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Philippine labor federations receive prestigious US human rights award

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Victims of red-tagging, extra-judicial killings and other forms human and labor rights violations, Philippine labor federations are this year’s recipients of the George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Awards in Washington D.C., United States of America (USA).

The Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), BPO Industry Employee Network (BIEN), Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa, Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, Public Services Labor Independent Confederation, and Federation of Free Workers received the prestigious award in a ceremony in the US capital last December 7.

Given annually by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the award is in recognition of the recipients’ trade union and human rights work in the Philippines, ranked among the world’s deadliest countries for worker organizers.

The AFL-CIO said the federations are honored “For their courage and persistence in the face of escalating threats to their own lives.”

“This award is in recognition of the Philippines labor movement’s resilience, persistence and courage in the face of extreme violence and repression,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said at the ceremony.

The national American national trade union center noted that more than 70 union members have been killed since 2016, and many more are victims of red-tagging, illegal firing of union activists and anti-terrorism laws directed at stifling freedom to form unions and bargain.

Earlier this year, a 3rd high-level mission of the International Labor Organization (ILO) visited the Philippines that reported on grave labor violations in the Philippines.

In his acceptance message, ACT secretary general Raymond Basilio said their award is dedicated to all Filipino educators to serve as an additional inspiration to further their for the entire education sector and Philippine society.

“The struggles for just wages and benefits as well as humane conditions of work continue,” he added.

Representatives of the Philippine Labor Movement and George Meany Human Rights Award Winners Meet with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House. (Supplied photo.)

Before the awarding ceremony, the delegates met with US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan at the White House who reiterated“the Biden administration’s commitment to support the efforts of workers abroad to form unions.”

The US official also condemned “all forms of harassment, intimidation, and violence against workers and advocates for exercising their fundamental rights.”

‘Walk the talk’

Meanwhile, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines-United States (ICHRP-USA ) celebrated the conferment of the award to Filipino labor federations.

“The receipt of the award is an outcome of the unity and political will of the Philippine labor movement around the most pressing issues of workers and a product of the growing international solidarity between Philippine labor and US labor and community advocates,” ICHRP-USA officer Jessie Braverman said.

ICHRP-USA however said that while it welcomed Sullivan’s remarks to the delegates at the White House, “…the Biden administration needs to concretely walk the talk by withdrawing its support of the tools of repression being used by the Marcos administration to repress and attack Filipino labor, starting with the National Taskforce to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC,”

Activists Hold Vigil on December 7 in front of US State Department, Calling for Abolition of NTF-ECLAC. (ICHRP-USA photo)

As a government agency established under the Rodrigo Duterte administration and continued under the Marcos administration, the NTF-ELCAC plays a central role in harassing and intimidating workers as part of the government’s counter-insurgency campaign, the group added.

ICHRP-USA noted that Schuler herself highlighted at the awarding ceremony two of the most recent killings, Alex Dolorosa of BIEN and Jude Fernandez of KMU, who were relentlessly harassed and red-tagged by the NTF-ELCAC prior to their murders.

ICHRP-USA, KMU and ACT leaders also met with US Congresswoman Susan Wild, who introduced the Philippines Human Rights Act (PHRA) into US Congress in 2021, the same year as the Bloody Sunday Massacre that saw the murders by Philippine police of several labor leaders and activists branded by the NTF-ELCAC as “communist-terrorists” in the Southern Tagalog region. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Members of ICHRP-US, KMU and ACT meet with US Rep. Susan Wild. (ICHRP-USA photo)

Global rights coalition commit to continuing solidarity with Filipinos

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About 120 rights advocates from over 30 organizations across the globe committed to continuing solidarity with the Filipino people for a just and lasting peace in the Philippines in a conference in Bangkok, Thailand from November 7 to 9.

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said it condemns the United States-backed counterinsurgency program of the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government that continues to commit human rights and international humanitarian law against the people.

