SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
rodrigo duterte
ICC Charges Ex-Philippines President and Trump Darling Duterte With Drug War Murders
Human rights groups say that as many as 30,000 Filipinos were killed during Duterte's death squad campaign, which was hailed as a success by US President Donald Trump.
Sep 23, 2025
The International Criminal Court on Monday charged former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte with the crime against humanity of murder for having presided over the extrajudicial execution of drug dealers—killings that drew praise from US President Donald Trump.
In a 15-page charge sheet, ICC prosecutors accused Duterte of "indirect co-perpetration" of murder both during his 2016-22 presidency and previous tenure as mayor of Davao.
ICC prosecutors said that "Duterte and his co-perpetrators shared a common plan or agreement to ‘neutralize’ alleged criminals in the Philippines"—including drug producers, sellers, and users—"thrdough violent crimes including murder," often committed by death squads.
Deputy ICC Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang charged Duterte with three counts:
- Murder as a crime against humanity for the killing of 19 victims in 2013-16 when he was mayor of Davao;
- Murder as a crime against humanity for the killing of 14 so-called "high-value targets" in 2016-17 when he was president; and
- Murder and attempted murder as crimes against humanity, involving 45 victims—43 of them murdered—during so-called "clearance" operations in 2016-18.
Filipino government data indicate that at least 6,252 people were killed during police operations between July 1, 2016, and May 31, 2022. However, human rights groups estimate that as many as 30,000 people were extrajudicially murdered during that period.
Advocates sought more charges against Duterte, with victim's attorney Kristina Conti lamenting that the prosecution's narrower scope "does not show the full extent" of the ex-president's crimes.
"This is an obvious shortcoming of the legal process that is dispiriting for the thousands of victims of killings, illegal arrests and detentions, trumped-up charges, unlawful house raids, and other rights violations and abuses," the National Union of People's Lawyers and Rise Up for Life and for Rights said in a joint statement Tuesday.
"Proceeding with a smaller section of crimes against Duterte may be a strategy for the prosecution, but it is a disservice to the victims of the mass murders, and his other crimes as well," the groups added.
Duterte was arrested in March by Filipino police and Interpol agents acting on an ICC warrant. Since then, he has been jailed by the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands.
The ICC must now decide whether Duterte is fit to stand trial. His lawyers argue that the 80-year-old suffers “cognitive impairment in multiple domains" and that his health is "progressively deteriorating."
Conti told Rappler—which was targeted for closure amid its critical coverage of Duterte—that the defendant's claims are “a desperate, time-worn, and calculated ploy to paint himself aggrieved.”
While Duterte remains popular among right-wing Filipinos, opposition lawmakers welcomed the former president's prosecution.
Federal lawmaker Leila de Lima—a vocal Duterte critic who spent 2,454 days behind bars following a 2017 arrest on bogus drug-related charges that were subsequently dismissed—welcomed the ICC charges in a Monday post on the social media site X.
"We already warned Duterte to stop the killings or he will inevitably face justice before the ICC, no matter how far off in the future," de Lima wrote. "That future we warned him about is now the present we are witnessing."
"Duterte did not lack warnings and advice from the Philippine human rights community about his future accountability," she continued. "He ignored all these warnings at his own peril. His detention and indictment for the drug war killings are the direct consequence of his own actions."
"As we have said again and again, he has no one to blame but himself," de Lima added. "His co-conspirators will follow him to the Hague soon enough."
In 2017, Trump said that Duterte was doing an "unbelievable job on the drug problem." Trump would later propose executing drug dealers in the United States.
In recent weeks, in likely violation of both US and international law, Trump has ordered deadly attacks on boats his administration claimed were transporting cocaine from Venezuela to the US.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Now Do Netanyahu': Philippines' Duterte Arrested Under ICC Warrant for Crimes Against Humanity
"Duterte's arrest on an ICC warrant... shows that suspected perpetrators of the worst crimes, including government leaders, can and will face justice," said one human rights advocate.
Mar 11, 2025
On Tuesday, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by local authorities at Manila's international airport after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity. News of his arrest prompted some observers to urge the arrest of another public figure who faces ICC charges: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Duterte case will pose a test for the court, according to The New York Times. In the past six months, the ICC has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military junta in Myanmar.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote "Perhaps Netanyahu and Gallant will be next..." in response to the news. Danny Shaw, a professor at City University of New York, posted a video of Duterte's arrest and wrote: "Why don't they arrest Netanyahu?"
Wim Zwijnenburg, a project leader at the Dutch peace organization PAX, wrote, "now do Netanyahu."
On Tuesday night, Duterte was placed on a plane that was bound for The Hague, where the court is headquartered, per the Times, citing two people with knowledge of the matter.
The ICC has accused Duterte of crimes against humanity during his time as president and when he was the mayor of the city of Davao. During his tenure as president, from 2016 to 2022, Duterte's security forces carried out thousands of killings that his government cast as drug-related cases. In a 2017 report, Human Rights Watch described his "war on drugs" as effectively "a campaign of extrajudicial execution in impoverished areas of Manila and other urban areas." Philippine National Police officers and unidentified "vigilantes" killed over 7,000 people between the start of his term and the release of that Human Rights Watch report, according to the group.
In 2017, Duterte earned praise from U.S. President Donald Trump, who told him in a phone call that he was doing "an unbelievable job on the drug problem," according to reporting at the time.
"Duterte's arrest on an ICC warrant is a hopeful sign for victims in the Philippines and beyond. It shows that suspected perpetrators of the worst crimes, including government leaders, can and will face justice, wherever they are in the world," said Agnes Callamard, secretary general of the human rights group Amnesty International, in a statement Tuesday. "At a time when too many governments renege on their ICC obligations while others attack or sanction international courts, Duterte's arrest is a huge moment for the power of international law."
Duterte's former chief legal counsel and presidential spokesperson, Salvador Panelo, said that the "ICC has no jurisdiction in the Philippines," in part because "the country withdrew as an ICC member state in 2018," according to a post on social media.
According to the Times, the court says the case only considers alleged crimes from the time when the country was still part of the court.
According to a copy of he warrant, which was obtained by the Times, three judges of the ICC said they believed Duterte "was responsible for the drug war killings that took place when he was president and mayor of Davao, and that there were reasonable grounds to believe that these attacks were 'both widespread and systematic.'"
The government itself, in 2022, said that over 6,200 "drug suspects" were killed during Duterte's war on drugs starting in 2016. Rights groups put the total number of people who died much higher, in the tens of thousands, according to PBS.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Pledges to 'Vigorously Pursue the Death Penalty'
"In the last six months of his first term, President Trump executed 13 individuals—more than any administration in 120 years," one critic noted.
Dec 24, 2024
Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump vowed Tuesday that his administration will "vigorously" use capital punishment as part of his "make America safe again" agenda, despite copious evidence that the death penaltydoes not deter crime, is racially biased, and results in wrongful executions.
