Appalled by the prompt congratulatory message of US President Joe Biden on the proclamation of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as president of the Republic of the Philippines, human rights advocates in the US criticized President Biden and proposed instead to investigate the human rights conditions in the Philippines.

Members of the Hawaii Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines said that the US government’s acceptance of the “fraudulent Philippine election results is a slap in the face of the many victims of the numerous human rights violations, murders and massive corruption under the Marcos dictatorship and the current Rodrigo Duterte regime.” The HCHRP added, “Rather than acknowledge the impacts of such an election on the many who have suffered human rights abuses in the Philippines, the Biden administration rushed to congratulate Marcos Jr.”

In January 1995, the US District Court of Hawaii decided in favor of the class action suit of 10,059 victims of human rights against the estate of the late dictator Marcos. The jury awarded US$766 million as compensation for the injuries and deaths and US$1.2 billion in punitive damages.

Human rights organizations documented at least 3,257 extrajudicial killings, 35,000 cases of torture, 77 enforced disappearances and more than 70,000 unwarranted detentions during the Marcos dictatorship. Some 2,520 of those murdered were tortured and mutilated. The Marcoses, including then First Lady Imelda R. Marcos, have yet to face up to these crimes.

The HCHRP urged Hawaiians to support the call for an independent investigation of the recent Philippine elections. The independent International Observer Mission was in the Philippines starting February 2022. It reported widespread irregularities and violence in what it deemed the most repressive election since the time of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

The HCHRP also called on the US Congress to approve the Philippine Human Rights Act. Rep. Susan Ellis Wild (D-Pa.) and 30 other Democratic Party Representatives introduced the measure in June 2021 to the US Congress, and had been endorsed by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, Communications Workers of America, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Malaya Movement and the Service Employees International Union. The proposed measure aims to prohibit the use of US tax dollars to support the operations and equipment of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, until the deplorable human rights violations and killings in the Philippines cease.

President Biden and President Xi Jinping of China were one of the first heads of state to congratulate Marcos, Jr.