In the conference, Philippine and international experts and leaders said the counterinsurgency program is implemented through ongoing extra-judicial killings, disappearances, suppression of civil liberties, filing of trumped-up charges using the Anti-Terror Act (ATA), and the relentless red-tagging of activists, progressive organizations, and solidarity activists by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict

Karapatan National Council member Edith Burgos saidthe Marcos government is, “responsible for the steadily deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines and escalating violations of International Humanitarian Law directed against the Filipino people.”

Burgos said human rights atrocities committed by the Philippine military and police are not only abetted by US military and is made worse by the presence of nine US military bases in the country.

The US has given the Philippine government over 1 billion US dollars in military said since 2015, she revealed.

Suzanne Adely, President of the National Lawyers Guild of the US, said the American government has employed “the organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control” of the Philippines since 1898.

She pointed out the governments’ use of the term “insurgency” attempts to delegitimize people’s resistance, including armed resistance, as “terrorism.”

National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers president Edre Olalia meanwhile explained that contrary to US counterinsurgency doctrine, armed resistance movements in response to the severe oppression of peoples is legal under the Geneva conventions.

He emphasized the importance of the protection of civilians and non combatants in the context of civil war.  

ICHRP chairperson Peter Murphy said international solidarity is critical in supporting the Filipino people’s aspirations for a just and lasting peace as well as a nation free from poverty, landlessness, and state repression.

“The devastating number of attacks that continue under the Marcos regime in the Philippines – the many disappearances, the forced surrenderees, and the killings of NDFP peace consultants, are all violations of international humanitarian law done in the guise of US-designed counterinsurgency programs. The international community must oppose these,” the group said.

ICHRP said its member organizations from four continents have again committed to strengthening solidarity support for the Filipino people.

It added it shall continue to conduct broad education and information dissemination on the situation in the Philippines, lobby their respective government bodies, and oppose foreign support for war crimes in the country. 

“The struggle for a just and lasting peace in the Philippines is not a struggle isolated from the people of the world; we will continue to fervently campaign until the demands of the Filipino people are met and activists no longer live in fear of reprisal,” ICHRP said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Groups accuse Marcos Jr. admin of having worse desaperacidos record than Duterte

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An international group on human rights in the Philippines accused the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration of having a worse record on forcible disappearances than the previous Rodrigo Duterte government.

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said the Marcos Jr. government continues the “brazen violation” of human rights carried by the previous regime as it called for the surfacing of two activists reportedly abducted in Gonzaga, Cagayan last May 16.

ICHRP said peasant and youth organizers Michael Cedrick Casaño and Patricia Nicole Cierva are alleged to have been abducted by the 501st Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army and demanded their surfacing this week as the world marks International Week of the Disappeared.

“[ICHRP] demands an end to the reign of terror on political dissent, and calls for the immediate surfacing of all activists who have been forcibly disappeared by state forces,” ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy said.

Who are the victims?

Patricia Cierva was a former University of the Philippines-Manila leader and Kabataan Party chairperson for the National Capital Region in 2018. She conducted her Development Studies practicum in Cagayan in 2019 and went back to the province to assist farming communities.

Cedrick Casaño meanwhile is a former philosophy student at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and is an active campaigner for the “Green Platform” in Cagayan against magnetite sand mining operations. Said operations were damaging the environment that would result to food insecurity and biodiversity loss, the ICHRP said.

Casaño and Cierva are reportedly the 9th and 10 victims of enforced disappearance under the Marcos Jr. administration.

Ninth and 10th Desaperacidos under Bongbong Marcos Patricia Cierva (left) and Cedrick Casaño.
(Northern Dispatch composite image)

ICHRP said the reported incidents of enforced disappearance are alarming and seem to be the trend under the Marcos Jr. government, citing two other Northern Luzon activists Gene Roz “Bazoo” de Jesus and Dexter Capuyan who also went missing since April 28 and last seen in Taytay, Rizal.

