Media release
July 2, 2025

On June 27 and 28, over 70 people of faith, members of the clergy, and human rights activists from 13 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas gathered in Rome, Italy for Pagtatanim: Sowing Seeds of Faith Solidarity for the Filipino People’s Struggle for Peace.

Over the two days of the conference, speakers and participants emphasized the urgent need for solidarity from communities of faith during the current political moment. As participants stated in the conference declaration, “Like many, we journeyed to Rome from around the World to reflect on the essence of Leviticus 25, which speaks of the Year of the Lord, the Jubilee. We find hope and inspiration that every 50 years, God commanded the people to liberate all slaves, cancel all debts, let everyone return to their ancestral lands, and let the land be renewed.”

During the keynote panel, Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, Vice-president of Catholic organization Caritas, emphasized faith communities’ duty to “accompany those under threat, listing political prisoners, searching for the disappeared, [and] advocating for peace talks, not surrender.” Drawing on the biblical concept of Jubilee, he envisioned peace as comprehensive restoration: “return land, forgive deaths, and set captives free.” He connected this to the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year 2025, themed “Hope”, as an opportunity to “plant seeds of justice” even in hostile environments.

Throughout Pagtatanim, attendees heard from survivors and witnesses of human rights violations, war crimes, and environmental destruction in the Philippines. Whether highlighting former President Rodrigo Duterte’s legacy of thousands of extrajudicial killings under his infamous “war on drugs;” current President Marcos Jr.’s practice of selling out Philippine land, labor, and resources to the highest international bidder; or the harassment, detention, and enforced disappearance of environmental advocates and faith activists; all of them spoke of the culture of “unpeace” that flourishes in the Philippines today with the support of global powers like the US, Canada, and Australia.

Unpeace, as explained by human rights advocate and member of human rights alliance Karapatan, Charmane Maranan, is repression as law. It is the normalization of violence, the criminalization of resistance and critical thought, and the adoption of policies that obscure the soft invasion of the Philippines by the US behind a smokescreen of talk about “development” and “protection from China.” “It is the language of repression,” stated Maranan.

A just and lasting peace, the panelists and speakers explained, would not simply constitute the silencing of the guns. Instead, a just peace would resolve the longstanding socioeconomic roots of the armed conflict between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Coni Ledesma, a member of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, outlined the framework for peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the NDFP, the systematic attacks on peace consultants, and the challenges they are facing in her speech. “The GRP has used every occasion to stop, to terminate, to suspend, to terminate anything so that the process does not move forward,” Ledesma explained.

The imperative and history of international solidarity with the Filipino people’s struggle was deepened on the second day with the testimonies of advocates from Catalonia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia, and the US. “We are also peoples of faith supporting an existing people’s movement that has continued to persist and persevere to struggle against the roadblocks to peace, and we remain committed  to supporting the Filipino people’s struggle to remove these roadblocks.”

Conference participants committed to action after two days of transformative presentations, panels, and workshops. “With renewed commitment we will help plant, nurture, and harvest justice in the Philippines by addressing the root causes of unpeace. Thus, we pledge to:

1. Organize theological reflections on JustPeace tied to real campaigns.
2. Advocate for an end to US foreign military aid used for repression.
3. Accompany vulnerable communities, human rights defenders, and church workers.
4. Push for the release of political prisoners, and support displaced peoples and the families of the disappeared.
5. Join ecumenical “Push Back” campaigns to defend the oppressed and stop red-tagging.
6. Continue to accompany the families of victims of the “drug war” and support the movement for accountability and justice.”

Press Statement
June 15, 2025

“The Senate’s return of impeachment articles of Vice President Sara Duterte to the Lower House is a blot on the democratic credentials of the Philippines,” said Peter Murphy, Chairperson of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP).

“The Senate delayed the trial from February and while it will proceed for now, there is the threat that somehow the House of Representatives could cancel it, or that incoming senators in July will tip the balance,” he said.

