News
AMP-Statement: Abduction of Dyan Gumanao and Armand Dayoha
The Aktionsbündnis Menschenrechte – Philippinen (AMP, German Action Network Human Rights - Philippines) strongly condemns the recent abduction of development worker Dyan Gumanao and labor rights activist Armand Dayoha in Cebu City, Philippines. In a statement, the AMP...
AMP 2022 Report – Human Rights in the Philippines
In this year’s commemoration of the International Human Rights Day on December 10, the Aktionsbündnis Menschenrechte-Philippinen (AMP) publishes its fourth human rights report. The report describes the pattern of human rights violations during former President...
December 7, 2022 | Virtual Launch | AMP-Report: Human Rights in the Philippines
In this year’s commemoration of Human Rights Day on December 10, the Aktionsbündnis Menschenrechte-Philippinen (AMP) publishes its fourth report “Human Rights in the Philippines.” The report describes the pattern of human rights violations during former President...
“War on drugs”: Forged death certificate corrected
An initiative of the Paghilom Program was able to achieve, with the legal support of the organization IDEALS, Inc., the correction of a forged death certificate of a victim of the so-called "war on drugs" in December 2022. 9-year-old Lenin Baylon died in 2016 because...
Marcos wants trade preferences without human rights compliance
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. discussed at the EU-ASEAN Summit on December 12-14, 2022, also the Philippines' status and new application for EU's Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+). The GSP+ allows a duty-free import of over 6,000 products from the...
Sison’s death could re-open peace talks with communists
Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), died on December 17, 2022, after being hospitalized in his exile in Utrecht, Netherlands. His death could lead to the resumption of peace talks in the Philippines "and the implementation of...
10 Human Rights Defenders acquitted
A Quezon City court acquitted on January 9, 2023, ten activists who were charged with perjury by former National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. in 2020. The ten activists of the three human rights organizations (Karapatan, Gabriela, and Rural Missionaries of...
Maria Ressa acquitted of tax evasion charges
"Today, facts win. Truth wins. Justice wins," said Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler-CEO, Maria Ressa, after a court acquitted her and her online news portal of four tax evasion charges on January 18, 2023. The acquittal reduces the open court cases against Ressa...
Maguindanao massacre anniversary reminds about the risks impunity entails
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla denied during this year's UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Philippines on November 14, 2022, that civic and media spaces in the Philippines are shrinking and described the Philippines as “a...
Government launches new anti-drug program
The Philippine Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) officially launched the new government anti-drug program on November 26, 2022. The program, Buhay Ingatan, Droga'y Ayaw (Take care of life, Don't want drugs), is intended to take a "holistic"...
Philippine government invites UN Special Rapporteurs once again
The Philippine government has invited the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, and arbitrary executions, Morris Tidball-Binz, to the Philippines for 2023 as part of the United Nations Joint Programme (UNJP). The UNJP is a technical cooperation between the...
Second “war on drugs” conviction
After five years, the Regional Trial Court Branch 122 in Caloocan City convicted patrolman Jefrey Perez for torturing 19-year-old Carl Angelo Arnaiz and 14-year-old Reynaldo “Kulot” de Guzman in 2017. Aside from life imprisonment on two occasions, the court ordered on...
Brussels: Philippine delegation seeks renewal of EU trade preferences
On October 27, 2022, an interparliamentary meeting was held in Brussels with a Philippine delegation. One key topic was the status of the Philippines regarding its EU trade preferences granted under the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP+); its current cycle will...
UN Human Rights Council urges Philippine government to end impunity
The UN Human Right Council (UNHRC) reviewed the Philippines' compliance with the UN human rights conventions during the 4th cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on November 14, 2022. In the UPR process, UN member states made recommendations on how to improve...
Murders of Philippine lawyers remain largely unsolved
According to the Philippine National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL), 59 lawyers were killed during former President Rodrigo Duterte's term in office (2016-2022). The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Diego García-Sayán, speaks in his...
Justice Secretary Remulla defends “red-tagging” of government critics
In the last session of the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors member states for compliance with the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Philippine Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla defended the so-called "red-tagging" of government critics by the...
UN Human Rights Committee concerned about Philippine Anti-Terror Law
In its October 2022 report, the UN Human Rights Committee expressed its concerns about human rights violations and extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. The committee criticized especially the controversial Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020 for containing "overly...
Murder of journalist Percy Lapid exposes government involvement
The recent murders of journalists Percival "Percy Lapid" Mabasa in October and Reynaldo Blanco in September 2022 emphasized the ongoing climate of violence and impunity in the Philippines. Both journalists were vocal critics of the current as well as the previous...
UN Human Rights Council: No further resolution on Philippines
Despite the tireless efforts of national and international human rights groups in calling attention to the devastating human rights situation in the Philippines, the UN Human Rights Council ended its 51st session in Geneva on October 7, 2022, without passing another...
Strong criticism against Marcos’ CHR nominations
After more than 80 days of waiting, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced on September 27, 2022, the nomination of Richard Palpal-latoc as the new chair of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and Beda Angeles Epres as the first of the three new CHR commissioners,...