Responding to Democratic President Joe Biden's Monday commutation of 37 federal death sentences—an action that cannot be reversed—Trump took to his Truth Social platform to condemn the move.
"Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country," Trump fumed. "When you hear the acts of each, you won't believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can't believe this is happening!"
"As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters," Trump said in a separate Truth Social post. "We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!"
ACLU executive director Anthony Romero called Biden's move "the most consequential step of any president in our history to address the immoral and unconstitutional harms of capital punishment" and a bulwark against Trump, who "has a proven penchant and track record of conducting rushed executions."
"In the last six months of his first term, President Trump executed 13 individuals—more than any administration in 120 years," Romero noted.
Death penalty foes are particularly worried about Trump's campaign promise to seek federal death sentences for crimes other than murder.
"When I am back in the White House, I will immediately end the Biden border nightmare that traffickers are using to exploit vulnerable women and children," Trump said in July 2023. "I will urge Congress to ensure that anyone caught trafficking children across our border receives the death penalty immediately."
There is a higher likelihood of a compliant Congress given Republicans will control both the Senate and House of Representatives.
"We're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts," Trump said earlier while announcing his 2024 run for president.
During his first term, Trump praised then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw the extrajudicial execution of thousands of drug dealers and users, for doing "an unbelievable job on the drug problem."
In 1994, then-President Bill Clinton signed into law the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act—commonly known as the Crime Bill—which expanded the federal death penalty to approximately 60 crimes, including three that do not involve murder: espionage, treason, and large-scale drug trafficking. In addition to Republicans and mainstream Democrats like Biden, then a senator, the legislation had the support of progressives including then-Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Trump's enthusiastic embrace of capital punishment comes amid an international and national trend toward abolition. Twenty-three U.S. states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty, while five other states have gubernatorial holds on executions. In 2021, Biden's Justice Department paused federal executions.
However, Biden never succeeded in his campaign goal of pushing Congress to end the federal death penalty and 2024 also saw a
surge in executions in Republican-controlled states.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Did the US Government Under Trump Spread Vaccine Disinformation Around the World?
A few thoughts on an idiotic psyop that may have killed innocent people and blown back against our own citizens.
Jul 31, 2024
In June, Reuters reported on a hitherto secret U.S. program connected with the Covid-19 pandemic. In the spring of 2020, as the coronavirus rapidly spread throughout the world, our government sought to respond to Chinese disinformation which attempted to deflect responsibility for the virus’s origin by claiming that it had originated in a biological research lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland. What was our government’s plan? To fight fire with fire.
This was at the same time that the then-president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, was making noises about a closer relationship to China, even hinting that if China prioritized sending vaccine to his country, he would cede territory in the South China Sea to Beijing. Simultaneously, an element within the U.S. military in the Pacific was agitating Washington about keeping the Philippines on side and fighting the deluge of Chinese propaganda.
As a result, the Pentagon authorized a covert disinformation campaign against China, focusing on discrediting Chinese vaccine and protective medical equipment like masks. The channels of propaganda would be Twitter (now X), Facebook, and other social media. The campaign appears to have worked: the Philippines ended up with a very low vaccination rate in international comparison (in spite of Duterte’s efforts), and a high death rate.
While it is generally acknowledged that the Chinese vaccine (known as CoronaVac or Sinovac) is less effective, it is hardly useless: typically a 60-70-percent effectiveness versus the roughly 90-percent effectiveness of Western vaccines. Thus, it could have saved lives in the Philippines but for the U.S. disinformation campaign.
It is one more reason why Trump and his appointees should never be entrusted with public office. Will Congress ever investigate this misbegotten operation and finally nail down the chain of events?
It’s all there in the Reuters article, and there is no need to expatiate on the obvious immorality of the operation, quite apart from its colossal stupidity—at the same time U.S. public health officials were tearing out their hair trying to combat domestic Covid-19 disinformation, and doctors and nurses were risking their lives caring for terminally ill vaccine refusers, their government was pumping the same ideological poison into the minds of innocent people abroad. The nonchalant statement of an unnamed Pentagon official says it all: “We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective. We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”
The report left a few dangling lose ends, however, that deserve further investigation by Congress and the Pentagon inspector general.
Are U.S. special forces out of control? The report says that the program was initiated after persistent lobbying by the then-commander of Special Operations Command Pacific, General Jonathan Braga. The article implies that he pleaded directly to Washington. Did his superiors at U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii know what he was doing? Did they approve? We know from Reuters that various U.S. ambassadors in Southeast Asia did not approve, and they would ordinarily have overruled the general because it was a stupid idea that could harm diplomatic relations. But because the then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper designated the propaganda campaign as a de facto wartime action, the diplomats’ objections could be disregarded.
U.S. special forces were vastly expanded during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and were given greater operational flexibility. They have also tended to produce loose cannons throughout the ranks. General Stanley McChrystal was special forces commander at the height of the Iraq war and later became commander of all coalition forces in Afghanistan. His career came to grief when he had the bad judgment to insult President Obama and other civilian leaders in front of a Rolling Stone reporter. Apparently, the civilian pukes in Washington lacked the general’s gung-ho attitude that with just a little more door-kicking and pyrotechnics, Afghanistan would be pacified—something that hadn’t happened since the Mongol invasions.
This kinetic mentality can get out of hand, as it did in 2017. Four Navy SEALs who were posted to the U.S. embassy in Mali, in a “juvenile” attempt to haze an Army special forces soldier, killed him. Their court martial, in a strange display of leniency, sentenced the most culpable perpetrator to only 10 years in prison, while one of the four defendants did not even receive a punitive discharge. The 10-year sentence was later vacated, with the defendant hiring a Trump lawyer to try to get him off the hook.
Ironically, vaccine refusal was the cause of another special forces stunt. Personnel from the Navy Special Warfare Command, including SEALs, not only declined to be vaccinated, but sued the Department of Defense. Their venue-shopping landed them in the Fort Worth court room of U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a favorite destination for nutty conservative causes, and shockingly but not surprisingly, the judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. Ultimately, the Supreme Court blocked the judge’s ruling, but only insofar as it allowed the Navy to reassign, as opposed to discipline or discharge, the plaintiffs, while litigation continued.
What the personnel had done merited not merely reassignment or discharge, but potentially a court martial for the following: deliberately rendering themselves undeployable; endangering other service members; gross insubordination; and possibly even mutiny, as it was an organized action against their unit.
I have written before how religion is bandied about for political advantage by people whose own religious faith is ludicrously insincere. The justification of the SEALs—whose profession is to kill people—was a risible claim that deep Christian devotion prompted their refusal, advancing the heretofore undiscovered theological tenet that modification of their bodies by vaccine is an “affront to their Creator.” Apparently that doctrine exempts steroid abuse, which is common in the Navy’s special warfare community.
