A global alliance of civil society organisations has protested to Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr in an open letter over the “judicial harassment” of human rights defenders and the designation of five indigenous rights activists as “terrorists“.

CIVICUS, representing some 15,000 members in 75 countries, says the harassment is putting the defenders “at great risk”.

It has also condemned the “draconian” Republic Act No. 11479 — the Anti-Terrorism Act — for its “weaponisation’ against political dissent and human rights work and advocacy in the Philippines.

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The CIVICUS open letter said there were “dire implications on the rights to due process and against warrantless arrests, among others”.

The letter called on the Philippine authorities to:

• Immediately end the judicial harassment against 10 human rights defenders by withdrawing the petition in the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84;
• Repeal Resolution No. 35 (2022) designating the six human rights defenders as terrorist individuals and unfreeze their property and funds immediately and unconditionally;
• Drop all charges under the ATA against activists in the Southern Tagalog region; and
• Halt all forms of intimidation and attacks on human rights defenders, ensure an enabling environment for human rights defenders and enact a law for their protection.

The full letter states:

President of the Republic of the Philippines
Malacañang Palace Compound
P. Laurel St., San Miguel, Manila
The Philippines.

Dear President Marcos, Jr.,

Philippines: Halt harassment against human rights defenders

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation is a global alliance of civil society organisations (CSOs) and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society worldwide. Founded in 1993, CIVICUS has over 15,000 members in 175 countries.

We are writing to you regarding a number of cases where human rights defenders are facing judicial harassment or have been designated as terrorists, putting them at great risk.

Judicial harassment against previously acquitted human rights defenders
CIVICUS is concerned about renewed judicial harassment against ten human rights defenders that had been previously acquitted for perjury. In March 2023, a petition was filed by prosecutors from the Quezon City Office of the Prosecutor, with General Esperon and current NSA General Eduardo Ano seeking a review of a lower court’s decision against the ten human rights defenders. They include Karapatan National Council members Elisa Tita Lubi, Cristina Palabay, Roneo Clamor, Gabriela Krista Dalena, Dr. Edita Burgos, Jose Mari Callueng and Fr. Wilfredo Ruazol as well as Joan May Salvador and Gertrudes Libang of GABRIELA and Sr Elenita Belardo of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP).

The petition also includes the judge that presided over the case Judge Aimee Marie B. Alcera. They alleged that Judge Alcera committed “grave abuse of discretion” in acquitting the defenders. The petition is now pending before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84 Presiding Judge Luisito Galvez Cortez, who has asked the respondents to comment on Esperon’s motion this July and has scheduled a hearing on 29 August 2023.

Human rights defenders designated as terrorists
CIVICUS is also concerned that on 7 June 2023, the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) signed Resolution No. 41 (2022) designating five indigenous peoples’ leaders and advocates – Sarah Abellon Alikes, Jennifer R. Awingan, Windel Bolinget, Stephen Tauli, and May Casilao – as terrorist individuals. The resolution also freezes their property and funds, including related accounts.

The four indigenous peoples’ human rights defenders – Alikes, Awingan, Bolinget and Tauli — are leaders of the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA). May Casilao has been active in Panalipdan! Mindanao (Defend Mindanao), a Mindanao-wide interfaith network of various sectoral organizations and individuals focused on providing education on, and conducting campaigns against, threats to the environment and people of the island, especially the Lumad. Previously, on 7 December 2022, the ATC signed Resolution No. 35 (2022) designating indigenous peoples’ rights defender Ma. Natividad “Doc Naty” Castro, former National Council member of Karapatan and a community-based health worker, as a “terrorist individual.”

The arbitrary and baseless designation of these human rights defenders highlights the concerns of human rights organizations against Republic Act No. 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act, particularly on the weaponization of the draconian law against political dissent and human rights work and advocacy in the Philippines and the dire implications on the rights to due process and against warrantless arrests, among others.

Anti-terrorism law deployed against activists in the Southern Tagalog region
We are also concerned about reports that the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) has been deployed to suppress and persecute human rights defenders in the Southern Tagalog region, which has the most number of human rights defenders and other political activists criminalised by this law. As of July 2023, up to 13 human rights defenders from Southern Tagalog face trumped-up criminal complaints citing violations under the ATA. Among those targeted include Rev. Glofie Baluntong, Hailey Pecayo, Kenneth Rementilla and Jasmin Rubio.

