By Dulce Amor Rodriguez
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — Before the police dragged young protesters by the hair, before batons cracked against ribs inside the notorious blue tent in Mendiola, Vitrum, a convener of Alyansa Laban sa Korapsyon at Brutalidad ng Kapulisan (AKAB), already knew what pushed him to the streets on Sept. 21—stories of billions stolen from the people, flood control funds unaccounted for, and communities that remained underwater despite years of promises.
He did not suffer the beatings that others endured that day, but he carries the weight of their bruises in his fight. As survivors recounted torture, unlawful arrests and inhumane detention, Vitrum said the corruption that pushed people to protest is the same system that now uses police power to silence those demanding accountability. “Even with the repression and arrests, this is where we find our voice,” he told Bulatlat.
For him and the AKAB, backing down is not an option—not after what unfolded in Mendiola, and not while the corruption they protested remains unaddressed.
Protesters blocked amid inhumane detention
On Nov. 30, as thousands gathered nationwide for another anti-corruption mobilization, protesters in the capital, particularly in Luneta, marched toward Mendiola, only to be blocked by a police barricade. Behind them was what appeared to be an intermodal container. Protesters chanted, “PNP, protektor ng korap!” — a phrase born not only from frustration with unpunished corruption, but from the memory of violence many bore after Sept. 21.
Those memories are painful and, for some, still open wounds.
Witnesses and rights groups documented beatings, unlawful arrests, and torture. Development worker Luke Malimban told Bulatlat that police struck him while dragging him into a makeshift detention tent after the rally—a place many have since dubbed the “blue tent.” He said no one arrived there unscathed: “Not a single person arrived in the blue tent without a bloody face and wounds,” he recalled.
Others arrested that day described how men in plainclothes punched, kicked, and baton-whipped them, and how uniformed officers later continued the violence during detention. Amnesty International documented the testimonies, calling the abuses, even against minors, “appalling ill-treatment,” and demanded impartial investigation.
Read: Police violence, torture cases surface as new anti-corruption protest looms
In the view of many affected, the barricades on Nov. 30 were more than concrete and shields, they symbolized a system that protects those who loot public funds, while brutalizing those who demand transparency. The chant “PNP, protektor ng korap” echoed not just anger, but memory of tents soaked in blood, of children detained without cause, of injustice that remains unpunished.
Weaponizing the law
The violence was followed by criminal charges. The Philippine National Police – Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) filed cases against 97 individuals, accusing them of conspiracy to commit rebellion or insurrection, sedition, and inciting to sedition under Articles 136, 139, and 142 of the Revised Penal Code.
Lawyers noted that earlier complaints had already been dismissed for lack of evidence.
Human rights lawyer Maria Sol Taule said authorities consistently target those vocal about corruption while those implicated in fund anomalies face no public accountability. “They’re going after the people who speak out,” she said. “But there is no action against those involved in the corruption issue.”
Taule explained that many cases had been “referred for further investigation,” a clear indication that evidence was lacking. Yet police revived these cases and filed them again, even against bystanders detained during the chaos.
She also warned of the danger of escalating charges. “They are trying to prove that students were leaders of the rally so they can hook them under the Public Assembly Act or even attempt to connect them to more serious offenses,” she said.
Read: Beyond the Philippines: Right to protest under fire in many countries
Vitrum witnessed this firsthand. Some of AKAB’s members who were arrested on Sept. 21 continue to receive subpoenas. “Even after the protest, the police won’t stop. They keep elevating the cases,” he said.
Why AKAB refuses to be silenced
For AKAB, the crackdown only affirmed why organizing is necessary.
Vitrum said corruption has long shaped the daily struggles of ordinary workers—soaring inflation, flood-prone communities, lack of public services, and health and transport systems drained by theft. “People cannot access the services meant for them,” he said.
He pointed out that even after the violence of Sept. 21, no public officials or contractors linked to the alleged anomalies have been held accountable. Meanwhile, protesters face fabricated charges.
“They call us agitators,” he said. “But they are the real cause of the crisis—they are the corrupt, they are the violent ones.”
