The Challenges of Life in the Philippines

I ISSUE 2 2020

By Emma Bridger, USPG Research and Learning Manager

President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines Photo: Wiki Commons/ King Rodriguez

The level of threat that comes with speaking out against injustice continues to increase

Human rights abuses in the Philippines are an area of increasing international concern. The increase in extra-judicial killings, red-tagging (labelling people as Communist-terrorists regardless of their actual beliefs) and harassment of Indigenous persons, church workers, lawyers and journalists under the Duterte government is well documented in a recent United Nations report. This details both widespread human rights violations and persistent impunity.

Whilst the people of the Philippines struggle to cope with the impacts of Covid-19, the government is using the pandemic as a cover to increase existing militarisation and human rights abuses. This is in an attempt to silence those living in economic poverty, those who speak out against government policy and those who oppose the expansion of the extractives industry, which takes place at the expense of people and planet.

The attitude of the government within this context is best exemplified by the ‘shoot to kill’ order announced by Duterte on the 1 April 2020, encouraging police officers and military personnel to shoot dead so called ‘trouble-makers’ who break the rules of the lockdown.

This has been accompanied by increased violent suppression of civil society from online vilification to red-tagging, threats and arrests. The Government has used the pandemic to advance business interests on ancestral Indigenous land, with those who protest arrested for breaking curfew. For Lumad Indigenous persons in Mindanao, this has resulted in increased mining activity, further school closures, the arrest and disappearance of parents and students and a lack of safe space and transit for those already displaced.

In addition, there has been little adequate information and poor access to health services and medical infrastructure for indigenous persons throughout the pandemic, with limited access to food or other essential items since travel is restricted and barter markets closed. Church and aid workers who have attempted to work with these communities and to provide basic aid have been harassed, red-tagged and even arrested.

In attempts to ensure their continuing impunity, the Government has also attempted to silence the media reporting on human rights abuses. This includes the shutting down broadcaster ABS-CBN, the largest broadcasting company in the Philippines.

The level of threat that comes with speaking and acting out against injustice continues to increase, with fears that the proposed anti-terror bill will lead to further oppression. The bill is said to violate the Filipino constitution and apparently allows an individual to be held in detention for 14 to 24 days without charges.

Despite this, civil society in the Philippines remains strong and the Indigenous people, churches, and human rights defenders continue to speak out against this State oppression. They resist and continue to raise awareness of the devastating impact of global capitalism on God’s people and planet at an international level.