Please see below the full acceptance speech of Atty. Josa Deinla, Secretary General of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.

REMARKS ON RECEIVING THE
ROBERT F. KENNEDY HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers | Washington, D.C. | 04 June 2026

To Kerry Kennedy and the Ethel and Robert Kennedy Human Rights Center, to our allies, partners, and friends gathered here and across the world who have stood with us through the years — maraming salamat po. Thank you.

Our hearts are full — with gratitude, and with the dull ache of knowing that the conditions making our work necessary have not relented. We are people’s lawyers— human rights defenders practicing law in the Philippines, where law, as in many countries, is shaped to concentrate power, to punish dissent, and to make injustice look orderly and legitimate.

Close to two decades ago, our pioneers laid the groundwork for the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers. The Union emerged from a crucible of state violence at a time when activists were killed or disappeared every day, and law was twisted into a tool to weaken their collective resistance. By this time, the Red Scare’s legacy of stigmatizing dissent in the U.S. has taken hold in the Philippines—delegitimizing criticism and paralyzing humanitarian work. A permanent state of emergency, justified in the name of security, has eaten away at the most basic guarantees of due process.

Into this, people’s lawyers have risen not only in courtrooms but wherever the people’s cause had to be defended. People’s lawyers have stood in the frontlines with victims of grave rights violations, political prisoners, and marginalized communities. We have defended people who are met with repression each time they dare fight for their rights or question why we, in a country so rich in land, labor and resources, are so poor.

That choice has never been without cost. Our lawyers have been red-tagged, surveilled, threatened, and prosecuted on fabricated charges. We have been labeled terrorists. And we have buried colleagues.

This award is a salute to our battle-scarred visionary leaders, but above all, it belongs to our fallen. It honors Atty. Benjamin Ramos, Atty. Juan Macababbad, and others who paid the ultimate price for standing with poor peasants, workers, and indigenous communities. Attorneys Ben and Juan were shot dead in broad daylight by unidentified state agents. No one, to this day, has been brought to the bar of justice for their killings.

Attys. Ben and Juan showed us that our profession is a battleground between a congealed “rule of law” that protects the oppressive status quo, and a living rule of justice that protects human life. When a state feels the need to silence lawyers, it is because law, wielded on behalf of the people, is a genuine threat to power. We thus take their unfinished work as our mandate to stay the course.

And we do this by staying together. By practicing — as I tell our new lawyers — with skill but also with tenderness. With discipline but also with fire. By never forgetting that behind every hearing, every jail visit, every late-night pleading, are people whose lives have been made harder by a system that was never built for them.

Our task is not to make peace with that reality, but to confront it. For we know that people in the Philippines and elsewhere will continue to rise, organize, and resist because the conditions that produce dissent have never been addressed.

A drug war that killed tens of thousands of poor Filipinos where uniformed killers received commendations instead of charges, where perpetrators are allowed to flee as fugitives, coddled by their powerful peers while journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and humanitarian worker Marielle Domequil languish in jail, convicted for a crime they did not commit. Corruption so endemic and so brazen that public office has become extraction — where billions meant for social services disappear into the machinery of political patronage, while farmers remain landless and workers remain without security.

These are not grievances invented by radicals. These are the daily lives of millions of Filipinos. When they form unions, peasant associations, indigenous peoples’ groups, or human rights organizations, they are labeled communist terrorists. Then too often, they are arrested, disappeared, or killed.

Just weeks ago, on April 19, nineteen people were killed by government forces in Toboso, Negros Occidental in Central Philippines. The farmers among the victims belonged to a community that, just months before, reclaimed and cultivated a portion of a hacienda—land their families had tilled for decades, taken over without legal title, and that they were finally asserting the right to farm. The military called it a legitimate operation against communist rebels. But accounts from the community, first responders, and the families of victims tell a different story — one that raises grave concerns of summary execution and the use of lethal force against persons already rendered hors de combat.

Among the dead were two American citizens: activists Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem.

I pause here to speak to how state violence reaches even those who show solidarity with the poor and the oppressed in the Philippines.

This violence cannot be separated from the fraught history between the United States and the Philippines — born of colonization, sustained through bilateral security arrangements like the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that our people have long questioned. When military assistance flows into a state apparatus without accountability, it subsidizes repression, under which a farmer defending his land is labeled a rebel, and a massacre is sanitized as an armed encounter.

