AMP-Statement: Human rights defenders keep disappearing under Philippines’ Marcos Jr.

In a statement, the Aktionsbündnis Menschenrechte – Philippinen (AMP, German Action Network Human Rights-Philippines) shows concerns about the alarmingly high number of disappeared human rights defenders in the Philippines since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in June 2022.

Enforced disappearance is a particularly frightening means of political repression and a heinous and complex violation of multiple human rights and an international crime. In Marcos Jr.’s third year in office, the AMP recorded 12 cases of enforced disappearances of human rights defenders, of which five individuals remain missing until today. More than half of AMP’s recorded disappearances since Marcos Jr. took office are environmental defenders. Obtaining justice as a victim of enforced disappearance in the Philippines has proven to be an uphill battle like in the case of the human rights defenders Dyan Gumanao and Armand Dayoha, who were forcibly disappeared by state security forces on January 10, 2023.

The AMP calls upon members of the international community and the European Union to remind the Philippine government under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of its obligation to comply with international human rights standards by immediately and impartially investigating the circumstances that led to the enforced disappearance of human rights defenders in the Philippines and to prosecute the perpetrators. The AMP also urges them to pressure the Philippine Government to immediately initiate a thorough and credible criminal investigation into the abduction case of Gumanao and Dayoha and to file criminal charges against the involved ISAFP personnel identified by the CHR.

Download (PDF): AMP-Statement: Human rights defenders keep disappearing under Philippines Marcos Jr.