The grounds of impeachment – misuse of US$10.5 million in discretionary and intelligence funds, unexplained wealth, an alleged murder plot against the President and his family, and betrayal of public trust- are well-founded in fact. Leading institutions such as the Ateneo School of Government and the Makati Business Club have weighed in to the public debate, demanding that the trial go ahead. Public opinion surveys show 88 per cent support for the trial going ahead.

“ICHRP strongly supports the public rallies and cries of the people to press the Senate to do its constitutional duty. Clearly the political elite are failing to uphold the 1987 Constitution, and it is the people who have to make sure it is enforced and that the Vice-President is held accountable,” said Murphy. “These rallies are democratic assemblies protected by the Constitution and must not be suppressed by the authorities.”

The international community, led by US policy, is either ignoring the unfolding fiasco or looking on with bemusement, while at the same time supplying weapons, training and political cover to the Marcos Jr. administration.

“It is long overdue that the international community itself upheld democratic standards and international law in its relations with the Philippines,” said Murphy. “The Philippines is a rogue state where the rule of law is totally optional, where the state systematically murders and represses citizens who oppose its anti-people and anti-environment policies. 

“ICHRP sponsored the International Observer Mission to the May 12 Mid-Term Elections, which we found to be deeply flawed, not meeting the international standards for a free and fair election,” said Murphy. “But the international community again turned a blind eye.

“We repeat our longstanding call for an end to all military aid to this regime, and for the Marcos Jr government to immediately return to the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, a forum where the deep social and political problems of the Philippines can be addressed,” Murphy concluded.

Statement
June 15, 2025

As an organization committed to peace and social justice in the Philippines, ICHRP salutes the life of Luis Jalandoni, who recently passed away at the age of 90 in the Netherlands. Jalandoni, a priest, was the former head of the Social Action Centre in the Diocese of Bacolod, Negros Occidental, a founder of Christians for National Liberation, and a long-time chairperson of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and head of the NDFP Peace Negotiating panel. His contributions to social justice in the Philippines are innumerable, and immense.

He was a shining example of a person of faith living out their principles in the context of a repressive feudal society. Early in life as a Catholic priest, he came to understand the struggle and hardship of the impoverished people of Negros and made a life-long commitment to support their struggle for a better life. Faced with the repressive fascist society in which he lived and the collaborationist religious order, he carried out the Christian mandate to serve the poor and most oppressed by joining the revolutionary movement as a means to serve the peasants and workers of Negros.

Luis modeled the behaviours of a true Christian and a true revolutionary: humble, living a modest life, giving his inherited lands to the poor peasants so that they may know a better life. He provided leadership to other Christians who sought to struggle against social inequality and the Marcos dictatorship by forming the Christians for National Liberation (CNL). The CNL, who remain steadfast in their struggle today, provided a voice and vehicle for people of faith in the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship and the struggle for national and social liberation.

For his advocacy and resistance, Ka Luis and his partner Coni Ledesma were arrested in 1973 and jailed by the Marcos Dictatorship for more than a year. After his stint as a political prisoner, he helped organize the first workers’ strike under Martial Law, at the la Tondeña distillery in 1975.

After going to exile in the Netherlands in 1976 Ka Luis spent the rest of his life building international solidarity for the people of the Philippines. Under his leadership, the NDFP exposed the excesses of the Marcos dictatorship to the rest of the world and built a global movement to support the struggle for liberation.

Since the mid 1980s, Luis served as the Chief Negotiator of the NDFP in peace negotiations with the Philippine government. His work on this front produced substantial progress and a number of joint agreements were signed contributing to the struggle for just and lasting peace. These included: the Hague Joint declaration which set the General Framework for the Peace Negotiations; the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantees; and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.