Yet even as we challenge the geopolitical logic of states, we deeply embrace the solidarity of global civil society. Our presence here tonight is proof that the strategic policies of governments are not the same as the conscience of their citizens. In allies like you, we find an unyielding refusal to look away. You have chosen to stand with us when institutions at home seek to criminalize our work.

The concentration of power and weaponization of law are common features of societies unwilling to confront their underlying inequities — and they are unfolding here, now, in the country whose democratic ideals the Philippines was once asked to mirror: migrants detained without charge, oversight bodies dismantled, and fear manufactured to justify the suspension of rights.

Recognizing this pattern compels us to confront a dangerous illusion: the myth of an immutable democracy.

We are conditioned to treat our democratic institutions — our courts, our elections, our free press — as if they are permanent guarantees. We are trained to look past systemic injustice by calling it a glitch, a temporary malfunction, or the fault of a few bad officials. We are told to patch up the edifice while forbidden from disturbing the bedrock.

But when a society mistakes the trappings of democracy for democracy itself — when it treats institutions as infallible while they are actively used to crush human dignity — it falls into a fatal passivity. It fails to see that fascism does not always arrive by smashing the machinery of law. It arrives by occupying it, rewiring it, and using its processes to make injustice look legitimate. It wants us to believe that the violence inflicted on a starving peasant in Negros has nothing to do with the state power deployed against a student or an undocumented worker in America.

But the tiny ripples of hope that Robert Kennedy once imagined do cross oceans. They reach each other from a million different centers of energy and daring. We cross that ocean now, from the Manila to Washington, to propose a solidarity that refuses to be comforted by myths.

We accept this award as an anchor of our shared struggle. It binds our reality to yours, forcing us to look at each other, to disrupt the myths that keep us complacent, and to refuse to make peace with an orderly tyranny. Let us continue, side by side, the urgent work of lawyering for the people, of defending their rights.

To NUPL — my colleagues — ours has never been an easy path. But we will stay the course, knowing that movements grounded in the people’s struggles are built to last.

To our colleagues who have passed on: you made a remarkable choice, and we will honor it every day.

To every people’s lawyer across the world: you are never alone, and we stand with you. To every lawyer who has not chosen which path to take, choose people’s lawyering and be the best lawyer money cannot buy.

To our clients and the peoples of the world whose rights are under siege: so long as you fight, we will fight beside you.

On behalf of my colleagues especially those who plod on out of the limelight and our clients who believe in us, thank you for this honor.

The post National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers Receives the 2026 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers is grateful to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and remains committed to continuing its service to the marginalized sectors of Philippine society.

The post In the Service of the Filipino People appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

June 3, 2026

Press StatementThe Philippines’ failure to secure a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2027–2028 highlights the gap between its diplomatic campaign and conditions on the ground.

We hold no illusions about the UN Security Council itself—an institution whose veto structure has long enabled impunity for powerful states. Still, today’s outcome is significant: it denies the Marcos administration the international endorsement it sought and sets back its effort to burnish its global image as “pathfinder, partner, and peacemaker.”

The Philippine government finds paths only to new methods of repression and enforces the peace of the grave at home. Human rights monitors, including Karapatan, document a continuing pattern of violence: extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and widespread attacks on rural communities. On April 19, state forces killed 19 people in Toboso, Negros Occidental, including civilians standing in solidarity with farmers asserting their land rights.

The $2.5 billion in US security assistance signed into law in December 2025 has deepened the Philippines’ dependence on a foreign military patron and turned the country into a forward platform for US strategic interests, placing Filipino civilians at risk of being drawn into conflicts not of their choosing. US-supplied attack helicopters have been deployed against domestic targets, including in operations affecting peasant communities and indigenous peoples. There have been no publicly reported US Leahy Law designations involving Philippine military units despite extensive documentation of abuses. 