Even the military has begun to recognize that special forces may have become the tail that wags the dog—too big (bigger than the entire German army), diluted in quality, often operating outside the regular chain of command, and infected with a cowboy mentality. The mindless popular adulation, particularly of SEALs, has according to some observers had an adverse impact on civil-military relations. Perhaps we will always need door-kickers, but should they be overruling ambassadors in order to execute a cruel and asinine operation in a friendly country?
Who ultimately ordered the covert operation? The Reuters piece noted that Esper signed the directive to conduct the operation. The legality of his action rested on a provision in the 2019 defense authorization act permitting the military to conduct clandestine influence operations against other countries, including “outside of areas of active hostilities.”
This only raises more questions. Were the defense and intelligence committees of Congress, then controlled by the Democrats, duly notified of the disinformation campaign? If so, did the notification simply state that a covert psychological operation was underway, or did it provide enough details to make it clear that it was based on lies that could endanger the population of a friendly country? What was the reaction of Congress?
Perhaps we will always need door-kickers, but should they be overruling ambassadors in order to execute a cruel and asinine operation in a friendly country?
It seems unlikely that even as powerful a bureaucratic actor as the secretary of defense would order such a sensitive operation in defiance of the State Department without the guidance of those above him, or at least as a result of their signing off on his plan. The rules of Washington normally impel a person like Esper to seek cover for his actions. Accordingly, it is probable that he either notified the president directly or through the national security council of his order.
Then-President Trump had already directed the CIA in 2019 to conduct covert psychological operations inside China, so it is hardly a stretch to speculate that he would have had no problem approving DoD’s covert operation in the Philippines. It is one more reason why Trump and his appointees should never be entrusted with public office. Will Congress ever investigate this misbegotten operation and finally nail down the chain of events?
How do we know the operation did not blow back on the United States? The military is prohibited by law from conducting propaganda campaigns in the United States. But given the instant global connectedness of the internet, how could the Pentagon be so sure that its black propaganda campaigns in other countries wouldn’t leak back to the American population? They were, after all, using Twitter and Facebook accounts.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Filipino population in the United States was 4.4 million in 2020, the third-largest Asian-American group. It is inconceivable that none of them would have had contact with friends and relatives in the Philippines who might have been gulled by the American disinformation. Had their contacts made them vaccine-hesitant, it would have exacerbated the already epidemic anti-vaccine movement here.
Why did it take so long to shut down the program? Shortly after the inauguration, representatives from Facebook arranged a meeting with incoming Biden administration officials to complain about the covert program, which contradicted the company’s policy against spreading vaccine disinformation. The officials were properly horrified, but again, there are loose ends to the Reuters story.
Why hadn’t the new administration learned about the program through Pentagon channels already during the transition? Why did it take until the spring of 2021 to order DoD to shut it down? And in spite of the order, why did the program linger through the summer? Was the Biden administration lax in its follow-up, or was the Pentagon out of control?
Over the decades, the U.S. military has conducted numerous programs of breathtaking stupidity: the above-ground nuclear tests of the 1950s that exposed draftees to atomic radiation, dumping thousands of tons of Agent Orange defoliant over Indochina during the 1960s, the toxic burn pits of the Iraq war. Civilian leadership in this country needs to shed its adolescent awe of martial exploits and gain firm control over a very dangerous weapon.Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressives Need to Understand Why the Son of a Hated Dictator Won the Philippine Election
The failures of liberalism made illiberalism popular. But the inevitable crises of the Marcos-Duterte regime offer opportunities for progressive organizing.
May 21, 2022
As a progressive activist, I am dismayed at the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the former dictator, by a landslide in the recent Philippine presidential election. But as a sociologist, I can understand why.
The vote for Duterte and the even larger vote for Marcos were propelled by widespread resentment at the persistence of gross inequality.
I am not referring to the malfunction, intended or unintended, of 1,000-plus voting machines. I am not alluding to the massive release of billions of pesos for vote buying that made the 2022 elections one of the dirtiest in recent years. Nor do I have in mind the decade-long online campaign of disinformation that transmogrified the nightmare years of martial law during the senior Marcos's rule into a "golden age."
Undoubtedly, each of these factors played a role in the electoral result. But 31 million plus votes--59 percent of the electorate--is simply too massive to attribute to them alone.
The truth is the Marcos victory was largely a democratic outcome in the narrow electoral sense. The challenge for progressives is to understand why a runaway majority of the Philippine electorate voted to bring an unrepentant, thieving family back to power after 36 years.
How could democracy produce such a wayward outcome?
Illiberalism Is Popular
No matter how slick or sophisticated the internet campaign was, it would have made little impact had there not already been a receptive audience for it.
While the Marcos revisionist message also drew support from among the middle and upper classes, that audience was in absolute numbers largely working class. It was also a largely youth audience, more than half of whom were either small children during the late martial law period or born after the 1986 uprising that ousted Marcos--better known as the "EDSA Revolution."
That audience had no direct experience of the Marcos years. But what they had a direct experience of was the gap between the extravagant rhetoric of democratic restoration and a just and egalitarian future of the EDSA Uprising and the hard realities of continuing inequality and poverty and frustration of the last 36 years.
That gap can be called the "hypocrisy gap," and it's one that created greater and greater resentment every year the EDSA establishment celebrated the uprising on February 25 or mourned the imposition of martial law on September 21. Seen from this angle, the Marcos vote can be interpreted as being largely a protest vote that first surfaced in a dramatic fashion in the 2016 elections that propelled Rodrigo Duterte to the presidency.
Though probably inchoate and diffuse at the level of conscious motivation, the vote for Duterte and the even larger vote for Marcos were propelled by widespread resentment at the persistence of gross inequality in a country where less than 5 percent of the population corners over 50 percent of the wealth. It was a protest against the extreme poverty that engulfs 25 percent of the people and the poverty, broadly defined, that has about 40 percent of them in its clutches.
Against the loss of decent jobs and livelihoods owing to the destruction of our manufacturing sector and our agriculture by the policies imposed on us by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and the United States.
Against the despair and cynicism that engulf the youth of the working masses who grow up in a society where they learn that the only way to get a decent job that allows you to get ahead in life is to go abroad.
Against the daily blows to one's dignity inflicted by a rotten public transport system in a country where 95 percent of the population doesn't own a car.
These are the conditions that most working class voters experienced directly, not the horrors of the Marcos period, and their subjective resentment primed them for the seductive appeals of a return to a fictive "Golden Age."
In the presidential elections, the full force of this resentment against the EDSA status quo was directed at Marcos's main opponent, Vice President Leni Robredo. Unfairly, since she is a woman of great personal integrity.
The problem is that in the eyes of the marginalized and the poor that went for Marcos, Robredo was not able to separate her image from its associations with the Liberal Party, the conservative neoliberal Makati Business Club, the family of the assassinated Benigno Aquino, Jr., the double standards on corruption that rendered Benigno Aquino III's "where there is no corruption, there is no poverty" slogan an object of ridicule, and--above all-- with the devastating failure of the 36 year old EDSA Republic to deliver.