Vitrum said AKAB will continue organizing forums, solidarity nights and mobilizations because silence only emboldens those in power. “We are all we have. We are the ones who must corner the plunderers,” he said.
Taule said the repression against anti-corruption protesters stems from the state’s attempt to protect a system that benefits the powerful. She warned that the pattern is clear: arrests, fabricated cases, suppression of rallies, and demonization of students.
“The current system is desperately trying to maintain the status quo,” she said. “This is why it’s crucial for people to come together to resist fascism.”
For Taule, the right to protest is not only protected by law, it is a duty. “It is not wrong to join protests. It is our responsibility,” she said.
Despite the torture allegations, unlawful arrests, inhumane detention and criminalization of dissent, AKAB says the protests will continue.
Vitrum believes the movement will grow, not shrink. “The more they do this repression, the more our ranks will thicken,” he said. “The anger will only grow.”
From Mendiola to communities battered by corruption, AKAB vows to continue the fight because it is necessary.
As Vitrum put it, “Dito kami nakahahanap ng boses.”
Here, in protest and collective action, he said, the people reclaim what corruption and state violence have long tried to steal—their power. (RVO)
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MANILA – Right after the police and military raided their boarding house, Manobo indigenous activist Julieta Gomez can still vividly remember when they were paraded as “communist-terrorists” inside the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).
“Arresting indigenous peoples and activists like me was easy for them– even to the point of planting evidence,” Gomez told Bulatlat in an interview. “But those implicated in the corruption, even with the presence of clear evidence, continue to run free.”
Gomez and indigenous rights activist Niezel Velasco were illegally arrested on July 16, 2021, in a joint military and police operation. They were charged with murder, attempted murder, and illegal possession of firearms and explosives, which were dismissed by the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 91 on April 8, 2025.
Prior to their arrest, the two indigenous rights activists flew to Manila to campaign for justice for the second Lianga Massacre, killing three Lumad-Manobo individuals, including a 12-year-old girl on June 15, 2021, in Sitio Panukmoan, Liangga, Surigao del Sur.
Read: 2 Lumad farmers, 1 student killed in another Lianga massacre
Gomez said the circumstances of their arrest remain etched: state agents forcing their way into the house in the pre-dawn hours blowing the doors open, two guns aimed at their heads as they were ordered outside. Just as troubling, Gomez recalled, was the sudden empty black bag: once full of materials with the sound of heavy metal. When the state agents ordered them back to their boarding house, 40 minutes after staying outside, the police presented what they claimed to have “recovered” – firearms, explosives, and paraphernalia.
Now, the two are fighting back by filing countercharges against the police officials responsible for their arrest at the Office of the Ombudsman. But their case is emblematic of the common pattern of politically-motivated charges against activists – over 700 political prisoners languish in the repeated patterns of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, or the twin-terror laws, or both at the same time.
The terror against dissenters, marginalized
“The political prisoners were the ones who stood in the line of fire against the struggle against corruption and the struggle for justice, freedom and national democracy,” martial law survivor and former political prisoner Bonifacio Ilagan, who also represented the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA), said in a press conference on December 1.
There are a total of 696 political prisoners based on the joint monitoring of SELDA and human rights group Karapatan. Of these numbers, 93 are elderly, 136 are women, 89 are sick, 12 are consultants and staff of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) who should be protected under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), an agreement signed by the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in 1995.
Ilagan added, “they are the ones who should be given freedom on the basis of humanitarian reasons, not the likes of Duterte.”
In a protest at the Department of Justice last December 3, SELDA spokesperson and former political prisoner Adora Faye de Vera said, “Most political prisoners are peasant and labor organizers, human rights defenders, development workers and even ordinary citizens slapped by the DOJ with trumped-up criminal cases on mere suspicion of supporting the revolutionary movement.”
She added that the twin terror laws — Anti-Terror Act (ATA) and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA) have been increasingly used by the DOJ against dissenters. Karapatan reported that at least 30 of those charged with violating the twin terror laws are still detained.