Today is a moment of accountability—one the international community must not squander. We thus call on states, international bodies, and civil society to sustain scrutiny of the human rights situation in the Philippines, to hold the Marcos administration to the standards it invoked in seeking this seat, and to stand with the victims of state terror. ###

Reference:

Atty. Josalee S. Deinla

NUPL Secretary General

+639174316396

 Photo credit: Abogado.com.ph

The post Philippine Defeat in UN Security Council Bid Shows Human Rights Record Cannot Be Ignored appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

June 1, 2026

On the Denial of the Petition Challenging the Terrorist Designation of Cordillera Peoples Alliance Leaders and the Constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) expresses its profound disappointment over the Decision dated April 30, 2026 of the Baguio City Regional Trial Court, Branch 78, denying the Petition for Certiorari filed by Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) Chairperson Windel Bolinget, founding member Sarah Alikes, Research Commission member Jennifer Taggaoa, and Regional Council member Stephen Tauli.

The petitioners, all respected advocates for indigenous peoples’ rights and self-determination, sought judicial review of their designation as terrorists by the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) in 2023. Their petition constituted the first—and, to our knowledge, remains the only—as-applied constitutional challenge to the ATC’s power to designate individuals and organizations as terrorists under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.

In dismissing the petition, the RTC rigidly adhered to Calleja v. Executive Secretary, applying the doctrine of stare decisis et non quieta movere to a context fundamentally distinct from the instant as-applied challenge. With all due respect, the Court totally ignored the Supreme Court’s categorical pronouncement in Calleja v. Executive Secretary: that its resolution on the constitutional issues raised on a facial challenge is without prejudice to the determination of the same constitutional issues raised in an as-applied challenge once the law is implemented. Consequently, the Supreme Court explicitly preserved, rather than foreclosed, an effective judicial remedy for any violations arising from the law’s enforcement.

The Decision denies petitioners effective judicial review despite clear evidence of serious constitutional infringements. Crucially, it fails to reckon with the profound implications of terrorist designation, including the suppression of lawful advocacy, the curtailment of basic liberties, severe reputational damage, and the persistent specter of criminal liability.

Furthermore, the court placed undue reliance on the testimony of a solitary military witness, accepting allegations that were entirely unsubstantiated by independent, credible, or corroborative evidence. 

At stake in this case is not merely the fate of four indigenous rights defenders. What is at stake is whether our constitutional order will tolerate a standing mechanism of repression—one cloaked in the language of counterterrorism but untethered from meaningful safeguards, due process, and judicial accountability. 

Reference

Ephraim B. Cortez

NUPL President

09172092943

Julianne B. Agpalo

09178870776

Photo Credit: Northern Dispatch

The post On the Denial of the Petition Challenging the Terrorist Designation of Cordillera Peoples Alliance Leaders and the Constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

May 29, 2026

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers strongly condemns the Philippine National Police Cateel Municipal Police Station in Davao Oriental for publicly labeling human rights defenders as “Active Wanted Persons” without legal basis, due process, or regard for constitutional rights.

On May 27, 2026, the PNP Cateel station posted on its official Facebook page the photographs of KARAPATAN-Southern Mindanao Region Deputy Secretary General Grecian Gasoy, along with known rights leaders from Kabataan Partylist and Gabriela Youth, with captions suggesting criminal liability. The posts have since been taken down, but their removal does not erase the danger they created, nor the accountability that must follow.

In the numerous cases NUPL has handled, the vilifying activists, community organizers, humanitarian workers, journalists, church people, lawyers, and human rights defenders as “criminals,” “terrorists,” or “enemies of the State” has led to intimidation, harassment, unlawful arrests on fabricated charges, enforced disappearances, and killings. Red-tagging, as these cases make plain, is used to justify attacks against individuals and organizations engaged in legitimate human rights and development work.

The consequences extend beyond the defenders themselves. This practice of public and baseless vilification has shrunk civic space and cut off humanitarian services from the communities that need them most. When rights defenders step in to provide aid that the state fails to deliver and demand accountability for that failure, they are vilified by the very institutions obligated to serve the people. For some, such vilification has proven fatal.

NUPL joins the call for a full and impartial investigation into this incident and demands that all those responsible be held accountable. ###

 Photo credit: Karapatan

The post NUPL Demands Investigation and Accountability for PNP Davao Oriental’s Arbitrary “Active Wanted Persons” Labeling of Southern Mindanao Rights Defenders appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

May 26, 2026

Community journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and lay worker Marielle Domequil have filed a Petition for Certiorari before the Court of Appeals questioning the Tacloban Regional Trial Court’s denial of their application for bail pending appeal, arguing that the ruling constitutes a grave violation of their constitutional rights to liberty, due process, and meaningful appellate review.