The rhetoric of "good governance" may have resonated with Robredo's middle class and elite base, but for the masa (masses) it smacked of the same old hypocrisy. Good governance or "tapat na papamalakad" sounded in their ears much like the Liberals' painting themselves as the "gente decente" or "decent people" that led to their rout in the 2016 elections and the ascendancy of Rodrigo Duterte.
Moreover, the Marcos base was not a passive, inert mass. Fed with lies by the Marcos troll machinery, a very large number of them eagerly battled on the internet with the Robredo camp, the media, historians, the left--with all those that dared to question their certainties. They plastered the comment sections of news sites with pro-Marcos propaganda, much of it memes either glorifying Marcos or unfairly satirizing Robredo.
Generational Rebellion
This protest against the EDSA Republic had a generational component.
Now, it is not unusual that a new generation sets itself against that which the old generation holds dear. But it is usually the case that the younger generation rebels in the service of a vision of the future, of a more just order of things.
What was unusual with the millennial and Gen Z generations of the working masses was that they were not inspired by a vision of the future but by a fabricated image of the past--the persuasiveness of which was enhanced by what sociologists like Nicole Curato have called the "toxic positivity" of Marcos Junior's online persona. He was reconstructed by cybersurgery to come across as a normal, indeed benign, fellow who simply wanted the best for everyone.
From the French Revolution to the Philippine Revolution to the Chinese Revolution to the global anti-war movement of the 1960's to the First Quarter Storm, it was the left that usually offered the vision that youth latched on to to express their generational rebellion.
Unfortunately, in the case of the Philippines, the left has simply been unable to offer that dream of a future order worth fighting for. Ever since it failed to influence the course of events in 1986 by assuming the role of bystander during the EDSA Uprising, the left has failed to recapture the dynamism that made it so attractive to youth during martial law.
The left's decision to deliberately sideline itself during the EDSA Uprising led to the splintering of the progressive movement in the early 1990s. Moreover, socialism, which had served as the beacon for generations since the late 19th century, was badly tarnished by the collapse of the centralized socialist bureaucracies in Eastern Europe.
But perhaps most damaging was a failure of political imagination. The left failed to offer an attractive alternative to the neoliberal order that reigned from the late 1980s on, with its presence on the national scene being reduced to a voice yapping at the failures and abuses of successive administrations.
This failure of vision was coupled with the incapacity to come up with a discourse that would capture and express people's deepest needs, with its continued reliance on stilted, formulaic phrases from the 1970s that simply came across as noise in the new era. There was also the continuing influence of a "vanguardist" mass organizing strategy that might have been appropriate under a dictatorship but was disconnected from people's desire for genuine participation in a more open democratic system.
The times called for Gramsci, but much of the left here stuck with Lenin.
This vanguardism in mass organizing was coupled, paradoxically, with an electoral strategy that de-emphasized class rhetoric, threw overboard practically all references to socialism, and satisfied itself with being a mini partner in elections with contending factions of the capitalist elite. To be sure, one cannot overemphasize significant state repression exercised against some sectors of the left, but what was decisive was the perception that the left was irrelevant or, worse, a nuisance by large sectors of the population as memories of its heroic role during martial law faded away.
Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say, and when it came to capturing the generational energy of working class youth in the late EDSA period, that vacuum was filled by the Marcos revisionist myth.
The Coming Instability
This is the history against which the 2016 and 2022 elections unfolded. But the great thing about history is that it is open-ended and to a great extent indeterminate.
As one philosopher observed, women and men make history, but not under conditions of their own choosing. The ruling elite may strive for control of where society is headed, but this is often frustrated by the emergence of contradictions that create the space for the subordinate sectors to intervene and influence the direction of history.
The Marcos-Duterte camp is currently gloating behind the facade of calls for "burying the hatchet," and we should expect this froth to overflow in the period leading up to June 30. Beginning that date, when it formally assumes power, reality will catch up with this gang.
The Marcos-Duterte alliance, or what is now the circle of multiple political dynasties around the Marcos-Duterte axis, is a connivance of convenience among powerful families. Like most alliances of this type, which are built purely on the sharing of spoils, it will prove to be very unstable.
One would not be surprised if after a year, the Marcoses and Dutertes will be at each other's throats--something that might be foreshadowed by Vice President-elect Sara Duterte's being denied the powerful post of chief of the Department of National Defense and given instead the relatively powerless position of Education Secretary.
This inevitable struggle for power will unfold against a backdrop of millions realizing they have not been led to the promised land of milk and honey and the 20 pesos per kilo of rice, disarray in a business sector that still has memories of the crony capitalism of the Marcos Sr. years, and splits in a military that will have to work overtime to contain the instability triggered by the return of a controversial dynasty that the military itself--or a faction of which--contributed to overthrowing in 1986.
But probably the most important element in this volatile scenario is a large sector, indeed millions, who are determined not to provide the slightest legitimacy to a gang that have cheated and lied and stolen and bribed their way to power.
In voting for Marcos, 31 million people voted for six years of instability. That is unfortunate. But that is also the silver lining in this otherwise bleak scenario. One of the world's most successful organizers of change observed, "There is great disorder under the Heavens but, hey guys, the situation is excellent."
The inevitable crises of the Marcos-Duterte regime offer opportunities to organize for an alternative future, and this time we Filipino progressives better get it right.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Marcos' Victory in Philippines Election Bodes Ominously for Human Rights: Amnesty
"The widespread arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, and extrajudicial killings that occurred in the martial law era and violations committed more recently during the Duterte administration must never be allowed to happen again."
May 10, 2022
Amnesty International on Tuesday said the election of Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte--the son of a former U.S.-backed dictator and daughter of the current president--as president and vice president of the Philippines points to an "ominous moment for human rights."
"The new government should make a dramatic course correction and move away from the past six years under Rodrigo Duterte."
With an initial tally nearly finished, Marcos, the son of former President Ferdinand Marcos, has secured more than 50% of the vote and enjoys an insurmountable lead over his nearest rival, liberal candidate Leni Robredo.
Meanwhile, Sara Duterte--a former two-term mayor of Davao City and daughter of current President Rodrigo Duterte--has won her separate election for the vice presidency in a landslide.
In a statement, Amnesty International (AI) Asia-Pacific deputy regional director Emerlynne Gil called the victorious candidates' unwillingness to address human rights violations in the Philippines "deeply concerning."
"During the campaign period, it seemed that they were deliberately refusing to take a position on past and present violations," she said, "including those committed under martial law in the 1970s and early 1980s, and in the context of the Rodrigo Duterte administration's 'war on drugs.'"
"If confirmed, the Marcos Jr. administration will face a wide array of urgent human rights challenges," Gil continued. "The new government should make a dramatic course correction and move away from the past six years under Rodrigo Duterte, when authorities increased attacks against political opponents and human rights defenders, cracked down on press freedom, and oversaw widespread and systemic killings in the so-called war on drugs."
