(Statement of the Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) on International Humanitarian Law Day on 12 August 2025)
This year’s International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Day comes as the Philippines hosts the Asia Pacific Regional Conference on IHL from August 11 to 14, 2025. The Marcos Jr. administration projects itself as a “champion” of humanitarian law before the world. But for communities on the ground—especially farmers, indigenous peoples, and human rights defenders—the reality is one relentless militarization, human rights violations, and the dismantling of civic space.
As documented by human rights group Karapatan, at least 166 individuals have been targeted under the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act—laws that have been weaponized against activists, church workers, and development NGO staff. Forty-five activists remain in detention on fabricated charges. In many rural communities, a de facto martial law reigns, with military hamletting, aerial bombings, forced evacuations, and the conversion of schools and civilian areas into military camps—all in direct violation of the IHL.
What we see is a sustained campaign of state violence that also aims to shut down civic spaces and criminalize dissent. In Rizal, the Dumagat-Remontado people face prohibitions on protesting the Kaliwa Dam projects, threats of arrest, and the closure of their organizations. In Occidental Mindoro, Mangyan-Iraya communities have been subjected to over a year of hamletting, food blockades, and displacement from their ancestral lands, in collusion with corporate land grabbers.
In the Cordillera and Ilocos, aerial bombardments have destroyed livelihoods, damaged homes, and traumatized residents—sometimes within mere meters of schools. The entry of mining concessions, mega dams, and energy projects into indigenous territories intensifies displacement and conflict, in direct contradiction to IHL’s protection of civilian life and property.
Under the administration of Rodrigo Duterte from 2017 to mid-2022, Karapatan said the AFP reportedly used at least 591 bombs and 589 artillery shells in 74 rounds of aerial strafing and 56 incidents of bombing carried out in 36 provinces (44% of the provinces in the Philippines). Documentation by Karapatan recorded 378,203 victims of bombings in 13 regions in the Philippines under Duterte. Under Marcos, Jr. administration, bombings and indiscriminate firing continue. From July 2022 to June 2025, Karapatan documented 67,024 victims of indiscriminate firing, 51,206 victims of indiscriminate bombings and 45,607 forced to evacuate.
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) continues to red-tag, harass, and force the “surrender” of activists and community leaders. In blatant retaliation, the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) has designated leaders of the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) as “terrorists,” freezing their accounts and crippling their humanitarian and advocacy programs. Such measures target not combatants, but legitimate civil society actors who defend people’s rights, welfare, and the environment.
CPDG asserts that the defense of civic space and adherence to IHL are inseparable. A state that red-tags, freezes funds, criminalizes dissent, and militarizes communities cannot credibly claim to uphold humanitarian principles.
We join the people’s call to:
- Review to amend or repeal the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012, and drop all fabricated charges against activists, human rights defenders, development workers, NGOs, and ordinary citizens.
- End militarization of ancestral domains and rural areas, ensuring the safe return of displaced communities.
- Abolish the NTF-ELCAC and reallocate its budget to essential social services.
- Resume peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP to address the root causes of armed conflict—landlessness, national oppression, poverty, and systemic injustice.
As we celebrate the IHL Day on August 12 and the World Humanitarian Day on August 19, we honor the courage of those who continue to resist—from farmers defending their fields to indigenous peoples protecting their ancestral domains, and human rights defenders who refuse to be silenced, and development workers steadfastly continuing their dedicated work in the communities. Their struggles are a living reminder that real adherence to humanitarian law means protecting the people, upholding their human rights, not persecuting them.
#Assert people’s rights #DefendNGOs #Assert Civic Spaces #UpholdInternationalHumanitarianLaw #EndStateImpunity