In their Petition, Frenchie and Marielle assert that the trial court failed to undertake the careful, individualized, and evidence-based determination required by the Constitution before depriving persons of their liberty pending appeal. Instead of assessing whether the evidence of guilt against them was truly strong, the ss court merely relied on its own judgment of conviction despite the fact that the decision remains under appellate review and has not attained finality.

Frenchie and Marielle continue to maintain their innocence and assert that the charges filed against them form part of a broader pattern of harassment, red-tagging, and criminalization directed against journalists, activists, humanitarian workers, and human rights defenders in the Philippines.

Significantly, prior judicial findings in related proceedings directly contradict the State’s portrayal of Frenchie and Marielle as threats to public order or national security. Both were acquitted of the charge of illegal possession of firearms and explosives after the court itself found serious constitutional violations in the conduct of the search, opportunities for evidence planting, and critical evidentiary infirmities. In the same judgment, the Tacloban court categorically found no basis to conclude that they were engaged in money laundering or terrorism financing activities.

Their innocence is further reinforced when the Court of Appeals reversed the civil forfeiture ruling against them, expressly recognizing that Frenchie and Marielle are human rights advocates and ruling that the funds illegally seized from them were not connected to terrorism financing.

These judicial findings expose the weakness of the state’s case and underscore the substantial and meritorious nature of their pending appeal.

Hence, Frenchie and Marielle’s continued imprisonment for an otherwise bailable offense is not demanded by the public interest. Rather than protecting society, their prolonged detention inflicts irreparable harm on constitutionally protected freedoms, including press freedom, humanitarian work, and civic participation.

The National Union of Peoples Lawyers calls on the courts to uphold constitutional rights, protect meaningful judicial review, and ensure that liberty is not curtailed on the basis of fear, political stigma, or unfounded allegations. #

 Photo credit: FORUM ASIA

The post Frenchie Mae Cumpio and Marielle Domequil Question the Unjust Denial of their Application for Bail Pending Appeal appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

18 May 2026

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) welcomes the Order issued today by Regional Trial Court Branch 74 in Cebu City dismissing the terrorism financing charges against the Community Empowerment Resource Network, Inc. (CERNET), its officers, and council members.

The accused were charged under Section 8(ii), in relation to Section 9, of Republic Act No. 10168 or the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act for allegedly failing to prevent the delivery of ₱135,000 to the New People’s Army in September 2012, only months after the law took effect on June 18, 2012. The court granted the Joint Motion to Dismiss, ruling that the acts charged did not constitute an offense.

Section 15 of R.A. 10168 clearly requires the Department of Foreign Affairs to publish the list of designated persons before any designation can have legal effect in the Philippines. No such publication had been made as of September 2012. The first official domestic action designating the NPA, Proclamation No. 374, was issued only on December 5, 2017, while the ATC resolution came later, in December 2020. We note, however, that the prosecution’s reliance on earlier foreign designations to supply the missing element is constitutionally untenable on an additional ground. In Calleja v. Executive Secretary, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the second mode of designation under Section 25 of R.A. 11479, precisely because automatic adoption of foreign and supranational designations without adequate safeguards cannot pass constitutional muster (NUPL is pursuing the same constitutional challenge against Proclamation No. 374 in other proceedings).

Without official publication, there was no legally operative “designated person or organization” that could serve as the basis for a charge under Section 8(ii). One of the essential elements of the offense was absent from the start. The case should never have been filed.

The prosecution’s attempt to rely on Philippine Star news reports on foreign designations made years before R.A. 10168 was enacted cannot substitute for the publication expressly required by law. To treat newspaper clippings as sufficient notice is legally indefensible and contrary to basic due process.

The case highlights the continuing weaponization of counterterrorism laws against humanitarian work and legitimate advocacy. These laws grant executive agencies sweeping powers with immediate and punitive consequences, often before any meaningful judicial scrutiny can take place.