Local human rights organization Karapatan also lists Gabriela activists Ma. Elena Pampoza and Elgene Mungcal, National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultant Ariel Badiang, Negros peasant organizer Leonardo Sermona, Renel Delos Santos, Denald Laloy Mialen and Lyn Grace Martullinas as “desaperacidos” or abductees by state forces.

Ignoring its own laws

Karapatan in a statement marking International Week of the Disappeared said state forces ignore human rights laws such as Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act that has been enacted in 2012.

“Despite such a law, enforced disappearances have, in fact, emerged as a troubling hallmark of the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. regime, with a growing number of cases reported within a short span of time,” the group said.

In a mere 10-month period, there have been nine victims of enforced disappearances under the current regime, already constituting 45% of the Duterte regime’s six-year record of 20 cases. Five of the nine victims went missing in the month of April 2023, Karapatan said in its May 26 statement.

Casaño and Cervia bring the number of cases to 11 reported enforced disappearances, or 55% if compared to the Duterte administration’s total of 20.

Karapatan has documented 206 missing under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s nine-year rule, 29 under the Benigno Aquino III regime and 20 under Duterte.

The website desaperacidos.org lists 1,600 forcibly disappeared under the president’s father Ferdinand Sr.’s dictatorship in the 1960s to the 1980s, “none of (whom) has ever been found.”

“Still another statistic identifies the Philippines as one of the 26 countries worldwide with the highest number of cases of enforced disappearances from 1980 to 2009, with as many as 780 documented instances, surpassing countries like Iran (532), Lebanon (320) and Honduras (207),” Karapatan added.

“The spate of Enforced Disappearances during this first 11 months of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is a full proof that the lives of Filipino community activists are at stake,” Murphy said.

ICHRP added that the Philippine Government refuses to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED), one of the recommendations by several United Nations member states including Japan, France, Denmark, Italy and Brazil during the Universal Periodic Review in 2022 in Geneva Switzerland last November.

“The Philippine government must surface the disappeared, and ratify and comply with ICPPED”, Murphy said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Bayan Muna: ‘We are victims of massive electronic vote shaving’

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International mission says elections neither free nor fair

Bayan Muna said “massive electronic vote shaving” was the main reason why it lost in the May 9, 2022 national elections, accounting for as much as 80% drop in the number of votes compared to 2019.

A winner in the last seven elections, even the topnotcher when it first ran in 2001, the party said its drop of votes from 1.117 million to just around 219,000 is “simply unbelievable and unacceptable.”

The last time Bayan Muna votes registered such a significant decrease was in the 2016 elections. From more than 946,000 in 2013, its counted votes was only 606,000 in 2016–good for a seat in Congress.

“Even at the height of red tagging, black propaganda, harassment and dirty operation against the progressive partylists by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and the Duterte regime in 2019, Bayan Muna still managed to double its votes from 606,000 to 1.117 M,” it pointed out.

Bayan Muna said it seems they was targeted since the 2019 elections by the NTF-ELCAC and the Duterte administration to “unjustly stifle the effective and progressive voice of the marginalized sectors in Congress.”

The group said it will continue to protest what it believes was a “massive fraud and terrorism” in the 2022 elections as well as continue to investigate and uncover various fraud including massive electronic cheating.

Bayan Muna mentioned massive media ads and vote buying by dynastic and rich party list candidates as other forms of cheating in the last elections.

Massive vote buying

Meanwhile, an international observers’ mission (IOM) reported that the last elections were neither free nor fair and “marred by a higher level of failure of the electronic voting system.”

Members of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said it began its monitoring of the elections in February and its members have been in Central Luzon, the National Capital Region, Southern Luzon, Central Visayas, Western Visayas and Mindanao since the first week of April to see firsthand how the campaign and elections were held.

In its report presented last Thursday, the IOM said it also witnessed rampant vote-buying, disturbing levels of state and military orchestrated red-tagging of candidates and parties, including numerous incidents of deadly violence.

It noted that main opposition candidate Leni Robredo was strenuously  red-tagged while another presidential candidate, labor leader Leody De Guzman, was the victim of a strafing attack in Mindanao.