"The widespread arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, and extrajudicial killings that occurred in the martial law era and violations committed more recently during the Duterte administration must never be allowed to happen again," she stressed.
"It is only through a genuine commitment to justice, truth, and accountability for such violations," Gil added, "that the Philippines can move forward in building respect for the rule of law and human rights."
While campaigning for president in 2016 on an extreme law-and-order platform, Rodrigo Duterte, the former "death squad mayor" of Davao City, promised to kill 100,000 criminals. Human rights groups estimate that as many as 30,000 people have been killed during his anti-drug campaign, many of them in vigilante slayings.
Last September, the International Criminal Court authorized an investigation into possible crimes against humanity perpetrated during Duterte's rule.
Related Content
ICC Approves Probe Into 'Drug War' Atrocities Carried Out by Duterte Regime
According to AI's 2021 country report on the Philippines, "lack of accountability continued to facilitate unlawful killings and other human rights violations under the government's 'war on drugs' campaign... Human rights defenders, political activists, and politicians were subjected to unlawful killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, and harassment. Indigenous peoples were the target of attacks by the authorities and unknown assailants."
Dozens of human rights defenders and at least 10 journalists have been murdered during Duterte's rule.
"It is only through a genuine commitment to justice, truth, and accountability for such violations that the Philippines can move forward in building respect for the rule of law and human rights."
The 1965 election of Ferdinand Marcos was the culmination of two decades of American interference in the internal politics of the Philippines, a former U.S. colony. After Marcos declared martial law and his regime jailed, tortured, and murdered thousands of people, successive U.S. administrations--seeking to stop the spread of communism and maintain U.S. hegemony--supported the dictatorship with billions of dollars in aid and diplomatic cover.
Bilateral relations, already seriously strained, collapsed during the Reagan administration as Marcos sought to renegotiate the status of key U.S. military bases in the Philippines. In 1986, Marcos was ousted in the People Power Revolution that sent him and his family fleeing to Hawaii.
Marcos' kleptocratic rule bankrupted the Philippines. By the end of his tenure, his family had allegedly embezzled $5 to $10 billion from the country's central bank. Meanwhile, 70% of Filipinos were living in poverty, compared with 28% in 1965.
However, many Filipinos--especially those too young to remember Marcos' rule--believe martial law was good for the country.
Washington Post reporters Regine Cabato and Shibani Mahtani explained last month that Marcos Jr.'s popularity "has benefited from a yearslong, carefully crafted campaign to rewrite history, harnessing the power of social media to blur the lines between fact and fiction" in a nation with the world's highest internet usage rate.
"In the global war on the truth, the Philippines is especially vulnerable," they wrote. "About 99% of its population is online, and over half find it difficult to spot fake news."
"Pro-Marcos propaganda is now proliferating on platforms like TikTok and YouTube that appeal primarily to Gen Z," the reporters noted, "ushering in a new era of fun, hip, glossily edited content that is harder to regulate online."
"The old dictatorship is now being upgraded and modernized, peppered with songs and emoji," they added. "Through the power of social media, one of the Philippines' most despised families is being rehabilitated into one of its most revered."
Keep ReadingShow Less
ICC Request to Probe Duterte's Brutal Drug War Hailed as 'Crucial Step for Justice'
The leader of one human rights group called the request "yet another damning indictment of the Duterte government's murderous policies that have killed—and continue to kill—thousands of Filipinos with impunity."
Jun 15, 2021
Filipino and international human rights defenders joined opposition lawmakers and victims' relatives in the Philippines on Tuesday in welcoming outgoing International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda's formal request for an investigation of the violent drug war waged by President Rodrigo Duterte over recent years.
"Duterte's brutal war on drugs normalized violence in our society and terrorized the population into silence. He must be held liable along with the police and military leadership that implemented the bloody campaign."
--Judy Pasimio, iDEFEND
In a statement Monday, Bensouda--who will be succeeded by British human rights lawyer Karim Khan on Wednesday--said that after reviewing the findings of a three-year preliminary probe on the situation in the Philippines, she has "determined that there is a reasonable basis to believe that the crime against humanity of murder has been committed" during the government's anti-drug campaign.
"The available information indicates that members of the Philippine National Police, and others acting in concert with them, have unlawfully killed between several thousand and tens of thousands of civilians during that time," said Bensouda. "My office has also reviewed information related to allegations of torture and other inhumane acts... which we believe require investigation."
In addition to Duterte, a report (pdf) published Monday by Bensouda's office also names Sen. Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa--a former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief--as well as former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and unnamed death squad members as being involved in an "apparent" policy of extrajudicial killings.
"These extrajudicial killings, perpetrated across the Philippines, appear to have been committed pursuant to an official state policy of the Philippine government," the report states.
"Police and other government officials planned, ordered, and sometimes directly perpetrated extrajudicial killings," it adds. "They paid police officers and vigilantes bounties for extrajudicial killings. State officials at the highest levels of government also spoke publicly and repeatedly in support of extrajudicial killings, and created a culture of impunity for those who committed them."
Furthermore, the report says that police "planted evidence at crimes scenes, produced false or misleading incident reports, and took other measures... to conceal the manner in which the killings occurred and to support claims of self-defense."
Bensouda said the alleged offenses date back to Duterte's tenure as vice mayor and then mayor of Davao City, during which he was dubbed the "death squad mayor" by opponents and human rights groups for overseeing the killing of over 1,000 alleged criminals and street children.
While campaigning for the presidency, Duterte admitted ties to Davao death squads, while warning that his administration would be "a bloody one" in which he would kill up to 100,000 criminals if elected.
PNP officials admit to killing 7,884 people they claim were suspected drug dealers. Human rights groups, however, estimate the number of people killed at 27,000 to 30,000, many of them victims of vigilante-style killings.
Malacanang Palace--the Filipino presidential residence and workplace--responded to Bensouda's announcement by vowing to never cooperate with the ICC if it proceeds with the probe.
"I believe the decision to move forward into a formal investigation stage is legally erroneous and politically motivated," palace spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. told reporters, according to The Manila Times.
"We will not cooperate because we are no longer [a] member of the ICC," said Roque, referring to the country's 2019 withdrawal from the court's governing Rome Statute (pdf).
"How dare you say that the Philippines' legal system is not working?" Roque added.
"I am happy because I realized that justice never sleeps."
--Normita Lopez, victim's mother
Families of victims killed in the government's drug war hailed Bensouda's request for an investigation.
"I am happy because I realized that justice never sleeps," Normita Lopez, whose 23-year-old son was killed in May 2017 for allegedly resisting arrest during an anti-drug sting operation, told Reuters.
Randy delos Santos, uncle of Kian delos Santos--a 17-year-old whose 2017 murder and framing by police drew international attention--also welcomed the ICC probe request, telling Reuters that "there are many who died."
"I feel the pain of other families," he said.