NUPL calls on the Department of  Justice to dismiss or withdraw charges without sufficient legal basis or based on fabricated evidence. Prosecutors who pursue and maintain cases they know, or ought to know, are legally defective must be held accountable. ###

Reference:

Atty. Josalee S. Deinla

NUPL Secretary General

+639174316396

 Photo credit: Rappler

The post NUPL WELCOMES DISMISSAL OF TERRORISM FINANCING CHARGES AGAINST CERNET appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers condemns the decision of the new Senate majority, led by Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, to place Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa under so-called “Senate protective custody” and to declare that he will not be arrested inside the Senate chamber. This is obstruction of accountability for crimes against humanity, executed on the Senate floor in full public view, on behalf of a man whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has found reasonable grounds to believe was a co-perpetrator in the systematic killing of thousands of poor Filipinos.

The constitutional immunity from arrest available to members of Congress under Section 11, Article VI of the 1987 Constitution applies only to offenses punishable by not more than six years imprisonment while Congress is in session. The conduct for which Dela Rosa stands accused before the ICC — crimes against humanity — is penalized under Republic Act 9851 with penalties far exceeding that threshold. Even if the warrant were to be enforced through domestic proceedings, the privilege would not apply.

RA 9851 is the governing domestic law. Section 17 authorizes Philippine authorities to surrender persons in the Philippines to an international court already conducting the investigation or prosecution of crimes within its jurisdiction, without requiring a separate domestic charge. The government cannot now disown the same legal framework it invoked when it surrendered former President Rodrigo Duterte to the ICC in March 2025.

The ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I has confirmed a warrant of arrest against Dela Rosa, issued in November 2025 and made public in May 2026, for his role as indirect co-perpetrator in drug war killings from July 2016 to April 2018. With the ICC’s public confirmation of the warrant, the Philippine government is duty-bound to arrest Dela Rosa and surrender him to the Court.

Despite its withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the Philippines remains bound by Article 127(2), which preserves obligations incurred while the treaty was in force. This was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Pangilinan v. Cayetano, where it ruled that withdrawal does not discharge the State from obligations already assumed. The Philippines is likewise bound by the principle of pacta sunt servanda, which requires treaties to be performed in good faith. Section 17 of RA 9851 further gives the State discretion to assume jurisdiction over international crimes or to defer to an international tribunal — and where it chooses to defer, it is expressly authorized to surrender custody of the accused to that tribunal. Surrender under Section 17, it must be stressed, is distinct from extradition: extradition applies between States pursuant to treaty, and the ICC, as an international court, is not a party to any extradition treaty. Finally, there is no provision in RA 9851 or in any applicable procedural rules that grants Philippine courts jurisdiction to confirm or review the enforceability of ICC warrants. Absent such express authority, no court may take cognizance of an ICC arrest warrant or interfere with its execution.

Against this framework, the duty of the Philippine government is clear: cooperate in the execution of the ICC warrant and surrender Dela Rosa to the Court.

We will not soon forget the sight of Dela Rosa — caught on CCTV in an undignified sprint through Senate corridors, faltering up the stairs, retreating behind the walls of the same institution he had largely abandoned while an ICC warrant for his arrest lay sealed. The bravado that once dared critics to come for him dissipated the moment he had to run. After six months of hiding and failing to show up for work as a sitting senator, it is time for him to face the music. ###

Reference:

Atty. Josalee S. Deinla
NUPL Secretary General
+639174316396

📷 Photo Credit: Senate of the Philippines

The post The Senate Must Not be a Sanctuary for Impunity appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), through its Women and Children Committee headed by Atty. Katherine A. Panguban, filed today a Motion to Resolve urging the Supreme Court to act on the Petition for Habeas Corpus filed on behalf of Mary Jane Veloso on 14 November 2025.

The petition seeks judicial review of the legal basis for Veloso’s continued detention following her return to the Philippines.

As stated in the Petition, it is the position of Mary Jane Veloso that her continued incarceration at the Correctional Institute for Women, despite the absence of any judgment, treaty, or legislative authority in the Philippines expressly supporting the continued enforcement of Indonesia’s penal judgment, violates her fundamental rights. The Petition further argues that, as a recognized victim of trafficking, her continued deprivation of liberty constitutes an injustice that must be addressed without delay.

In a handwritten letter addressed to Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo and attached to the Motion, Mary Jane Veloso stated that her prison record at the Correctional Institution for Women reflects a sentence of reclusion perpetua, which she believes has no legal basis.