“Many campaign activists were arrested on false charges. Large numbers of voters were unable to cast their ballots.  Vote-buying was widespread. Many found their names were no longer on the voter roll, and many had to trust that election officials would later put their marked ballot paper through a Vote Counting Machine (VCM) because of the breakdown of the voting machines,” the group reported.

The IOM also reported election-related violations of human rights from March 15, noting the first political killings related to the elections took place in Sorsogon, Bicol Region, on January 15.

“The elections took place in the most repressive atmosphere seen since the time of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The Duterte government has orchestrated state terror, marshalling the entire machinery of the state, including the judiciary, the military and police, the departments of education, social welfare and local government, in a war on dissent which continued through the entirety of the election campaign,” it said.

”The election is both a tragedy and farce of epic Shakespearean proportions, a farce in that the electoral charade was based on a sea of disinformation, disenfranchisement and intimidation of large swathes of the voting public,” the IOM added. # (Raymund B Villanueva)

Sr. Pat Fox condemns Duterte admin’s year-end rights abuses

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The Australian nun deported by the Rodrigo Duterte government condemned the string of assassinations and massacres of indigenous peoples, farmers, and critics during the holiday season.

Sr. Patricia Fox, NDS, deported in April 2018 on allegations she attended a protest rally in Davao City, said the Duterte government rushed to commit more human rights abuses before the year 2020 ended.

Speaking as spokesperson of the Asia-Pacific Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (APCHRP), Sr. Fox said President Duterte took advantage of the Covid-19 lockdowns to orchestrate a crackdown on activists, with many being arrested on dubious charges while several others were killed.

“Two days before the year ended, the Duterte regime’s armed operatives launched simultaneous police and military operations in the islands of Panay and Bohol that resulted in the death of 10 people and the arrest of 17 others,” Sr. Fox said.

The nun cited the massacre of nine Tumandok tribespeople and the arrest of 17 others in Panay Island and the assassination of activist farmer Lorenzo “Dodoy” Paña in Bohol province last December 30.

Sr. Fox echoed reports by local human rights organizations that the simultaneous raids in Tapaz, Capiz province and Calinog, Iloilo province were cold-blooded execution of the victims.

“Family members of Eliseo Gayas, one of the men killed, narrated how they were ordered to go out of their house. When armed operatives entered, they killed Eliseo outright with four gunshots. Two other victims – Mario Aguirre and Roy Giganto – had their houses forcibly entered as operatives shot them dead inside while they were asleep, in the presence of their respective families,” Sr. Fox said.

Paña, like those massacred and arrested in Panay, was a red-tagging victim and no stranger to harassment by State forces, the nun pointed out.

“These senseless murders are a continuation of the string of human rights attacks we have witnessed this year against activists, lawyers, farmers, trade unionists, and even health workers,” Sr. Fox said.

In the same statement, the APCHRP said it strongly condemns the killing of nine Tumandok in Panay Island and the assassination of Dodoy Paña in Bohol.

“We also call for the immediate release of the 17 indigenous activists arrested in the same operation in Panay,” the APCHRP said.

The year 2020 will be forever remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic recessions it caused. However, it should also be noted as the apex of the Duterte regime’s barbarity and utter disregard for human rights, the group added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Groups accuse Duterte of lying before UN on human rights

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President Rodrigo Duterte’s speech before the 75th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) last Tuesday night, September 22, drew jeers from rights groups, calling his remarks on human rights “malicious” and “perverse.”

They said that the President’s repeated threats against UN investigators and local human rights workers show he lied when he professed open dialogue and constructive engagement before the international community.

While hailing the “properly moderate and constructive” tone the President adopted in his 20-minute pre-recorded video message, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said Duterte used his usual “poisonous language” on the issue of human rights that has led to countless extrajudicial killings in the Philippines in the last four years.

Duterte accused human rights advocates of “weaponizing” human rights in their alleged propaganda against his government.

“They attempt to discredit the functioning institutions and mechanisms of a democratic country and a popularly-elected government which in its last two years still enjoys the same widespread approval and support,” Duterte said.