“There is rank injustice in targeting those who fight corruption and advance human rights,” said Karapatan deputy secretary general Maria Sol Taule, “but turning a blind eye to the biggest plunderers and fascists like Marcos Jr. and his ilk.”
Attacks on anti-corruption dissenters
Meanwhile, not one has been held fully accountable in the blatant corruption scandal, not even with the establishment of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), whose investigations are still ongoing.
Bulatlat’s monitoring recorded that most of the high officials implicated in the flood control corruption scandal denied the allegation, resigned from their posts or left the country, while others were invited to hearings. Among those investigated by the Office of the Ombudsman are former and present politicians implicated by former DPWH undersecretary Roberto Bernardo but the public sees no immediate consequences or follow-through of most of these investigations after the denial.
The same pace of progress goes for the public officials and private entities facing charges before the Ombudsman.
Most of the lawmakers named by the Discaya couple in their affidavit were not subjected to further official investigation after being invited to the Blue Ribbon committee hearings. The sheer volume of individuals linked and indicted constitutes no real accountability emerging from the investigations.
On the other hand, attacks against anti-corruption dissenters have been persistent. According to Mark Vincent Lim, one of the lawyers who responded to the mass arrests during the September 21 protest, there have been 216 victims of unlawful arrest, including 91 minors, and two people died: worker Eric Saber who happened to be a bystander and an unidentified man killed by a stab wound.
“As far as I know, most have already been released on bail,” Lim told Bulatlat. Most of the people arrested are charged with Tumults and Other Disturbances of Public Order (153), while the initial charges for Illegal Assembly and Direct Assault are dismissed by the Manila prosecutor due to insufficiency of evidence.
Most of them have been detained without warrant for more than three days, which is beyond the period allowed by the Revised Penal Code.
Moreover, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) is going after student leaders from Polytechnic University of the Philippines and University of the Philippines who joined the protest, issuing subpoenas.
In the November 30 protest, three individuals were arrested and shortly released without charges.
Rights violations and resistance inside jails
Meanwhile inside prison, rights of political prisoners and other persons deprived of liberty (PDL) continue to be violated. Gomez said that during their detention, the prison warden in Camp Karingal isolated them from the rest of PDLs.
“We were padlocked in a small room as big as two in a half arm-spans – all three political prisoners – for the majority of detention there in more than two years,” Gomez added. Written outside their room were words: high-ranking communist-terrorists. “We ask them to remove the texts– asserting to them that what they are doing are human rights violations.”
In Negros, political prisoners and other PDLs held hunger strike against the degrading treatment inside the facilities. Karapatan reported that in Negros Occidental District Jail (NODJ), both PDL and political prisoners endure rights violations, arbitrary punishment, and humiliation. The authorities label the political prisoners as members of the “communist terrorist group,” subjecting them to further harassment and punitive measures.
Read: Detainees hold hunger strike due to inhumane treatment
Human rights groups called on the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) National Headquarters and the Commission on Human Rights to conduct a full, impartial, and urgent investigation into the controversial reinstatement of NODJ Warden Crisyrel Awe. They also demand the immediate ending of harassment, unlawful isolation, intimidation, restricted visits, and suppression of rehabilitation programs.
“These acts deepen fear, sustain injustice, and portray PDLs as criminals rather than human beings with inherent dignity,” said Karapatan in a statement.
The group also underscored that the hunger strike exposes the structural injustice in the Philippine penal system, “where the poorest workers, farmers, and urban poor fill overcrowded jails, while the wealthy, corrupt, and powerful evade accountability.”
Congestion in the Philippine jails remains extremely high. The average congestion rate as of May 2025 is almost 300 percent. This overcrowding causes various humanitarian consequences.
The International Committee on Red Cross (ICRC) noted that overcrowding means persons deprived of liberties have limited movement, sleeping spaces, and ventilation. This also means inadequate access to water, sanitary facilities and healthcare– causing disease-causing bacteria and viruses to spread faster.
In the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), there is a total of P4.6 billion for subsistence and almost P1 billion for medical allowance for 182,556 PDLs. This amounts to almost P70 for food and P15 for medical expenses of every PDL. This has been a static budget for PDLs in the last five years.