In 2016, under his leadership the NDFP even went as far as the tabling of a framework for social and economic reforms as a foundation for a just and lasting peace. This last major peace initiative was under discussion with the GRP when the Duterte regime unilaterally terminated all existing peace agreements and unilaterally declared Ka Luis a terrorist. In peace negotiations, Jalandoni was an ardent advocate of peasants and workers in the Philippines and was unrelenting in pursuit of a genuine peace based on land reform and national industrialization. Jalandoni always put the needs of the oppressed first, firmly rejecting faulty solutions to the armed conflict that only sought surrender but ignored the social and economic roots of the armed conflict.

As ICHRP we admire and seek to emulate the life of Ka Luis in seeking to support the poor and oppressed based on values of social justice and a just peace built on a foundation of social political and economic equality. ICHRP’s upcoming solidarity conference in Rome called Pagtatanim: Sowing Seeds of Faith Solidarity for the Filipino People’s Struggle for Peace is an opportunity for people of faith from around the world to carry forward Ka Luis’ vision of a Philippine society based on democracy and social justice. The interfaith conference will serve to strengthen the solidarity movement for the Filipino people, and mobilize faith communities to accompany and support the most marginalized in the Philippines.

We salute Ka Luis and his unending commitment to the struggle for a better world for the poor and oppressed of the Philippines. We send condolences to his life-long partner and comrade, Ka Coni Ledesma.

Click here to register

Registration for the upcoming conference Pagtatanim is being extended to June 14. Make sure to register this week to reserve a spot.

This June, people of faith from around the world will convene in Rome, Italy to participate in a historic solidarity conference. Pagtatanim: Sowing Seeds of Faith Solidarity for the Filipino People’s Struggle for Peace is an interfaith conference to strengthen the solidarity movement for the Filipino people, and mobilize faith communities to accompany and support the most marginalized in the Philippines.

You can learn more about the conference, and the registration form, at ichrp.net/Pagtatanim.

News Release
May 30, 2025

“Commissioner Garcia rejected the International Observer Mission (IOM) finding of massive disenfranchisement in the midterm elections because there was an 82.2 per cent turnout of registered voters. But the hundreds of failed Automated Counting Machines, the climate of fear through red tagging and actual violence, the fact that May 12 was an unpaid holiday, and the significant hurdles faced by overseas Filipinos meant that hundreds of thousands did not get to vote,” said IOM Commissioner Lee Rhiannon.

The Mission Observers reported significant disenfranchisement due to technical and procedural failures. Overseas Filipino voter turnout reached an all-time low of 18.12 percent due to inaccessible voting systems. Domestically, long lines and malfunctioning vote-counting machines hindered voters, while elections were disrupted in places like Datu Odin Sinsuat, affecting over 80,000 people and limiting their right to vote.

“The IOM documented 112 verified cases of red-tagging, and our local partner Vote Report PH received 1,445 citizen reports of red-tagging across the country. These are not isolated incidents; they represent a pattern of fear and repression that deters participation,” said Peter Murphy, Chairperson of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, which sponsored the IOM.

IOM Commissioner Rhiannon said, “Our observers saw that the communities they visited displayed an extraordinary resolve to make their voices heard and ballots cast, despite the many obstacles. We really admire this. Filipinos worked with a flawed process, because the stakes are so high in the deep social and political crisis they are coping with.”

On Permission from Comelec

The IOM noted that Commissioner Garcia said that our observers were not required to register with the Comelec. “He is, in fact, right. As a people-led observer mission, we believe that our strength and impartiality come from our independence,” said Murphy.

“We are also very concerned that the European Union EOM, which did register with Comelec and was invited to observe by the government, was excluded from visiting voting precincts on May 12. That did no credit to Comelec.”

Rather, the IOM echoed the calls of Filipinos that the Comelec should focus its attention where it is most needed: on the issues raised by voters, civil society, and the broader public. These include persistent reports of vote-buying, dynastic dominance, red-tagging, and disenfranchisement in the electoral process.

“Elections that are genuinely free and fair have nothing to fear from the presence of impartial international observers. We remain committed to accompanying the Filipino people in their pursuit of democratic governance and upholding the principles of accountability and transparency,” Rhiannon ends. #