AFP killings, torture of civilians escalate further
- Published: 15 August 2022 15 August 2022
Killings, torture, illegal arrests, destruction of livelihood and threats to community residents perpetrated by state security forces continue to escalate in Negros Island, in central Philippines. Juanito Magbanua, Spokesperson of the Negros Island Regional Operational Command of the New People's Army condemned the state terrorism, especially the practice of tagging civilians killed as high-ranking members of the NPA.
Read more: AFP killings, torture of civilians escalate further
Filipino lawyer wins 2022 Baldwin Medal of Liberty
- Published: 15 August 2022 15 August 2022
International human rights organization Human Rights First announced on 8 August the awarding of its 2022 Roger N. Baldwin Medal of Liberty to Philippine human rights lawyer Angelo Karlo Guillen. The Roger N. Baldwin Medal, named after one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union and the International League for Human Rights, is awarded to “extraordinary activists” as recognition and support for “advancing the protection of human rights at great personal risk.”
Read more: Filipino lawyer wins 2022 Baldwin Medal of Liberty
Filipinos present “real State of the Nation”
- Published: 31 July 2022 31 July 2022
More than 8,000 protesters gathered along Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City, near the Batasang Pambansa parliament complex on 25 July where President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was scheduled to present his first State of the Nation Address. Grassroots organizations under the banner of patriotic alliance Bagong Alyansang Makabayan launched their own ‘Peoples’ SONA’, presenting the ‘real state of the nation’ and expressing their demands on the Marcos II regime.
Indiscriminate AFP bombings kill civilians, damage communities – CPP Report
- Published: 31 July 2022 31 July 2022
The Information Bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines reported on 15 July that bombing operations conducted by the Armed Forces of the Philippines from May 2017 until April 2022 have been gruesomely indiscriminate. The CPP said, “Up to 82.89% of its aerial strikes and shelling operations had no clear targets, more than 35% of which dropped near civilian communities,” killing at least 10 and wounding four more, causing damages to property and resources, widespread trauma, economic displacement and the forced evacuation of more than 10,000 families.
Read more: Indiscriminate AFP bombings kill civilians, damage communities – CPP Report
NDFP: No basis for resumption of peace talks
- Published: 31 July 2022 31 July 2022
“There is yet no basis for the resumption of peace talks.” Thus stated Julieta de Lima, Interim Chairperson of the Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in a recent interview. This was her reply to the Marcos II government’s statement that there will be no more peace talks with the NDFP.
AFP-PNP kill 4 NPA hors de combat
- Published: 15 July 2022 15 July 2022
In the early morning of 6 July, combined forces of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine National Police raided a farm in a distant village in Binalbagan, Negros Occidental province, in central Philippines, where six members of the New People's Army were resting. Four of the NPA were captured without a fight and executed by the AFP-PNP.
Protests greet Marcos Jr. inauguration
- Published: 15 July 2022 15 July 2022
The inauguration of Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on 30 June as the 17th President of the Republic of the Philippines was met by protests in the capital city of Manila, other cities in the Philippines, as well as in the US. The protesters rejected the “illegitimate Marcos II” who won the elections “through lies and historical revisionism.” They also expressed their demands for higher wages, scrapping of the excise tax on fuel and lowering the prices of basic commodities.