International solidarity and rights instruments
Three United Nations experts — Mary Lawlor, on the situation of human rights defenders; Gina Romero, on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; and, Michel Forst, on environmental defenders — signed a collective statement, calling out the global trend of prolonged pretrial detention and long-term imprisonment of human rights defenders.
“Arbitrary detention remains one of the most common and cruel tools used by repressive authorities to silence those peacefully exercising the right to defend human rights and to dismantle civil society,” the statement read.
Read: Double standards in the Philippine’s justice system
The statement also emphasized that such actions foster a climate of fear, creating a profound deterrent effect that discourages the legitimate and essential work of activists, human rights defenders, as well as citizens.
The actions violate the international human rights obligations of the UN state parties like the Philippines on Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Moreover, Karapatan stated that the punitive actions against political prisoners and PDLs violate the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (2015 Nelson Mandela Rules), two domestic laws — Republic Act 7438 (Rights of Persons Arrested, Detained, or Under Custodial Investigation) and Republic Act 9745 (Anti-Torture Act), and the own comprehensive operations manual of the BJMP, 2015 edition.
“The existence of political prisoners is a brutal reminder of the oppressive regime Filipinos are facing,” the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) stated. “The Marcos Jr. administration claims to seek peace, but in reality, it targets and silences those who are fighting for a just and lasting peace.”
The international group joined the campaign to free all political prisoners in the Philippines and demand an end to illegal arrests and detention.
Political prisoners are detained primarily for their political beliefs or activities or perceived involvement in political movements. The motivation behind the arrest is political, regardless of the charges used against them.
“This misuse and abuse of power destroys lives, livelihoods, families and communities. It stifles and inhibits defenders from carrying out their legitimate and essential work, and discourages others from exercising the right to defend human rights,” the UN experts added in the statement. (With reports from Ruth Nacional) RVO
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“These soldiers accused, forced into silence and attempted to detail at will through fabricated evidence and rehearsed witnesses packaged as rebel returnees. And now, they can walk away unaccountable because the state calls it ‘procedure.’”
SAN PABLO CITY, Laguna — In the Southern Tagalog region, the road to justice is a one-way street.
Last November 19, human rights defenders and activists once again trooped to the Office of the Ombudsman to decry the junking of countercharges against perpetrators of human rights violations in the region.
They denounced in particular the decision to junk the civil and administrative cases filed against the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ 59th Infantry Battalion and 2nd Infantry Division, and a separate case against the Philippine National Police.
“Once again, justice has been denied to the victims of state violence,” said Nimfa Lanzanas, paralegal for Karapatan Southern Tagalog.
“By dismissing these countercharges, the Ombudsman shows where its loyalties lie, and it is not with the people,” she added.
Lanzanas — one of six activists arrested by the police on March 7, 2021, a date infamously known in the region as Bloody Sunday — is the complainant for the countercharge against the PNP.
The Ombudsman junked Lanzanas’ complaint in October, citing lack of evidence and the presumption of regularity of police actions.
The same office dismissed last July the civil and administrative cases filed by Hailey Pecayo, Jpeg Garcia, Ken Rementilla, and Jasmin Rubia against the AFP on similar grounds.
According to Lanzanas, the Office of the Ombudsman “continues to shield and protect” perpetrators of human rights violations, squarely laying the blame on Ombudsman Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla, who, she said, has turned the constitutional commission “into a fortress protecting the powerful, especially his political patron, President Marcos Jr.”
A pattern of impunity
The two cases reveal a disturbing pattern of victims of trumped-up charges being denied the right to seek justice against their perpetrators.
Lanzanas was arrested in March 2021 on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
She would be imprisoned for over a year before all charges against her were dropped, but her release was only the beginning of an ongoing struggle to hold those accountable.
In December 2022, she filed two complaints with the Office of the Ombudsman, naming PNP Colonel Lito Patay and 10 other officers as responsible for her arrest.
She followed this with a motion calling for Patay’s preventive suspension in September 2024.