The President, who also talked about the coronavirus pandemic and the South China Sea struggle with China, assured the UN that human rights are protected in the country.

Duterte was obviously reacting to UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s report that no less than 8,663 were summarily killed under Duterte’s drug war.

“The Philippines will continue to protect the human rights of its people, especially from the scourge of illegal drugs, criminality, and terrorism,” Duterte said. 

‘Perverse redefinition of human rights’

Human rights organizations said Duterte tried to redefine human rights and is simply trying to evade accountability.

“It is perverse for the President to redefine human rights as protection from illegal drugs, criminality, and terrorism, when human rights begin with the right to life, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Peter Murphy, ICHRP Global Council chairperson, said.

“But the President has repeatedly and recklessly called for lives to be ended, women to be raped, telling his soldiers and police that he will take the blame,” Murphy added.

ICHRP said Duterte’s UNGA speech is a calculated intervention in the deliberations of the ongoing UN Human Rights Council’s 45th Session at the UN’s Geneva, Switzerland headquarters where Bachelet’s report is being considered.

Local human rights alliance Karapatan said Duterte’s remark is a glaring effort “to vilify human rights defenders in the Philippines and to undermine their calls for accountability.”

“Duterte is posturing in making desperate pleas before the international community that is growing increasingly critical of his human rights record and tyrannical rule,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.

International Association of Democratic Lawyers’s Edre Olalia said that facts and record show it is Duterte’s government that has weaponized the law against human rights advocates, defenders, activists, dissenters, media, the opposition and many others.

“There is a gaping disconnect between the truth and the rhetoric that [the Duterte government] will ‘continue to protect the human rights of its people especially from the scourge of illegal drugs, criminality and terrorism,’” Olalia said.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) for its part said that while impunity in the Philippines did not start from the Duterte administration alone, his government has a definite role in ending it.

“[O]r, at the very least, not making it worse with present attitudes and behaviors. It is contrary to democracy to depict dissent and protests as efforts to destabilize,” the CHR said.

Lying to the international community

The CHR said that the best way in improving the human rights situation in the country is by encouraging constructive engagement, including open and unhindered access by independent human rights mechanisms and UN special.

The national human rights institution said the government’s law enforcement agencies must cooperate with investigations to ensure that perpetrators of human rights violations are held accountable and punished.

But Duterte’s refusal to allow UN experts into the country shows he lied to the international community, Karapatan said.

“If his administration was truly for an open dialogue and constructive engagement with the UN and independent bodies, then he would’ve allowed the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN Special Rapporteurs to freely conduct an in-country investigation on the sham drug war and other human rights violations,” Palabay said.

Instead, Palabay added, the UN experts’ requests had been met with “threats of violence, wild accusations of foreign meddling, and demeaning insults.”

“The Philippine government even rejected most of the findings and recommendations of the recent report of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights and is currently finding ways to evade independent investigation at the UN Human Rights Council,” Palabay added.

Olalia echoed Palabay’s denunciation, adding that the government declarations it is open to dialogue and constructive engagement with the UN on human rights issues is “a pretense.”

“It is either hypocritical or cynical given its actual attitude and record with respect to the UN Human Rights Council, the ICC and other international venues. Its engagement is nothing short of tokenism, spins, slants and diversions,” Olalia said.

ICHRP urged member States of the UN Human Rights Council to authorize Bachelet’s office to hold a more wide-ranging investigation on the Philippine situation.

“The Duterte government, if it stands by the President’s commitment to the UN principles and to multilateralism, should fully cooperate with such an initiative,” the group said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Duterte now a known dictator with EU Parliament vote, rights group says

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President Rodrigo Duterte is now known as a dictator by the international community after the European Parliament passed a resolution last September 17 condemning widespread human rights violations in the Philippines, an international rights group said.

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said Duterte has become a globally notorious dictator whose four-year reign has greatly surpassed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the number of civilians killed by his government.