“Lubos ang aking paniniwala na walang legal na batayan na ako ay manatiling nakapiit lalo na sa ilalim ng sentensyang reclusion perpetua. Aking napag-alaman na ito ang hatol na nakasaad sa aking carpeta dito sa CIW.”

(“I firmly believe there is no legal basis for my continued detention, especially under the sentence of reclusion perpetua. I have learned that this is the judgment stated in my prison record here at the CIW.”)

The Petition raises important questions concerning the right to liberty, due process, and the protection of trafficked persons under domestic and international law.

“Mary Jane’s letter is a deeply human appeal for justice,” Panguban said. “The writ of habeas corpus exists precisely to allow the courts to examine whether a person’s detention continues to have sufficient legal basis. We respectfully urge the Supreme Court to resolve the petition at the soonest possible time.”

In the same letter, Veloso also appealed to the Court as a mother who has spent years separated from her children:

“Ako po ay lumalapit sa inyo bilang isang taong umaasa sa katarungan at sa malasakit ng ating Kataas-Taasang Hukuman at bilang isang inang matagal nang nawalay sa kanyang mga anak. Sa darating na Mother’s Day ngayong Mayo 10 ay ika-17 beses na akong mawawala sa piling ng aking dalawang anak. Ganito na katagal silang walang nanay na gumagabay at kumakalinga sa kanila.”

(“I come before you as someone hoping for justice and compassion from our Supreme Court, and as a mother who has long been separated from her children. This coming Mother’s Day on May 10 will mark the 17th time I will be away from my two children. For that long, they have been without a mother to guide and care for them.”)

Panguban also emphasized the personal toll of Veloso’s prolonged detention.

“Behind every legal proceeding is a family waiting for resolution,” she said. “Mary Jane is a mother who has spent seventeen long years separated from her children. We hope that her petition will be given the urgent attention that cases involving trafficking victims deserve.” ###

Reference:

Atty. Katherine A. Panguban
NUPL Committee on Women and Children Head
+639566730301

The post NUPL Urges Supreme Court to Act on Mary Jane Veloso Habeas Corpus Petition appeared first on NUPL Philippines.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers condemns the launch of a Tomahawk cruise missile by the United States military in the early hours of 5 May 2026 from its Typhon Mid-Range Capability system stationed at Tacloban Airport—a civilian facility. The missile traveled more than 630 kilometers across Philippine airspace before striking a target inside Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija.

That the missile reportedly carried an inert payload does not lessen the gravity of the incident. The Typhon system is a fully operational weapons platform designed to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles—armed with up to 450 to 510 pounds of high explosives and capable of striking targets with precision. The only difference between this test and an actual attack is the payload. What was demonstrated was not only the system’s readiness and reach, but also a troubling precedent: that Philippine territory can be used to project foreign military power.

The legal consequences are equally grave. Under international humanitarian law, civilian objects are protected from attack unless—and for such time as—they are used in a way that effectively contributes to military action and their destruction offers a definite military advantage. The Marcos administration has placed a critical civilian infrastructure, and the people who depend on it, within the legal crosshairs of future targeting determinations in a region where armed conflict is neither unthinkable nor unprovoked. Should hostilities erupt, Tacloban Airport’s prior use as a missile launch platform would factor into targeting assessments under the laws of armed conflict, placing civilians at risk in a war they did not choose.

This incident stems directly from the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement — an executive arrangement that, as we have argued before the Supreme Court, stands in clear contradiction to the constitutional principles that the Philippines renounces war as an instrument of national policy and upholds an independent foreign policy grounded in sovereignty. The Filipino people alone, who were neither informed nor gave their consent, will bear the risks.

NUPL demands the immediate suspension of Balikatan 41-2026; full public disclosure of the legal basis for the deployment and operational use of the Typhon system; a Senate inquiry into the constitutional implications of this launch; and a comprehensive review of EDCA with a view to its abrogation.

The Philippines is not a testing ground for foreign weapons. It will not be a launchpad for war. ###

Reference:

Atty. Ephraim B. Cortez
NUPL President
+639172092943

Photo credit: Defense News

The post The Philippines is Not a Missile Range appeared first on NUPL Philippines.