Filipino human rights defenders called on the Duterte administration to cooperate with any ICC investigation. According to The Manila Times, Jacqueline De Guia, spokesperson for the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), said the independent constitutional agency "continues to advise the present Philippine government to participate in this process of seeking truth and justice for the human rights violations committed in the country."
"There is a need for the present administration to demonstrate genuine openness, transparency, and cooperation in its engagement with human rights investigation and accountability mechanisms," De Guia added.
In Defense of Human Rights and Dignity Movement (iDEFEND) issued a statement saying Bensouda's request "recognizes the urgency of the situation where extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, rape, and torture, including those of children and minors, continue to be perpetrated with institutionalized impunity."
Judy Pasimio, an iDEFEND spokesperson, told Rappler--an online news site previously targeted by the Duterte administration for publishing critical stories, including about the drug war--that "Duterte's brutal war on drugs normalized violence in our society and terrorized the population into silence. He must be held liable along with the police and military leadership that implemented the bloody campaign."
Cristina Palabay, secretary-general of the human rights group Karapatan, called Bensouda's request a "long-awaited step toward justice and accountability."
"Moreover, it is yet another damning indictment of the Duterte government's murderous policies that have killed--and continue to kill--thousands of Filipinos with impunity," Palabay added.
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of the global human rights group Amnesty International, said in a statement that Bensouda's announcement "is a moment of hope for thousands of families in the Philippines who are grieving those lost to the government's so-called 'war on drugs.'"
"This is a much-awaited step in putting murderous incitement by President Duterte and his administration to an end," Callamard continued.
"State-sanctioned killing and incitement to violence by government officials has become the norm under the Duterte administration," she added. "Considering the Philippine government's role in these ceaseless killings and the absolute impunity which prevails in the country, the ICC investigation is a crucial step for justice to move forward."
Opposition lawmakers in the Philippines also expressed support for an ICC probe. Rep. Carlos Zarate of the Bayan Muna party-list--part of the left-wing Makabayan party--said in a statement that "this may send shock waves to enablers of this bloody campaign, but to the relatives and family of the victims, to human rights advocates, we welcome this positive development."
Renato Reyes, secretary-general of the leftist Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) alliance, said that "justice has been a long time coming for the thousands of victims [of] extrajudicial killings in the Philippines under Duterte."
"The ICC intervention must be reinforced by greater efforts from the international community, starting with the U.N. Human Rights Council."
--Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International
"The Duterte regime thinks it can avoid liability by withdrawing from the Rome Statute, when it is clear that the ICC retains jurisdiction for crimes committed prior to the withdrawal," Reyes added. "The Duterte regime would like us to believe it is a victim of political persecution when the real victims here are the thousands who died at the hands of police and military forces."
Bensouda's request for an ICC probe places pressure on the United Nations Human Rights Council to step up efforts to hold the Duterte administration accountable for its abuses.
"The prosecutor's announcement puts President Duterte and others involved in this murderous campaign firmly in the crosshairs of justice. But the ICC intervention must be reinforced by greater efforts from the international community, starting with the U.N. Human Rights Council," asserted Amnesty's Callamard.
"The U.N. Human Rights Council must launch its long overdue investigation into the Philippines to examine crimes under international law and other serious violations of human rights committed over the full duration of the Duterte administration, including as part of the so-called 'war on drugs,'" she added. "The perpetrators and architects of these crimes must be held to account."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Fascism's Global Spread Is as Real as the Pandemic's
In the world's largest democracies, far-right movements that embrace violence, reject democracy, and target the vulnerable are on the rise.
May 07, 2021
The global spread of fascism is real, as real as the spread of COVID-19, and you better believe it.
For purposes of academic analysis, it might be legitimate to distinguish between a "fascist-leaning" movement and a truly fascist one, or a far-right regime and fascist regime, or an authoritarian populist and a fascist. But I am a former member of the Philippine parliament and a street activist. While I have great respect for academics, those of us who operate in the realm of practical politics cannot afford to act as academics.
Let us not repeat the mistake of the democracies of the early 20th century of hesitating to call that beast by its name.
For me a movement or person must be regarded as fascist when they fuse the following five features: 1) they show a disdain or hatred for democratic principles and procedures; 2) they tolerate or promote violence; 3) they have a heated mass base that supports their anti-democratic thinking and behavior; 4) they scapegoat and support the persecution of certain social groups; and 5) they are led by a charismatic individual who exhibits and normalizes all of the above.
Belittling the Threat
When Mussolini and Hitler were still upstarts fighting to barge into the political mainstream in Italy and Germany, politicians of the left, center, and traditional right dismissed them as oddities who would either disappear or be absorbed into the parliamentary democratic system.
When Donald Trump got elected president of the United States in November 2016, opinion makers--with the exception of a handful, like the progressive filmmaker Michael Moore--were taken by surprise. But most predicted that the office would transform the unpredictable star of reality television into a proper president, one respectful of the customs and traditions of the world's oldest democracy.
In the Philippines, after warning before our own 2016 elections that Rodrigo Duterte would be "another Marcos," I wrote two months into Rodrigo Duterte's presidency that he was a "fascist original." I was criticized by many opinion-makers, academics, and even progressives for using the "f" word.
How wrong the pundits were in dismissing these personalities as flukes, as they were when it came to others, like Victor Orban in Hungary, Narendra Modi in India, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.
Academics are scornful of what they put down as "loaded terms," but the consequences of underestimating the threat posed to democracy by fascists are not academic. It would be superfluous to be reminded now of Trump's almost successful effort to prevent a peaceful transfer of power in the United States by systematically spreading the lie that he lost the elections and instigating a violent insurrection.
But for those who have not followed the career of other persons of interest as closely, let me acquaint you with the highlights of their respective reigns: Five years and over 20,000 extra-judicial executions later, the "f" word is one of the milder terms used for Rodrigo Duterte, with many preferring "mass murderer" or "serial killer." Modi has made the secular and diverse India of Gandhi and Nehru a thing of the past with his Hindu nationalist project. And Orban and his Fidesz Party have almost completed their neutering of democracy in Hungary.
Democracies in Peril
The United States, India, Brazil, and the Philippines were four of the seven biggest democracies in the world just nine years ago. Today, three of them are led by fascists who are determined to complete their transformation into non-liberal democratic systems. The other barely survived a fascist's determined effort to hold on to power.
With 11 million more Americans voting for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, 70 percent of the Republican Party believing against all evidence that he won the election, white supremacy emerging as the guiding ideology of the Republican Party, and a coalition of angry extremists open to violent means of seizing power emerging as the party's driving force, who can deny that American democracy is in intensive care, despite the passage of the presidency to Joe Biden?
I would like to stress three things at this juncture.
First, the features of fascism come together in unique ways. If we are waiting for the ideal-type fascist to make his appearance, meaning a spitting image of Adolf, then we will be waiting forever.