All of these complaints would be dismissed on grounds of “presumption of regularity”, a legal principle that assumes government actions are legitimate and done in good faith.
In the case of Pecayo, Garcia, Rementilla, and Rubia, they were part of a fact-finding mission in July 2022 meant to investigate the killing of nine-year-old Kyllene Casao in Taysan, Batangas province.
When the investigation found that the 59th IBPA was responsible, the military responded by charging the four with violating the Anti-Terrorism Act.
The courts would later dismiss these charges for lack of evidence. The four filed countercharges in July 2024 but these were eventually dismissed a year later, also on grounds of a lack of evidence to show irregularities in procedure.
“Dismissals like this embolden state forces to weaponize the law without fear of consequences,” Charm Maranan, spokesperson of rights group Defend ST, said.
“These soldiers accused, forced into silence and attempted to detail at will through fabricated evidence and rehearsed witnesses packaged as rebel returnees. And now, they can walk away unaccountable because the state calls it ‘procedure.’”
Systemic barriers
Despite clamor, justice for the victims of the Bloody Sunday Massacre remains elusive.
No arrests have been made against any perpetrator in the killings.
Two of those arrested, former Bayan Laguna spokesperson Mags Camoral and OLALIA-KMU Vice President Steve Mendoza, still face charges.
A third, labor leader Arnedo Lagunias, is also still in jail after his arrest on March 4, 2021.
Defend ST has pointed to Remulla as one of the reasons why, calling him “an active obstacle to justice and accountability.”
According to them, Remulla is continuing an old pattern of “protecting state agents, fostering impunity, and contributing to a climate of repression and fear” despite his official mandate of overseeing cases of corruption in the government.
“The Filipino people deserve an Ombudsman who will truly investigate wrongdoing, especially the mounting allegations of corruption against President Marcos Jr.,” said Maranan.
“Instead, we have Boying Remulla, whose loyalty to Malacañang is stronger than his loyalty to the Constitution, the rule of law, or the victims seeking justice.”
They noted that while he was justice secretary, Remulla “presided over the dismissal of multiple Bloody Sunday cases, enabling police and military officers involved in the March 7, 2021 killings and arrests to evade prosecution.”
Despite remedies like Administrative Order 35, investigations were either junked or eventually dismissed on lack of evidence of wrongdoing.
In Manny Asuncion’s case, the DOJ junked charges against the 17 police officers involved in his killing on the basis that Asuncion’s widow, Liezel, was unable to identify them.
Similarly, cases against those involved in the slay of fisherfolk organizers Chai and Ariel Evangelista were also dismissed.
Worse is that the victims’ families left in the wake have to suffer the indignity of continued harassment.
Chai Evangelista’s sister Alaiza was recently charged with violating the Anti-Terrorism Law, for allegedly cooking adobo for members of the New People’s Army.
In Rizal province, where six activists were killed, entire communities continue to suffer reprisal from the military, such as the Dumagat in Tanay where indigenous rights defenders Randy and Puroy Dela Cruz lived.
The use of trumped-up charges to arrest and detain activists also remains prevalent.
According to Karapatan, there are 164 political prisoners arrested from June 2022 to June 2025; 46 of which are detained in the Southern Tagalog region.
Karapatan Southern Tagalog reports that there are a total 95 political prisoners in the region.
Hope despite all odds
Not all hope is lost. Defend ST vows to continue organizing until “accountability is secured, impunity ends, and justice prevails for all victims of state violence.”
The tireless effort of human rights defenders and relatives of victims left in the wake has not all been in vain. Despite the odds, Liezel Asuncion and Rosenda Lemita were able to testify against the Duterte administration’s human rights abuses during the Quadcomm hearings.
The tireless work in fighting the cases in court has also resulted in some charges being dropped.
Defend ST noted that cases under anti-terrorism and financing terrorism laws usually don’t stick and are used to “intimidate and inconvenience” activists.
The group said it also hopes that the Ombudsman’s recent move to file charges against former House Speaker Martin Romualdez and former Ako-Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co translates to “actively investigating cases of human rights violations and holding all perpetrators accountable.” (RVO, JDS)
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