“With the strong resolution from the EU Parliament, the Duterte government has now gained notoriety as a world-known human rights violator, if not, a dictator following the likes of Ferdinand Marcos,” ICHRP said in a statement.

More than 3,000 were killed, 34,000 were tortured, 70,000 were imprisoned and billions of public funds were stolen by the Marcos regime.

Duterte’s long list of violations

The European Parliament said at least 8,663 people had been killed by the Philippine National Police through a “widespread and systematic” anti-drug campaign by the Duterte government.

The resolution said that Duterte himself explicitly encouraged the police to commit extrajudicial execution and promised them immunity and promotions.

Majority of the victims were from poor and marginalized communities, the measure added, quoting a June 2020 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The resolution also listed the following human rights violations committed by the government:

-threats, harassment, intimidation and violence against human rights defenders, journalists and activists, equating their advocacy with insurgency;

-conviction of Rappler’s Maria Resa and Reynaldo Santos for cyberlibel and the denial of the renewal of ABS-CBN’s franchise;

-imprisonment of Senator Leila de Lima;

-killing of at least 43 land rights defenders;

-criminalization and attacks against indigenous human rights defenders;

-killing of human rights defender Zara Alvarez and peace advocate Randall Echanis;

-assassination of at least 16 journalists and a pattern of intimidation of independent news sources;

-Duterte’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court;

-Congress’ approval of the death penalty measure and adoption of a new anti-terrorism law;

-Duterte’s repeated sexist and misogynistic speech and behavior;

-endangerment of workers’ rights advocates;

-Duterte’s repeated reference to political opponents’ sexual orientation as a smear against them and implying that homosexuality is a disease;

-victimization of up to 100,000 children in prostitution rings and child labor; and

-government’s failure to curb corruption.

The European Parliament resolution said it proactively supports the adoption of a resolution at the ongoing 45th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish an international investigation into human rights violations committed under the Duterte government.

The measure also recommended to the European Union (EU) to temporarily withdraw the Philippines’ Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus status that provides tariff perks for Filipino goods until the Duterte government “immediately carry out impartial, transparent, independent and meaningful investigations into all extrajudicial killings.”

The resolution was adopted with 626 votes in favor, seven against, and 52 abstentions.

Allies of Duterte however dared Europe to go ahead with its sanctions and vowed reprisals in the future.

“No more discussions. They should do what they want to do during this time. If they want to implement it, go ahead,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.

“I’m sorry. I’m being very undiplomatic in my answer, but what else can I say? At the time of a pandemic, they’re threatening us. Susmaryosep, what else do we lose?” Roque added.

Philippine House of Representatives Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano for his part said the European Parliament’s resolution is an interference in the “country’s domestic issues.”

“The Philippine House of Representatives takes exception to the outright interference of the European Parliament in the purely domestic matters of the Philippines by dictating on the government ‘to renew the broadcast license’ of ABS-CBN and to ‘drop’ the Cyberlibel charges against Maria Ressa,” Cayetano said in a statement.

“To our friends in the European Parliament, we have a saying here in the Philippines that the world is round. The day will come – mark my words – that the Philippines will be in a position to impose economic sanctions on your countries,” he said.

A bill seeking to block United States (US) assistance to the Philippine police and military, including equipment and training, “until human rights conditions are met,” has also been submitted by 19 US House of Representatives members last week.

Duterte’s de facto martial law

 ICHRP said it welcomes the resolution by the legislative branch of the European Union it said is a damning indictment of the human rights crisis in the Philippines.

“The demands for justice for those slain in the drug war, the killings of activists, attacks on press freedom have all gained international condemnation. It is an attestation that the world no longer tolerates this repressive government. Duterte and his dictator government will be made accountable,” ICHRP chairperson Peter Murphy said.

 “President Duterte with his ‘de facto’ Martial Law in place and the continuing repression in the country has found himself increasingly isolated in the international community. Cut from the same cloth as that of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Duterte is now synonymous with killings and human rights atrocity,” Murphy added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)