The Independent International Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations in the Philippines (Investigate PH) released its Second Report on 6 July 2021, revealing that policies of the Rodrigo Duterte government “have emboldened both the police and military to massacre the poor and marginalized” as well as those advocating for the rights of these communities. The Report spotlights the “prevailing lack of effective domestic remedies” against these state-sponsored crimes.

According to Ms. Suzanne Adely, Investigate PH High Commissioner and Co-Chair of the International Committee of the US National Lawyers' Guild, Duterte’s Executive Order 70 or ‘the-whole-of-nation’ counter-insurgency program and the 2020 Anti-Terrorism Act are prime examples of policies which encourage Duterte’s security forces to murder poor Filipino citizens.

Investigate PH, consisting of 17 eminent individuals in the field of human rights defense, highlighted in its Second Report three aspects of ‘state terror in the Philippines’: War on Dissent, War on the Moro People and War on Poor People, under the guise of the ‘war on drugs’.

It highlighted the lack of redress for abuses committed by government security forces and the “routine cover-up” being done by the Philippine National Police. Police and soldiers, it asserted, are now executing political dissenters “in a manner similar to anti-drug operations”. Such “institutionalized repression” harms civil society, from alleged communists, to churches, to long-standing democratic institutions.

The report also stressed that the US-backed ‘War on Terror’ military operations in Mindanao “have failed to distinguish between civilians and combatants” and have caused the mass displacement of Moro communities. The Duterte government’s policies, it asserted, “undermines the Moro communities’ right to self-determination” and neglects and the needs of those displaced communities.

High Commissioner Rev. Dr. Susan Henry-Crowe of the US United Methodist Church, said, “It was difficult to hear testimony that US military aid is abetting human rights violations. It's simply unacceptable!”

Investigate PH called on the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court and sovereign states to make the Duterte government accountable for the tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings, abductions, disappearances, illegal arrests and detentions and other forms of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Officials of the Duterte government, they said, should also be held accountable for these violations.

They also called for the permanent protection of all witnesses, human rights defenders, journalists, members of the academe and the exercise of pastoral duties of religious ministers.

Investigate PH is scheduled to issue its Final Report in September 2021. The First Report was published in March 2021.

In a related development, the International Trade Union Congress (ITUC) issued its 2021 Global Rights Index citing the Philippines in the Top 10 worst countries in the world for workers. According to the report, there have been too many disappearances and killings of labor leaders and members, sanctioned by President Duterte in his speeches. ITUC further noted that 28 labor representatives have been illegally detained while seven were killed in the past year alone.

Confirming ITUC’s findings, Elmer Labog, Chairman of labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno said, “Laborers and union leaders continue to be victims of killings, red-tagging, surveillance and arrests in the hands of authorities.”