Activists on Friday marked Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s first year in office with a protest to condemn the “worsening human rights situation.”
“Extrajudicial killings (EJKs) have not only continued, but the policies that spur them are also firmly in place,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary general of the rights group Karapatan.
Palabay said the Marcos administration “continues to implement” the 2017-2022 National Security Policy of former President Rodrigo Duterte, which “has engendered counter-insurgency programs and policies that resulted in numerous victims of EJKs”.
Kaparatan cited Duterte’s Executive Order No. 70, which created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and the implementation of the “draconian” counter-terror law.
As of June 30, 2023, Karapatan documented at least 60 victims of EJKs in 40 incidents since Marcos took office.
“Twenty of the victims are from Negros and 16 are from Bicol, two of the three regions singled out for intensified counter-insurgency operations under Duterte’s Memo No. 32, which Marcos Jr. continues to enforce,” said Palabay.
Palabay said Marcos’ refusal to allow the International Criminal Court to investigate the human rights situation in the country “indicates his intention to perpetuate the same culture of impunity and lack of accountability that have shielded criminals and human rights violators from the time of Marcos Sr. to the present.”
Karapatan also lamented the “malicious practice of unjustly jailing activists and other dissenters” with alleged trumped-up charges.
According to the group, there are 778 political prisoners in the Philippines, 49 of them arrested under the Marcos administration.
Ecumenical youth group Student Christian Movement of the Philippines denounced the “culture of violence that targets the marginalized and worsens their living conditions” under Marcos.
Kej Andres, national spokesperson of the group, said the state forces “has become an instrument of senseless violence, which continues to tamper with the sanctity of human life.”
He cited the killings of four members of the Fausto family allegedly perpetrated by the military in Negros province.
The group claimed that there are at least “407 counts of human rights violations from multiple sources” or “at least one human rights violation per day” since Marcos assumed the presidency.
“Our Christian values compel us to reject senseless violence and uphold the dignity of human life for every Filipino,” said Andres. “It is Jesus Christ that inspires us to see the harrowing conditions of the marginalized and act under the banner of faith and peace based on social justice.”
