof. Jose Maria Sison on the mercenary tradition of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He left the PMA and resigned his commission as a colonel. 

In 1974, he was imprisoned without charges in Camp Bonifacio and Camp Crame, while various groups including Amnesty International campaigned for his release as a prisoner of conscience. 

After his release, he sought asylum in the US, where he lived in the political center of the US, Washington DC. While in exile, he campaigned against the Marcos dictatorship, pointing out the regime’s accountability for the human rights and international humanitarian law violations and the billions of public funds stolen by the Marcoses and their cronies. He served as the Executive Director of the Church Coalition on Human Rights in the Philippines. 

Dante continued to campaign for human rights in the Philippines in the area surrounding Washington DC for the rest of his life. He helped found Katarungan DC under the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo regime and became a founding member of ICHRP at its first assembly in 2013. He testified at the 2015 International People’s Tribunal in Washington DC.

Dante contributed to the movement for just peace in the Philippines through his prolific writing. In 2010, he published “The Modern Principalia: The Historical Evolution of the Philippine Ruling Oligarchy” and published his memoirs in 2016, “Whose Side Are We On?,” which outlines the historical context of his work as a soldier-turned-activist. In 2018, he published his masteral thesis on the socialist movement in the Philippines, “When the Rains Come, Will the Grass not Grow Again.” 

Dante’s life serves as a shining example of selflessness and courage; his decisiveness to leave his military post at the risk of his own safety demonstrates a kind of bravery that can only come from a clear understanding of the depth and seriousness of Filipino people’s struggle for just and lasting peace. ICHRP calls upon people across the world to take inspiration from Dante: to learn and take to heart the real situation of exploited and oppressed classes in the Philippines; to abandon what is comfortable and easy, or brings personal prestige; and to persevere, with patience and dedication, to advance the Filipino people’s struggle for just peace. 

Statement
October 21, 2024

On October 21st, peasants all over the Philippines mobilized in a nationwide day of action to promote the call for genuine land reform and oppose the attacks of the US-backed Marcos Jr. Regime against the peasant movement. 

On this day of action, ICHRP extends our solidarity to peasants struggling for land in Hacienda Luisita, Hacienda Tinang, Araneta Estates; to peasants facing land use changes in Hacienda Roxas, Lupang Tartaria, Lupang Ramos and Southern Tagalog; to peasants facing eviction and land disputes in Cagayan Valley, Bicol and Panay; to peasants facing land reclassification in Negros, as well as those facing destructive mining and megadam projects in Cordillera; and everywhere in the Philippines where the people clamor for genuine land reform and freedom from militarization, land-grabbling, and land monopolization.

October 21 marks the 52nd anniversary of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s Presidential Decree 27, a sham land reform which removed protective measures from the food market and made it easier for predatory foreign corporations to take business away from peasants. The decree also incorporated loans from the World Bank, which made farm equipment available for loan with the caveat that the market determined the interest rates. This resulted in predatory loans for peasants with interest rates becoming as high as 38%. Poverty rates increased in the countryside from 33% to 73%.

Today, 52 years after Marcos Sr’s sham land reform program, peasants continue to suffer intense poverty on top of terrorist land-grabbing by big land monopolies and foreign corporations. As indicated in the International People’s Tribunal verdict  and the documentation and reportage of  human rights organizations like Karapatan, peasants also face the brunt of state violence and brutal militarization. Just this week, 7 private security “goons” and 4 members of the Philippine National Police arrested 17 elderly and 12 minors of the Mangyan Iraya, indigenous people and residents of Hacienda Almeda. Hacienda Almeda is part of the 31 hectares of ancestral land of the Irayas that is continuously being taken from them through extortion, militarization, and fraud by armed private goons and state agents. 

Meanwhile, the  US continues to lead and finance efforts to further militarize the Philippines, making the countryside more dangerous for peasants. This week, the US kicked off the Kamandag exercises, military drills which occur yearly in the Philippines. This year 2,351 troops from the US, Japan, Australia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom participate in the training while France, Thailand, and Indonesia also sent observers. These troops train with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and enable the killings of peasants in the countryside. 

Militarization of the countryside and the continuing wide scale displacement of peasants and farmers who cannot own land remains at the core of the decades long state of unpeace, armed conflict, and human rights crises throughout the Philippines. The continuous plunder and sell-out of Philippine agricultural lands, natural and mineral resources for the minority few and global monopoly capital is at the heart of the Filipino people’s misery and prevents economic and industrial development in the country.

ICHRP members stand in solidarity with the peasants, and rural communities of the Philippines and support their struggle for genuine land reform. We must oppose all support for the Marcos Jr. regime that bombs, kills and tortures peasant and indigenous communities  while it strips them of their right to food, land and self-determination. 

Support the Filipino People’s Call for Genuine Land Reform!
Stop the Attacks Against Filipino Peasants!
Oppose State Terrorism in the Philippines!