International human rights obligations
The Philippines government has made repeated assurances to other states that it will protect human rights defenders including most recently during its Universal Periodic Review in November 2022. However, the cases above highlight that an ongoing and unchanging pattern of the government targeting human rights defenders.

These actions are also inconsistent with Philippines’ international human rights obligations, including those under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which Philippines ratified in 1986. These include obligations to respect and protect fundamental freedoms which are also guaranteed in the Philippines Constitution. The Philippines government also has an obligation to protect human rights defenders as provided for in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and to prevent any reprisals against them for their activism.

Therefore, we call on the Philippines authorities to:

• Immediately end the judicial harassment against the ten human rights defenders by withdrawing the petition in the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84;
• Repeal Resolution No. 35 (2022) designating the six human rights defenders as terrorist individuals and unfreeze their property and funds immediately and unconditionally;Drop all charges under the ATA against activists in the Southern Tagalog region;
• Halt all forms of intimidation and attacks on human rights defenders, ensure an enabling environment for human rights defenders and enact a law for their protection.

We urge your government to look into these concerns as a matter of priority and we hope to hear from you regarding our inquiries as soon as possible.

Regards,

Sincerely,

David Kode
Advocacy & Campaigns Lead
CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation

Cc: Eduardo Año, National Security Adviser and Director General of the National Security Council
Jesus Crispin C. Remulla, Secretary, Department of Justice of the Philippines
Atty. Richard Palpal-latoc, Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines

Indigenous people across the world are disproportionately affected by climate change. They are also leading movements to protect our forests, water and other natural resources.

“Respect and value indigenous peoples – their rights, their knowledge and values, their land and resources that they have kept healthy through generations, their cultures and identities, and their valuable contribution to society as environment defenders,” says Jill Carino, executive director of the Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples Rights, a national network of 11 non-governmental organisations working with indigenous communities in different regions in the Philippines.

“The solution to the climate and biodiversity crises that we face in the world today lies in our collective will and strength to fight against capitalist greed and build just, sustainable, self-determining, and resilient communities,” she says.

READ MORE: Earth Day 2020 could mark the day we stop taking the planet for granted

Carino has been working to defend indigenous peoples’ rights since 1980 when, after graduating from college, she started working with the Cordillera Studies Programme of the Cordillera Schools Group based in Baguio City in the Northern Philippines.

The programme was researching indigenous peoples’ culture and issues and conducted leadership trainings for high school students in mission schools in the Cordillera region. Since then, she has worked with different non-governmental organisations to advance the rights of indigenous peoples to defend their land and resources from destruction.

Carino founded the Cordillera Peoples Alliance in 1984, which leads research, education initiatives and networking for the defense of ancestral land and self-determination of Cordillera indigenous people.

“Indigenous peoples possess traditional knowledge, values and practices that care for the environment and make our communities resilient to climate change,” Carino says.

Indigenous knowledge
Values of inayan (avoiding doing harm to others and the community), ob-obbo (community cooperation), and practices such as lapat and batangan (sustainable forest management) are valuable pieces of indigenous knowledge that help protect the community from threats brought about by climate change and environmental degradation.

However, these values and practices are weakening, are often disregarded or under-valued and lack recognition and support from the authorities, says Carino.

The work indigenous women are doing is particularly notable, she adds. As executive director of the Women Workers Programme from 1990-2000, Carino organised indigenous women in mining communities in the province of Benguet and actively campaigned together with local peoples organisations against the Benguet Corporation’s open-pit mining operations.

The campaign prevented the planned expansion of open-pit mining to other communities in Itogon.

In addition to leading the Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples Rights (TFIP), she also served as executive director of the Cordillera Women’s Education Action Research Centre, which works with regional women’s alliances.

“We have always been advancing indigenous women’s rights and issues to promote the leading and active role of women in the people’s movement for land, food and rights,” she says.

Carino works at a regional level, too, on initiatives that seek to strengthen indigenous peoples’ voices and defend their lands from extractive operations. She worries that development projects also increasingly threaten indigenous communities with displacement for the sake of what the government often defines as the national interest.

Destructive projects
Destructive projects such as the Kaliwa, Kanan and Laiban dams are being forced upon indigenous communities despite their opposition and protests, and despite the adverse social and environmental impacts that contribute to global warming.

“This is all because these projects fall within the misplaced priorities of the national government, are tied to foreign loans or official development assistance, and will bring in profits and other benefits to private investors,” Carino says.

Under the leadership of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, indigenous peoples, rights defenders and environmental activists face serious threats to their lives and security, say groups that monitor such risks.

