IPHRDs, stand for the Philippines

The human rights situation in the Philippines is at its worse.

For Indigenous Peoples (IP) communities, leaders and advocates, human rights defenders and activists, every day is a day living in danger under the Duterte regime with no justice and accountability in sight.

We need you. We need your international solidarity and intervention to defend critics and activists. As we culminate the September 2020 Global Month of Solidarity for the Philippines, we hope to register our united calls: #StopTheKillingsPH #GlobalSolidarityPH #EndDuterteTyranny

Call for short videos of solidarity (Deadline: September 29, 12 noon)

• In 30 seconds or less, record your message of solidarity to the Filipino people, Indigenous Peoples, and human rights defenders
• Share how your situation in your country/ region relates to the Filipino’s struggle for human rights

Call for photos with calls (Deadline: September 29, 12 noon)

• Send us a picture of you, your organizations, communities, friends or loved ones holding the calls: #StopTheKillingsPH #GlobalSolidarityPH #EndDuterteTyranny
• You may include the calls
  • UNHRC, investigate the human rights situation in the Philippines!
  • Defend IP Rights!
  • Defend Ancestral Lands!
  • Stop the Attacks on IPHRDs!
  • Stop Criminalizing Dissent!
  • Defend Cordillera PH!
  • Save Lumad Schools!
  • Junk Anti-Terrorism Law!

Send your submissions to communications@ipmsdl.org.

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Know more about the pressing IP and human rights issues:

• UN must act to end impunity in PH. Human rights organizations urge UN HRC to establish an independent body to conduct an in-depth investigation into human rights violations and abuses in the Philippines
• UN OHCR detailed widespread human rights violations. The report noted widespread and systematic killing of thousands of alleged drug suspects. Numerous human rights defenders have also been killed over the past five years.
• Facebook removes fake accounts linked to military, police. Facebook removed 155 accounts, 11 Pages, 9 Groups, and 6 Instagram accounts linked to individuals in China and PH military & police with thousands of followers.
• Activists continuously killed during COVID-19, passing of Anti-Terror Law. Zara Alvarez and Randall Echanis, killed under President Duterte’s escalating “war on dissent.”
• PH is the most dangerous place for activists in Asia, 2^nd in the world. The Global Witness 2019 report listed 43 murders of land defenders in PH driven by relentless vilification by government and widespread impunity.
• 200+ activists including 59 Indigenous Peoples killed under Duterte gov’t. Rights group Karapatan monitored hundreds of killings from July 2016-April 2020 with no justice or perpetrator arrested or jailed.
• International condemnation poured against PH Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. UN Special Rapporteurs, int’l CSOs, several groups calls to junk the new anti-terrorism law in PH seen as a new gov’t weapon to silence critics, target dissenters.
• Indigenous Peoples, CSOs called to #DefendCordilleraPH. Hundreds of large-scale mining applications, hydropower and geothermal projects targeting ancestral lands in Cordillera while militarization, killings, and online smear campaigns intensify on Cordillera leaders.
• 176 indigenous Lumad Schools closed due to red-tagging. Save Our Schools reported  3,600 Lumad students affected, around 13,000 indigenous Lumad harassed due to military encampments, 2,350 hurt and displaced by aerial bombings, 930 victims of strafing.
• China-funded Kaliwa dam projects affecting indigenous lands to push through. Indigenous Dumagat, Remontado, and Aeta raises alarm against the dam project that will impact 5,000 indigenous peoples, biodiversity, and habitat of 126 species in 300 hectares of the Sierra Madre and endanger 100,000 residents downstream.
• Amid COVID, large-scale mining continues plundering ancestral lands. Canadian-Australian mining OceanaGold continues operating in Ifugao-Tuwali lands although its permit expired. Big mining company renewed talks to open the Tampakan mines, the would-be largest copper mine in the Philippines and among the largest in the world, amid strong opposition from the indigenous B’laan Lumad tribe, church groups, and environmentalists.