Church groups and human rights advocates welcomed a regional trial court decision dismissing attempted murder charges against United Methodist Church pastor Rev. Glofie G. Baluntong in Oriental Mindoro.
The Oriental Mindoro Regional Trial Court junked the attempted murder case against Baluntong on Dec. 8, 2025. State prosecutors had earlier withdrawn an August 2021 Anti-Terrorism Act charge on Oct. 6, 2022, citing insufficient evidence.
The Student Christian Movement of the Philippines (SCMP) said the cases against Baluntong were retaliation for her advocacy with Indigenous Mangyan communities on the island.
“Cases against Rev. Glofie Baluntong have simply been military vengeance against someone who protects indigenous peoples from indiscriminate militarization by the [Armed Forces of the Philippines],” said Kej Andres, SCMP national chairperson.
“Lies from the AFP, and especially their suppression of activism, of our faith imperative, adds to the long list of military deception in Mindoro and elsewhere,” Andres added.
Baluntong, who was a United Methodist Church district superintendent for Mindoro, Romblon, and Marinduque at the time, was arrested in 2021 following an alleged encounter between the military and the New People’s Army. She was able to post bail while the case was pending.
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) condemned “the state prosecutors and the Philippine judiciary for the long delay to this outcome.”
“The Duterte and Marcos Jr governments are again exposed for grave abuse of judicial process,” said ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy.
ICHRP said the court found that Baluntong was charged because her name appeared in a government “order of battle,” and that she had been targeted for providing sanctuary to Indigenous Mangyan communities resisting mining, logging, and land-grabbing.
The rights group linked Baluntong’s case to intensified military operations in Mindoro. It cited an incident on Jan. 1 in Abra de Ilog, Occidental Mindoro, where the AFP deployed more than 1,000 soldiers and conducted aerial bombing and strafing operations that forced nearly 700 residents to evacuate and resulted in civilian deaths.
SCMP said its members joined a humanitarian mission to Abra de Ilog during the first week of January 2026 to investigate reports of civilian casualties. The group said its team was harassed and closely monitored by military and intelligence agents during the mission.
“Unfortunately, this is where our taxes go—to rampant militarization and accompanied deception,” Andres said. “It is clear that corruption is not only in the form of overpriced infrastructure projects, but also in militarization that serves to protect business interests and wicked bureaucrats.”
SCMP also cited “recent extra-judicial killings of civilians, including those of Mangyan Jay-El Maligday,” as further grounds for an independent investigation into alleged human rights violations in the area.
In a separate statement, the United Methodist Church’s Board of Church and Society said it “welcome[d] with praise and thanksgiving to our God the dismissal of trumped-up case of attempted murder against Rev. Glofie G. Baluntong.”