Second, the key features of fascism do not become prominent all at once. They may, in fact, be institutionalized only late in the day, such as Mussolini's eliminationist policy towards Jews, which he only made law in 1938, 16 years after he came to power.
Trump's true willingness to openly overthrow the cornerstone of democracy--the peaceful succession of power via majority decision of the electorate--was not on full display until he lost the November 2020 elections. Modi and the BJP's incendiary views of Muslims were dismissed by many as simply rhetorical excesses until the BJP came to power in 2014. Then began the lynching of Muslims falsely accused of being cattle traders, followed by mob attacks on Muslim ghettos, and the legalization of the social subordination of Muslims.
The third point is that the closer fascists come to power, the more some of them feel they must put on a pretense of respecting democratic processes and values to lull the electorate into believing they're really not as bad as the liberal and progressive press make them out to be and evince horror at being branded as fascists.
Leaders of the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in Germany have been trying hard to cultivate the image of responsible politicians who can be trusted to behave in a coalition with the Christian Democratic Party, the country's main traditional conservative party. Fortunately, just when they think they've succeeded, someone from their ranks lets the cat out of the bag--like Christian Lueth, formerly the press spokesperson of AfD, who recently slipped and publicly assured a right wing blogger on the question of migrants, "We can always shoot them later, that's not an issue. Or gas them, as you wish. It doesn't matter to me."
How can one deny that there is a fascist resurgence if one were to do even just a brief survey of today's Western and Central Europe, which birthed fascism in the first half of the 20th century and has again become its fertile soil in the second decade of the 21st century?
From having no radical right-wing regime in the 2000s, except occasionally and briefly as junior partners in unstable governing coalitions as in Austria, the region now has two solidly in power--one in Hungary, the Orban government, and one in Poland, the Peace and Justice Party. The region has four more countries where a party of the far right is the main opposition party. And it has seven where the far right has become a major presence both in parliament and in the streets.
Seeding the Ground for Political Success
It would be myopic to judge fascism's resurgence only in terms of its political success. The spread of fascist ideas is much faster than the pace of its electoral successes and, indeed, seeds the ground for its eventual political success. Racism, white supremacy, promotion of violence, conspiracy theories--such as Muslims seducing Hindu girls "in love jihads" to change the demographic balance in India--all spread fast online, become normalized in the echo chambers of the internet, and eventually are legitimized.
Especially alarming for people in the West who think liberal democratic beliefs are too solidly entrenched in their polities to be eroded should be the fact that holocaust denial is now more widespread in Europe than three decades ago, and that in the United States, surveys suggest broad ignorance about the Holocaust among millennial and Gen-Z respondents . These inroads in eroding the collective memory of 20th century fascism's most diabolical crime must surely count as one of 21st century fascism's biggest successes.
If you think I am exaggerating, listen to the German authorities, who report that anti-Semitic incidents in Germany in 2020 rose to 2,275, the highest since they started collecting data on politically motivated criminality in 2001. Listen to Charlotte Knobloch, former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, who tells us, "Anti-Semitism has become socially acceptable again." Talk to the German domestic intelligence agency BfV, which has made the unprecedented request to the judiciary to place the AfD, Germany's biggest opposition party, a hotbed of both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, under scrutiny as a suspected fascist organization.
Why Fascists Target Migrants First
Especially targeted by fascists today are non-white migrants. Now, just because an individual is anti-migrant does not mean he or she is a committed fascist. The problem is anti-migrant attitudes today are bound up with support for repressive moves against them, like drastically limiting asylum to political refugees, deporting large numbers of them as "criminals" or "national security risks," physically breaking up their communities under the pretext of "assimilation," and denying them fundamental human rights, like the right of parents and children to stay together, which the Trump administration violated in the case of Central American and Mexican migrants.
The most vulnerable groups, like migrants, are the first targets of fascists, but you can be sure they won't stop with them. As Pastor Niemoller's celebrated poem reminds us, you only think you're safe until they come for you and "there won't be anyone left to speak" for you.
The beast is struggling against its chains in Germany. It has bared its fangs in Washington, D.C. It has shed blood in the Philippines and India. Let us not repeat the mistake of the democracies of the early 20th century of hesitating to call that beast by its name.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Bloody Sunday': Left Activists, Labor Leaders Executed in Philippines After Duterte Says 'Finish Off' the Communists
"The government's increasingly brutal counter-insurgency campaign... no longer makes any distinction between armed rebels and non-combatant activists, labor leaders, and rights defenders."
Mar 07, 2021
In an event that human rights groups are calling "Bloody Sunday," at least nine left-wing activists and labor leaders were executed at their homes and offices this past weekend during a series of coordinated raids carried out jointly by the military and police in four provinces in the Calabarzon region of the Philippines, just two days after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered security forces to "finish off" communists in the country.
"I've told the military and the police that if they find themselves in an armed encounter with the communist rebels, kill them, make sure you really kill them and finish them off if they are alive," Duterte said Friday. "Just make sure to return their bodies to their respective families."
"Forget about human rights," the Philippine president continued. "That's my order. I'm willing to go to jail, that's not a problem. I do not have any qualms about doing the things that I have to do."
According to Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), "It is not a coincidence that these deadly raids happened two days after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police and military to 'kill all' communists and 'don't mind human rights.'"
"These incidents," he added, "are clearly part of the government's increasingly brutal counter-insurgency campaign aimed at eliminating the 52-year-old communist insurgency."
While Duterte, a right-wing politician who took office in 2016, claims his government is putting down violent Maoist factions, human rights groups have warned the authoritarian president's anti-left crusade goes far beyond that--using the rhetoric of "counter-insurgency" to legitimate terrorizing and repressing leftists throughout the country, regardless of whether they are connected to the New People's Army, the armed wing of the national Communist Party.
"The fundamental problem," said Robertson, "is this campaign no longer makes any distinction between armed rebels and non-combatant activists, labor leaders, and rights defenders."
In response to the lethal raids that took place on Sunday--in the provinces of Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, and Rizal, all in the southern part of Luzon Island, near Manila--Cristina Palabay, secretary-general of Karapatan, a progressive organization in the Philippines, said that "nothing could be more apt than calling this day a 'Bloody Sunday.'" Security forces, she added, are "obediently heeding the president's kill, kill, kill orders."
The New York Times reported that, according to Palabay, "the activists who were killed had worked for a variety of organizations, including a group that works on behalf of Philippine fishermen and another that campaigned for the rights of the urban poor."
According to WION, one of the victims who was killed Sunday was Emmanuel "Manny" Asuncion, a coordinator of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, a left-wing organization that has "called for an end to 'red-tagging,' the practice of labeling opponents communists or terrorists to justify targeting them, which dates back to the the rule of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos."
As Robertson pointed out, "It is also not a coincidence that these incidents occurred in provinces overseen by the Southern Luzon Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, led by Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., who has led a vicious 'red-tagging' campaign against activists by accusing them of rebel links without providing any evidence that can stand up in a court of law."