The Philippine Task Force for Indigenous Peoples Rights has documented many cases of extra-judicial killings, trumped-up charges, illegal arrest and detention, vilification, harassment, intimidation, bombings and other rights violations that occur alongside the violation of indigenous peoples collective rights to their land and resources in the course of development aggression.

“All these are issues and challenges that weaken or hinder indigenous peoples’ agency and resilience against climate change and environmental destruction,” Carino explained. “We can try to overcome these challenges by building strong peoples organizations, and building their capacity to fight for their rights, with the broad support of the wider community,”

Indigenous peoples need to be recognised and respected for what they can contribute for our future, she continued.

“My hope is for the global community to realize that we are facing a climate and biodiversity emergency that needs urgent action from all of us if we are to pass on to the future generations a healthy planet and a just society,” Carino says.

Imelda Abaño is content coordinator for the Earth Journalism Network’s (EJN) Asia-Pacific project. She is an award-winning Philippine environmental journalist and media trainer who has been covering climate change, energy, agriculture, biodiversity and other environmental issues for more than 18 years. Abaño is also founding president of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists. Republished with permission from EJN.

An American journalist working in the Philippines on indigenous environmental and human rights issues has been shot and critically wounded while fetching his daughter from school in the northern province of Ifugao, according to his news media outlet and other press reports, says the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The New York-based CPJ has condemned the brazen attack and called on authorities to identify the assailants and swiftly bring them to justice.

Brandon Lee, a 37-year-old reporter with the Baguio City-based Northern Dispatch, or Nordis, a weekly English language newspaper and website covering the local region, was shot by unidentified assailants at around 6pm on August 6 in front of his house in the town of Lagwe, the reports said.

READ MORE: Cordillera journalist and rights defender shot in Ifugao

A Chinese-American from San Francisco, Lee is married to a Filipina woman and had settled in Ifugao.

The reporter sustained serious gunshot wounds to the face, neck, and back, and was still conscious when taken to the Lagwe hospital, the reports said.

Lee was later transferred to Bayombong town’s Baguio General Hospital, where the reports said he was in critical condition.

Sherwin De Vera, Nordis’ managing editor, told CPJ by email that Lee survived three cardiac arrests during surgery and that the extent of injuries he sustained to his spine was still unknown. De Vera said that at the time he had no feeling below his abdomen.

Special task force
Police Brigadier-General Israel Ephraim Dickson, regional director of the Police Regional Office for Cordillera, said a special investigation task group had been created to solve the crime and apprehend the perpetrators, according to news reports.

Dickson did not name any suspects or speculate on possible motives in the reports. CPJ’s calls to the regional police office requesting comment were not picked up.

“Authorities should leave no stone unturned in identifying and apprehending the perpetrators behind the shooting of journalist Brendan Lee,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative.

“Until President Rodrigo Duterte shows he is serious about protecting journalists, all the talk of investigations will come to nothing and violent attacks on the press will continue.”

De Vera told CPJ that Lee’s reporting often focused on community issues, including government and corporate projects such as dams and mining that threaten local control over indigenous ancestral lands.

‘Constant harassment’
The editor said Lee faced “constant surveillance and harassment by the military” and that an hour before the attack he had text-messaged a local nun that he was being followed by the military while driving.

Nordis said in a statement related to Lee’s shooting that its reporters were “under attack” and “singled out by the state” for their reporting on issues ranging from land-grabbing to rights violations to corruption, and that they had been branded as communist sympathisers, a politically charged accusation known as “red-tagging” in the Philippines.

A Time report said Lee also worked as an activist with local groups in the area, including the Ifugao Peasant Movement and Cordillera Human Rights Alliance.

The Guardian reported that Lee had been tagged as an “enemy of the state” over social media before the attack.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said in a statement posted on its Facebook page that the national intelligence agency had red-tagged Lee in 2015, claiming he was a member of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines.

The Philippine Inquirer newspaper reported that the military also accused Lee and other activists of supporting the communist rebel group the same year.

Rappler cited the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) as saying that the attack on Lee was “an attempt to silence” those who spoke for the rights of indigenous tribal communities.

It also quoted the CPA as saying Lee had “chosen a life in service of the people of Ifugao. As a volunteer of the Ifugao Peasant Leaders Forum, he implemented disaster response, relief operations, and recovery in far-flung barangays [villages] of Ifugao after Typhoon Pepeng.

“With Ifugao Peasant Movement, Brandon reached out to government employees and teachers in the province, working with them on sectoral issues and concerns.”

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