On the 26th year of signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the National Democratic Front of the Philippines International Office (NDFP IO) called out Marcos Jr’s “mounting cases of violations of international humanitarian law.”
The CARHRIHL is a landmark agreement signed by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the NDFP on March 16, 1998. In a statement, the NDFP IO condemned the Marcos regime’s “recent spate of killings, indiscriminate killings, cases of torture, and aerial bombing campaigns on civilian areas.”
“The deliberate targeting of civilian areas via successive aerial bombing campaigns demonstrates the US-Marcos regime’s callous disregard for CARHRIHL and the sanctity of human life. International humanitarian laws exist precisely to protect civilians in times of conflict, yet Marcos has chosen to ignore these laws with reckless abandon, leaving a trail of death and destruction in its wake,” the NDFP IO added.
The statement cited recent aerial bombing campaigns by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) last March 4 when the 81st Infantry Battalion (IB) dropped explosives and mounted artillery shelling in areas between Quezon and Camarines Sur; last February 22 in Negros Occidental when more than 10 bombs were dropped followed by machine gun strafing nearby residential areas; and on January 6 when the AFP dropped bombs and fired rockets in areas near Lumad communities in Bukidnon.
The NDFP IO condemned the Marcos regime’s violation of the rule of “proportionality” in international laws that govern the rules of war. “Marcos Jr’s nationwide bombing spree in the last two months demonstrate a clear disregard for the fundamental principle of minimizing harm to non-combatants during armed conflict, leading to unnecessary suffering and destruction,” said the NDFP IO.
In addition, the statement pointed out the Biden administration’s culpability for Marcos’ war crimes “for continuously supplying weapons, bombs, war planes, and even directly supervising special military operations of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines).”
“These mounting cases of IHL violations and the complicity of US imperialism in these heinous crimes against humanity present the most compelling basis to indict and prosecute the US-Marcos war criminal state,” the statement concluded.