Additional victims include: Mark Lee Bacasno and Melvin Dasigao, both members of the urban poor group San Isidro Kasiglahan; Ariel Evangelista and his wife, Chai Lemita Evangelista, fishermen's rights advocates whose 10-year-old son is now missing; and four yet-to-be-identified individuals.
Al-Jazeera reported Sunday that, according to the police, "six people were also arrested during the raids in three provinces surrounding Metro Manila on Sunday, while at least six others 'escaped.'"
According to Inquirer News, Karapatan's search teams--currently trying to locate other victims, including those reported missing--were also targeted and pursued by security forces. Esteban Mendoza, one of the arrested activists, described this past weekend's violent "onslaught" as the result of the Anti-Terror Act championed by Duterte and enacted in 2020.
Last year, rights groups warned that the new anti-terrorism law, which critics say equates dissent with communism or terrorism, could enable Duterte to crush political opponents, as NPR noted.
Regarding Sunday's raids, police claimed they "had arrest warrants against 18 individuals, adding that some resisted arrest, resulting in their deaths," Al-Jazerra reported.
Activists have described the raids as "reminiscent of police operations in which thousands of people have been killed as part of Duterte's signature war on drugs, in which police said all of the victims were armed and had resisted arrest," WION reported.
Al-Jazerra noted that there are "fears of a new wave of bloodshed" across the Philippines.
Butch Olano, Philippines section director at Amnesty International, echoed those concerns, saying in a statement released Monday that "we are deeply alarmed that 'tokhang'-style raids during anti-drug operations--where targets are killed by the police allegedly for fighting back--are increasingly being used against activists and rights defenders."
"We strongly urge the Philippine government to finally end the attacks and killings; conduct effective and independent investigations into the raids in Calabarzon, including to determine whether or not the use of deadly force was warranted; and prosecute in fair trials those found responsible for human rights violations," Olano said.
"Government officials, especially at the highest levels," he continued, "must end the ongoing incitement of extrajudicial killings and immediately implement measures in line with the recommendations of the U.N. High Commissioner's 2020 report."
"In light of the rapidly worsening human rights situation in the Philippines," Olano added, "states have the responsibility to hold the Philippine government to account for its commitments before the U.N. Human Rights Council, which must now take overdue action and launch an independent international investigation to address this alarming situation and end the cycle of impunity that continues to fuel violations."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Despicable and Shameless': Outrage Over Duterte Pardon of US Marine who Murdered Trans Woman in Philippines
Lance Cpl. Joseph Scott Pemberton was found guilty of homicide and sentenced in December 2015 to 10 years in prison for strangling and drowning 26-year-old Jennifer Laude to death in an Olongapo hotel.
Sep 07, 2020
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte sparked international outrage Monday by issuing a full pardon to Scott Pemberton, a U.S. Marine convicted of murdering Jennifer Laude, a transgender woman, in 2014.
Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. tweeted on Monday that "to do justice" Duterte "has granted an absolute pardon to Pemberton," who was found guilty of homicide in December 2015 in connection with the killing of 26-year-old Laude the previous October.
A court in Olongapo had ordered the release of Pemberton, age 25, on September 3. However, Duterte's office blocked the release, accusing the court of "judicial overreach."
In a Monday television address, Duterte asserted that Pemberton "should be allowed the good character presumption" because he had behaved well behind bars. The president said he told his justice minister, Menardo Guevarra, that he had "not treated Pemberton fairly."
"So I will release him," Duterte said.
"There is so much disrespect in the manner in which Jennifer was killed, reflective of the disrespect the U.S. has for the Philippines' democracy and sovereignty."
--Virgie Suarez
Virgie Suarez, a lawyer for Laude's family, blasted the pardon as "revolting" and "a mockery of our judiciary and legal system," according to the Washington Post.
"There are too many Filipino convicts, already in their twilight years, serving their sentences," Suarez said. "Why [pardon] a foreigner, a U.S. soldier who committed an atrocious crime?"
"There is so much disrespect in the manner in which Jennifer was killed, reflective of the disrespect the U.S. has for the Philippines' democracy and sovereignty," she added.
The case rekindled memories of the many crimes committed--often with impunity--by U.S. troops in the Philippines over the decades, including the Subic Bay rape case of 2005, in which Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith raped a Filipina woman while other Marines watched. Smith was found guilty but was transfered from Philippines to U.S. custody under controversial Visiting Forces Agreement.
Pemberton, then a 19-year-old lance corporal, was one of hundreds of U.S. troops participating in joint training exercises with their Filipino allies and was on shore leave in Olongapo on October 11, 2014 when he met Laude at a disco bar. A friend of Laudes' who was with her and Pemberton on the night she was killed told a court that the Marine was drunk but friendly, and that he "thought we were 'real women.'"
According to court records, the pair went to a hotel room, where an argument occurred after Pemberton discovered Laude had male genitals.
The young Marine left the hotel 30 minutes after checking in. Staff later found Laude's naked body with her head in a toilet and signs of strangulation. Local media reported that Pemberton admitted to choking Laude, but that he acted in self defense and that she was alive when he left the hotel room. Used condoms with Pemberton's fingerprints were found at the scene.
Pemberton was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with the court citing mitigating circumstances including Laude not revealing her gender identity. However, after Monday's decision he will be freed after serving just six years of his sentence after his application for a Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) was approved on September 1. He has been serving out his sentence in solitary confinement at a Filipino military prison in Quezon City.
Duterte's pardon has once again stoked outrage among Filipinos who believe that U.S. troops who commit crimes in their country receive special treatment under the Visiting Forces Agreement. Duterte had previously announced he would terminate the agreement; however, he reversed course in June, with human rights advocates accusing him of bending to U.S. pressure and interests.
The human rights group Karapatan condemned the pardon as "a despicable and shameless mockery of justice and servility to U.S. imperialist interests."
"We've said it before, we'll say it again," tweeted the LGBTQ advocacy group Bahaghari. "For as long as the U.S. maintains hegemony over our military, economy, and politics, there will be no #JusticeForJennifer and for Filipino LGBTQ+"
Stars and Stripes reports the case has led to calls from some Filipinos to end the U.S. military presence in a nation that was once a U.S. colony.
As Common Dreams reported at the time, there were widespread protests calling for a U.S. withdrawal following Laude's death in 2014. Although the U.S. no longer maintains bases in the archipelago nation, there are still hundreds of American troops "advising and assisting" the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the fight against militant groups as part of the ongoing 19-year so-called "war on terror." U.S. troops also visit the Philippines and participate in regular joint military exercises with their AFP counterparts and troops from other regional allies.
Duterte, who has drawn worldwide criticism and condemnation for his many human rights violations, claims to have "cured" himself of being gay with "the help of beautiful women." He has also appointed a transgender woman, Dindi Tan, as the country's director of agrarian reform.
"Call Her Ganda," a documentary film about Laude directed by PJ Raval, was a finalist for best documentary feature at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival in New York.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy