The 20th year of the disappearance of Karen and Sherlyn is not just about them or about their families. It is an indictment of our democracy. It is proof that butchers and human rights violators are being rewarded and that impunity persists.

On June 26, 2006, UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan were abducted by soldiers under the command of then Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr in Hagonoy, Bulacan. To this day, the two remain missing. 

The families and friends of Karen and Sherlyn searched everywhere – military camps, hospitals, funeral homes, and every imaginable place in Bulacan, Central Luzon and Metro Manila. Their search led them to the courts. A witness, Raymond Manalo, testified before the Commission on Human Rights, the Court of Appeals, and the Bulacan trial court. Twelve years after the incident, in September 2018, Palparan was convicted of charges of serious illegal detention and kidnapping. 

Entire communities in Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog and Eastern Visayas felt a sense of justice for the thousands of activists killed by Palparan’s men. The Butcher, as Palparan has been called, was the first military official to be punished for human rights abuses. Even if he was indicted for just a fraction of his crimes, it was still a bittersweet victory. 

Just recently, lawyers of the victims’ families received information that Palparan has been transferred to the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) in Baguio City. Before this, Palparan was afforded special treatment in jail. 

He has been without remorse. In fact, he has consistently justified his actions. Clearly, Palparan only implemented his commander-in-chief’s counterinsurgency policy. Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo praised the Butcher in her 2006 State of the Nation Address, saying, “Jovito Palparan is fighting the enemy. He will not retreat until communities break free from the night of terror and give rise to the new dawn of justice and freedom.”

But Palparan was the one who sowed state terror known as Oplan Bantay Laya 1 and 2. Arroyo’s counterinsurgency policy resulted in 1,118 victims of extrajudicial killings and 204 victims of torture by the end of 2009, according to Karapatan. Concurring with Karapatan was former United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Prof. Philip Alston who also blamed Arroyo’s counterinsurgency program for the extrajudicial killings.

Twenty-years later, the same infrastructure of terror remains. The “order of battle” (or a list of names of activists drawn by the military during the reign of Palparan) is now the vicious red-tagging. Alston, in his final report, said that 94 percent of extrajudicial killing victims with known affiliations belonged to groups maligned in this so-called order of battle. 

Today, there are more Palparans, still emboldened by the President and the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). Sixteen more Karens and Sherlyns have been forcibly disappeared under the Marcos Jr. administration. 

The 20th year of the disappearance of Karen and Sherlyn is not just about them or about their families. It is an indictment of our democracy. It is proof that butchers and human rights violators are being rewarded and that impunity persists.

Still, in this benighted land, our only hope lies in the resistance and collective struggle of ordinary people like the families of the disappeared and all the human rights defenders who have journeyed and fought with them. (DAA)

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Based on the data released recently by HRMI, the Philippines obtained low scores across all metrics on human rights compliance.

The Philippines, together with Indonesia, received a score of 4.6 out of 10 in the Safety from the State metric. This indicates that many people are not adequately protected from arbitrary arrest, torture and ill-treatment, forced disappearance, and extrajudicial killing.

The country’s score for freedom from arbitrary arrest is also low, at 3.1 out of 10, which falls within the “very bad” performance range of the report. It is the lowest score recorded among Southeast Asian countries surveyed by HRMI.

“The exceptionally low score for freedom from arbitrary arrest should be a wake-up call. Everyone should be able to exercise their rights without fear of unjust detention or retaliation,” said Keshia Mahmood, HRMI Southeast Asia engagement lead, in a statement.

The recent glaring incident of arbitrary arrests took place during the anti-corruption protest on September 21, 2025. Authorities arrested 216 protesters and bystanders, including 91 minors. Two died when the violence ensued. First responder lawyers and human rights workers confirmed that there were indications of torture and ill-treatment against the victims.

Read: Police violence, torture cases surface as new anti-corruption protest looms

The report also revealed that the performance of the Philippines in the freedom of assembly and association is considered “bad” with a score of 4.3. The overall average of 5.4 out of 10 in the Empowerment metric suggests that many people are not enjoying their civil liberties and political freedoms.

The scores were derived from HRMI’s comprehensive and secured survey accomplished by human rights defenders in the country.

The survey identified people suspected of terrorism, people who protest or engage in non-violent political activity, activists and human rights defenders, Indigenous peoples, and labour rights advocates as among those most vulnerable to violations of their safety and security by state actors.

Interconnectedness of human rights

More than the civil and political rights, the Philippine standing in “Quality of Life” metrics – economic, social, and cultural rights – is very low. The data sources come from the 2023 reports of United Nations (UN) agencies, World Bank (WB), and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 

Compared with other countries in Southeast Asia, the country is performing worse than average again. It garnered the third lowest score, with Thailand and Vietnam indicating highest scores.

The country’s weakest areas are the right to education (66.1%) and the right to food (65.9%), both of which fall within the ‘very bad’ range. The data also point to a worrying trend in education, with the right to education score declining since 2017.

“While the Philippines has the resources to achieve better outcomes, our data show it is currently not fully meeting its economic and social rights obligations under international human rights law,” said HRMI Co-Executive Director, Thalia Kehoe Rowden.

The HRMI’s data states that anything less than 100 percent indicates that a country is not meeting its duty under the international human rights laws.

“Our assessment is that the Philippines has a very long way to go to meet its immediate economic and social rights duty,” the report states, noting that the Philippines failed to meet the minimum standards of fulfilling peoples’ right to education, work, food, health, and housing.

Meanwhile, in the Quality of Life metrics, the most at risk are indigenous peoples, the homeless, the economically disadvantaged, internally-displaced people, children, people with disabilities, and people affected by climate change, among others. 

“Combined with the civil and political rights findings, these new data paint a troubling picture of the challenges many people continue to face. Meaningful reforms are needed to ensure that everyone in the Philippines can live safely, freely, and with dignity,” Rowden added.

Not the first time: Flagging civic space

It is not the first time that the Philippines has been flagged by the international community for its human rights performance. Global human rights watchdog CIVICUS added the country to the Monitor Watchlist flagging serious concerns about its civic space.

“There is a deeply troubling pattern of state actions against protests that is restricting the democratic space and stifling fundamental freedoms,” said Josef Benedict, CIVICUS Monitor Asia researcher. “It is creating a chilling effect for many in the Philippines who seek to speak out and organise.”

Read: Philippines on human rights watchlist due to crackdown on dissent

The Philippines has been rated “Repressed” for five consecutive years, the second worst rating a country can receive, indicating severe restrictions to the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.

Human rights record and failed bid

The Philippines recently lost its bid for a non-permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a primary international organ that can make legally-binding decisions before the UN-member states. 

Human rights group Karapatan said that the failed UNSC bid is not merely a diplomatic setback but an indictment of its own human rights record, laid before the international community. They warned that no amount of lobbying and aggressive campaigning could conceal the ground reality.

“Marcos Jr. regime has lost a platform for its brazen hypocrisy on the Philippines’ dirt-and-grime human rights record,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan. “It has used the UN and the international stage to whitewash the regime’s violations of human rights and international humanitarian law before the world.”

Read: Philippines’ failed bid for UNSC seat reflects human rights record

Beyond the Philippines, HRMI also released the human rights performance scores of more than 200 countries, tracing patterns of shrinking civic space and democratic erosion in countries such as the United States, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nepal, and the United Kingdom, among others.

Read: Measuring government’s human rights compliance via Rights Tracker

The annual report has been used by civil society and international organizations (e.g. Amnesty International, CIVICUS, International Service for Human Rights) in the development of Universal Periodic Review reports, research, and national and international level advocacy. It is also being used by the National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI), and sometimes by the governments themselves. (AMU, RVO)

Disclosure: The author is the Philippine consultant of the Human Rights Measurement Initiative.

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The Justice for Negros 19 campaign network said that it will organize public fora, cultural productions and solidarity activities in the coming months to sustain its call for accountability.

By Trisha Nasam

MANILA — Families of victims, along with peasant and human rights advocates, launched the “Justice for Negros 19” campaign network on June 24 at the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman College of Media and Communication as they reaffirmed their calls for “truth, accountability, and justice.”

Ariel Casilao, spokesperson the Defend Negros Network decried the lack of accountability two months since the military operation by the 79th Infantry Battalion killed 19 individuals in Toboso, Negros Occidental. Nine of the casualties were civilians.  

Read: What were civilians doing in Toboso, Negros Occidental

“No one has been held accountable [even if] the violations are clear — clear violations of human rights and international humanitarian law,” he added.

While lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc and Mamayang Liberal Partylist Rep. Leila de Lima continue to push for an investigation at the House of Representatives, Casilao said that a hearing remains uncertain.

Casilao said that some sponsors were being convinced to withdraw support and that efforts were underway to dissuade the House Speaker from pursuing it. “Congressman [Bojie] Dy—the Speaker—was approached by the [Armed Forces of the Philippines’] top leadership and [was] urged not to push through with the congressional inquiry. That only shows they are afraid of the truth.”

He said that government agencies have yet to release key materials and documents related to their investigations, including drone footage showing one of the victims unarmed.

“The CHR [Commission on Human Rights] continues to face a blank wall,” he said. “The PNP [Philippine National Police] and SOCO [Scene of the Crime Operatives] have not responded to our inquiries, nor have they provided the commission with documents related to the investigation they claim to have conducted.”

The network’s formation also comes amid the group’s frustrations over the handling of evidence and the identification of victims’ remains.

“Some of the bodies still cannot be produced, and we are encountering difficulties with the local government unit in securing the exhumation or retrieval of bodies that have already been buried. As a result, we still cannot piece together the full story of what happened,” said Kristina Conti of the National Union of People’s Lawyers.

She cited the case of community researcher and peasant advocate Errol Wendel whose family is still seeking the return of his remains more than two months after the incident. Lisa, Wendel’s mother, renewed her appeal to the local authorities to allow the exhumation and release of her son’s body.

Read: Months after massacre, victim’s remains not yet given to family

Families of the victims also condemned what they described as continuing attempts to portray their loved ones as armed combatants.

Sheila Alano, mother of UP student-activist Alyssa Alano, said that the military’s claims ignore the findings of rights groups’ independent fact-finding mission.

“They cannot recognize the difference between armed and civilian, so they will twist the truth,” she said. “Those responsible for the killings continue to push a narrative built on falsehoods because it is the only narrative they can sustain.”

The Justice for Negros 19 campaign network said that it will organize public fora, cultural productions, and solidarity activities in the coming months to sustain its call for accountability.

Among the planned activities are the public presentation of the fact-finding mission’s full report, commemorative events on July 19 marking three months since the killings and a CHR inquiry scheduled for July 21 and 22, Casilao said.

Dismantling impunity

Beyond calls for justice for the Negros 19 victims, the network seeks to challenge the broader impunity that turned Negros into the country’s “massacre capital” where perpetrators have repeatedly evaded accountability.

“It is time to go beyond asking why there are NPA [New People’s Army] forces in the area, why tragedies such as the April 19 killings occurred, or why incidents like the Sagay 9 and the Fausto massacre happened, and instead confront the deeper issues that allow such violence to persist,” Casilao said.

Florence Guzon of Manindigan Negros linked the violence to the island’s longstanding agrarian crisis, stressing that landlessness, poverty, and a monopoly in land ownership continue to fuel conflict in Negros.

“Farmers in Negros resist because of the deep discontent they feel as they endure daily exploitation, where every drop of their sweat and every ounce of their labor is used to amass wealth for a handful of landowners,” he said.

He said that intensified counterinsurgency operations under Memorandum Order No. 32, which placed Negros among areas subjected to heightened military and police deployment. According to Guzon, this policy “gave license” for state agents to commit human rights violations on the island.

He said that these conditions drew the Negros 19 to immerse themselves with farming communities to understand the realities they face.

“This is what drove them [Negros 19] to confront the difficult conditions faced by farmers in the haciendas—to expose the realities they endure and to tell the stories that are often pushed to the margins,” Guzon said.

As long as these realities remain, Guzon said that human rights defenders, community journalists and other volunteers will continue to follow the same path taken by Negros 19: to stand with farmers in their struggle for land and expose the injustices they face.

For the newly formed network, attaining justice for Negros 19 also means ensuring that the case does not become another unresolved entry in the island’s long history of massacres and state violence. 

“With a network, we feel more empowered and we feel that we will win the battle,” said Edita Burgos of Karapatan. (AMU, DAA)

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“Children do not get exposed to violence separate from their environment.”

By Elisha Beatrice Umali

LAGUNA – Local and international human rights groups opposed plans to lower the age of criminal responsibility following three students’ deaths due to a school shooting at San Jose National High School, Tacloban City on June 22. 

Two students, both minors, were identified as suspects. 

In a statement, Amnesty International Philippines said that lowering the age of criminal responsibility does not address children’s exposure to violence and the possibility of these children having access to arms. “When governments respond to social harm only through punishment, only the poor and vulnerable children are affected in most cases.” 

Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Sarah Elago also denounced the proposal of lowering the age of criminal responsibility. “There is no evidence showing lowering the age of criminal responsibility will prevent these incidents. What will only happen is that many children will face punishment instead of addressing the root of the problems they face,” she said in Filipino.

Kabataan Partylist Rep. Renee Co called for a comprehensive investigation on the shooting. “Answers should be provided as to where the children got the guns, how they brought the guns to school undetected and what urged them to do the shooting,” Co said in Filipino. 

For his part, Sen. Robin Padilla pushed for lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years old, amending the Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act. The Philippine National Police (PNP) is also considering lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years old. 

The Juvenile Justice and Welfare Act of 2006 states a child aged 15 and under shall be exempt from criminal liability. A child above 15 but below 18 is also exempted from criminal liability, unless they acted with “discernment.” 

Both age groups require intervention programs under the act. 

The League of Filipino Students (LFS) denounced Padilla’s proposal. “If the real criminals that stole public funds and killed thousands of children are not taken accountable by senators, why would they persecute 10-year-old children?” asked LFS Chairperson Gabriel Magtibay in Filipino. 

Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns questioned society’s role in condoning murders, violence, and bullying. “Children do not get exposed to violence separate from their environment. Filipino children grow up in a society with rampant violence, discrimination, and impunity from high-ranking officials without accountability for their sins to the citizenry, especially the youth,” said the alliance in Filipino. 

Salinlahi said that “it is not impossible for children to manifest violent behavior if there is a normalized view of violence in society.”

Better support systems

Child Rights Network, an alliance pushing for child-centered legislation in the country, stressed that guns have “no place in schools,” urging concerned parties to make schools safer, prevent violence on school grounds and ensure children’s access to mental health support.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) stressed that the educational crisis is also a student support crisis. “Thousands of schools remain without adequate guidance counselors, nurses, librarians, and psychosocial support personnel.”

ACT Chairperson Ruby Bernardo said that investing for safe learning environments, every school should ensure having guidance counselors, nurses, and student support personnel. 

Co said that immediate psychosocial support should be provided to the victim’s loved ones and the youth that witnessed the shooting. “The mental health crisis is already prevalent among the Filipino youth and this traumatic incident will only exacerbate it for the students in particular.” 

In less than a month after the opening of classes, the June 22 Tacloban City school shooting is the third recorded case of school violence. This followed the June 16 knife attack in General Trias and the June 19 stabbing incident in Cavite City, both in Cavite. (AMU, DAA)

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“Who would not be afraid of that situation? Is the PNP aware of DAR matters? Of course, we are just human. We felt terrified.”

CAGAYAN DE ORO — A group of farmers and farm workers in Barangay Sinangguyan, Don Carlos, Bukidnon, was alarmed after the police allegedly called some of its members asking about the legitimacy of their association. 

Jovencio Destor, president of the Don Carlos Bukidnon United Farmers Association Incorporated (DCBUFAI), told Bulatlat that the questioning of him happened on June 10, the day the government was commemorating the 38th year of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), a program that would give farmers ownership to the land they till.

He said a woman who introduced herself as a police officer from Don Carlos Municipal Police Station asked where he was located and if their association was legitimate. He, however, could not remember the name of the caller.

Based on their conversation, Destor said the call allegedly stemmed from a “memorandum” received by the police station from its provincial headquarters in Bukidnon. No further information regarding the alleged memorandum, however, was provided.

Bulatlat reached out to Major Al-Nico Haman, Don Carlos police chief, through texts and calls since June 23 for comments, but there was no response as of this writing. However, a desk officer of the Don Carlos police station told Bulatlat via a phone call that there was no such memorandum.

The call from an alleged police raises questions on the part of DCBUFAI members because a day before the incident, on June 9, they visited the office of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Northern Mindanao in Cagayan de Oro, a few hours from Don Carlos town, to personally deliver their letter, asking for follow-ups on the decades-long delayed issuance of their certificate of land ownership award (CLOA) titles.

Destor claimed that other group members who accompanied him to the DAR office were also contacted by the police, asking if they staged a protest.

“Who would not be afraid of that situation? Is the PNP (Philippine National Police) aware of DAR matters? Of course, we are just human. We felt terrified,” he told Bulatlat in the vernacular, recalling the case of its previous president, Franklin Cabiguin Labial, who was gunned down in 2007 by two unidentified assailants in front of his house in the same town.

DCBUFAI members have been pressing DAR Northern Mindanao to resolve their concerns. Last year, they held a protest in front of the agency’s office to push for their demands. 

Association members are claiming a total of 109 hectares of land that was reportedly part of the 4,000-hectare Bukidnon Farms Incorporated (BFI) previously owned by the late business tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr., a known Ferdinand Marcos Sr. crony. BFI was reportedly sequestered during the Corazon Aquino government, and part of it was ordered for distribution for qualified agrarian reform beneficiaries.

Lawyer Farrahmila Mala of DAR Region 10 told reporters in an interview on June 9 that they have been waiting for the budget approval from their central office in order for the Task Force BFI’s validation to start.

Destor, meanwhile, criticized Mala’s response, claiming that they have been repeatedly revalidated and surveyed, but their CLOAs remained unissued. He also said that they, especially their parents, have been cultivating the land even prior to the enactment of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law.

“They are not serious with their work,” the DCBUFAI president said.

CARP’s failure

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) stressed that the landlessness of farmers has remained widespread in the country despite the implementation of CARP nearly four decades ago.

“Thirty-eight years after CARP was enacted, millions of farmers remain without land tenure or security of the land they cultivate. This is clear proof that the program has failed to resolve the centuries-old problem of land monopoly,” KMP said in a statement.

Read: CARP deceives peasants, benefits landlords

The 2022 data of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed that only 21.8 percent (4.30 million individuals) of the total agricultural population in the country of 19.68 million individuals aged 18 and above—who were members of households with at least one agricultural operator—have reportedly owned or secured rights over the land they till.

The regions of Bicol (16.8 percent), Eastern Visayas (17.6 percent), and Western Visayas (18.2 percent) were among the lowest proportions.

In an earlier report by Business Mirror, a DAR official had reported that since the CARP’s implementation, a total of 4.9 million hectares of agricultural lands had been distributed to 2.8 million agrarian reform beneficiaries as of June 2020.

However, KMP pointed out that the accomplishment remained low compared to the program’s reported original target of 10.3 million hectares when the agrarian reform law was enacted in 1988, which was later adjusted in 1996 to 8.1 million hectares following drastic cuts in coverage of both private and public lands.

“Even after 38 years, CARP has failed to complete its already reduced coverage. The backlog reflects the government’s absence of political will to confront landlord power,” KMP said.

During a street forum held in front of the DAR Central Office on June 10, former Anakpawis representative and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano said some of the principles of a genuine land reform include ending the social injustice in the ranks of farmers, distributing for free the agricultural lands that are actually tilled by them, and no retention for landlords.

However, Mariano stressed that these would only be achieved through the abolition of land monopoly. (RVO)

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The fisherfolk have been experiencing income loss for more than three months.

MANILA — Despite a series of oil price rollbacks and the signed interim peace deal between the United States and Iran, fuel products remain unaffordable to small fisherfolk.

In a statement, the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) said that the P75 to P80 per liter ($1.20-1.30) of crude oil is still expensive for small-scale fishers. Because of this, the fisherfolk have been experiencing income loss for more than three months and still expect to experience losses in the next months if the oil price does not roll back to the same as before.

According to Rodrigo Laudit, a fisher from Las Piñas City, only a few of them were given a P3,000 ($50) government fuel subsidy. He said that the majority of the Manila Bay fishers did not receive it.

In an earlier report of Bulatlat, the Department of Agriculture (DA) told the Senate that around 15,000 fisherfolk who own motorized boats will get a subsidy. However, there are more than 2.7 million fishers registered nationwide.

“The tension in the Middle East is about to end but there is still no progress in the distribution of government aid,” Pamalakaya said. The group demanded the removal of fuel taxes twhich add up to P20 per liter on petroleum products.

Climate impact

In Panay, Iloilo, more than 180,000 fisherfolk are suffering from the impact of the southwest monsoon or Habagat while also bracing for the El Niño phenomenon. 

Pamalakaya-Panay chapter said that the overlapping weather and climate phenomenon “will bring devastating impact” on the livelihood of small fisherfolk and coastal residents in the island’s four provinces.

“It is unusual for the southwest monsoon (Habagat) and El Niño to occur simultaneously. El Niño is expected to intensify the rainfall brought by the Habagat,” Nathaniel Bagaut, Pamalakaya-Panay spokesperson, said in a statement. 

Bagaut said that this could have a more devastating impact on fishing communities and make conditions at sea more dangerous. He said that for more than four months, many fisherfolk are living with uncertainty, especially those whose livelihood depends on the sea.   

The southwest monsoon or Habagat is also known in coastal communities as sigwada. The southwest monsoon season forces small-scale fisherfolk to suspend fishing activities due to unusually large waves and strong winds, conditions that typically persist from June to September.

Pamalakaya urged the DA to use its calamity assistance fund to mitigate the impact of the  southwest monsoon on the fishing sector. The group warned that the southwest monsoon might affect the fisheries production in the second half of the year.

“Fish production is certain to continue declining this year due to a series of crises. Fisherfolk livelihoods were first hit by the surge in fuel prices earlier this year, and now they are facing natural calamities compounded by government neglect,” Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya national chairperson said in a statement. 

He stressed that the government has not taken any concrete action to assist fisherfolk affected by these crises and natural disasters. (With reports from Anne Marxze D. Umi) (DAA)

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The drivers of destruction—large-scale pollution, militarization, extraction—are rooted in imperialism. Fixing this requires more than good intentions. It requires public accountability, national liberation, and real collective resistance.

By Clemente Bautista Jr.

I stood in that hall in Nepal last month, surrounded by young faces from every corner of our region, and one question kept cutting through the noise of the 10th National Youth Conference on Climate Change: Why?

Why does the destruction get worse even when we sign agreements? Why do we hear scientists screaming warnings, yet the forests still burn and the seas still rise? Sitting there, looking at the maps on the wall, the answer became clear. It isn’t just about temperature or carbon numbers. It’s about who holds the leash. It’s about imperialism.

From the Himalayas to the Pacific Islands, we are fighting the same beast. We see the convergence of everything—the climate crisis, the mining companies, the war machines, the geopolitics. The Asia-Pacific is rich, incredibly so. But instead of prosperity, many of us are seeing theft. Our territories are becoming battlefields.

The cost of war and greed

Here’s the truth we often forget: the climate emergency isn’t coming; it’s already here. The decade from 2015 to 2024 was the hottest on record. Storms, droughts, floods—my generation is inheriting a broken system where fuel corporations count their billions while families lose their homes to supercharged weather.

But there’s another cost we’re ignoring: Militarization.

Think about it. Modern wars guzzle fossil fuels, spew toxic waste, and level ecosystems. Yet, military emissions are almost always left out of climate reports. The military-industrial complex is one of the biggest polluters on earth, and they operate with impunity.

And let’s talk about the United States. Geopolitically, they dominate—and sabotage. Recently, under Donald Trump’s warmongering leadership, the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Agreement again. They’ve spent decades trying to block accountability for the real polluters while pushing for these “false solutions”—carbon markets, REDD+, nuclear tech—that let imperialist nations profit off the very crisis they created.

Plundered, not poor

We have to stop calling this poverty. It’s plunder.

Look around us. Southeast Asia, Borneo, Nepal’s mountains—we hold species no one else has. Beneath our feet lie copper, gold, nickel, rare-earths essential for the gadgets you’re holding right now. Our oceans, especially the Coral Triangle, are teeming with life. And our energy reserves? Massive.

So why is there conflict everywhere? Because capitalists want it all. Mining, logging, mega-dams, industrial farming—they displace us, silence us, and turn landscapes into wastelands. When we stand up, the state brings in lawyers and soldiers. Environmental defenders, Indigenous leaders, activists—we face harassment and criminalization just for saying “no.” This isn’t a lack of resources; it’s a deliberate extraction of life.

A lesson from West Asia

If you want to see the deadliest version of this, look at West Asia.

The link between imperialist war and ecological death is undeniable there. Driven by oil and strategy, U.S. and Israeli forces have moved to subjugate Arab nations—Palestine, Lebanon, Iran.

In Gaza and the West Bank, systematic violence over the past three years has left at least 172,000 injured and 72,000 dead by late December 2025. That isn’t just war; it’s genocide and ecocide working hand-in-hand to crush spirit by destroying the environment. We are talking about toxic leakage from bombs, sewage spreading because water plants were targeted, 61 million tons of rubble, 97 percent of trees destroyed, and 97 percent of Gaza’s water poisoned.

And the carbon footprint? The war in Gaza alone produced over 30 million tons of carbon dioxide. Then came the conflict with Iran earlier this year (February to March 2026)—another 5 million tons of pollution in just two weeks from bombings, burning refineries, and missile smoke.

This is the price of an empire. And it’s paid in lives, land, and oil.

Resistance, not just recycling

We need to be honest with ourselves. Public campaigns love to tell us to recycle, reduce plastic, and conserve energy. Those things help build awareness, but they won’t stop a mine or a drone strike. You can’t lifestyle your way out of a system designed to degrade and to violate.

The drivers of destruction—large-scale pollution, militarization, extraction—are rooted in imperialism. Fixing this requires more than good intentions. It requires public accountability, national liberation, and real collective resistance.

We need to oppose projects like commercial mining, unsafe nuclear plants, and mega-dams that serve only elite profit. We must defend our commons—the forests, seas, mountains—from privatization. We owe these resources to our children and grandchildren, not to corporate shareholders.

Sitting in Nepal, I felt the fire in the room again. The struggle for climate justice is wrapped up in the fight for social and economic freedom. If we want a future that’s healthy and sustainable, we can’t remain subjects of an empire. We have to be free people from free nations. And we have to fight for it together.

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Death is used as a warning but memory becomes a form of defiance.

By Girard Mariano Lopez

TAIWAN — “And when your time is up, will you have done enough, will they tell your story?”

These paraphrased words may be from the hit broadway musical Hamilton, but it is an ever perennial question for activists and journalists in Negros Island. Community journalist RJ Ledesma faced it daily as he dared to write the critical stories that needed to be told despite the danger he faced.

Long before his name appeared in statements and articles nationwide as a casualty in the Toboso 19 massacre, Ledesma was a student journalist in Bacolod City. He studied psychology at the University of St. La Salle and served as editor-in-chief of The Spectrum, the university’s student publication.

It was there, in the small but demanding world of campus journalism that Ledesma began shaping the discipline that would later define his work. He listened closely and wrote plainly. He treated journalism not as a career detached from the people but as a form of public service.

Since 2021, Ledesma led Paghimutad, an alternative media outfit in Negros island focused on human rights reporting and grassroots storytelling. He later became AlterMidya’s regional coordinator for the area, covering social, environmental, and agrarian issues from the grassroots.

Those were not abstract beats in Negros. They were the island’s living contradictions as evidenced in renewable energy projects rising on contested agrarian reform land, palm oil expansion promising jobs while farmers feared eviction, and “development” arriving in communities already marked by militarization, poverty, and landlessness.

In July 2024, Ledesma reported on residents of three Candoni villages who feared being uprooted by a PhP2-billion palm oil project tied to the Consunji family. Locals said that bulldozers had already arrived, homes and livelihoods were being disrupted, and land classified as forest included areas long inhabited by Indigenous people. 

Months later, he reported on 19 farmworker households in Hacienda Sta. Maria Uno in Silay City who faced demolition as a PhP3-billion, 69-megawatt solar project rose on land previously covered by agrarian reform. 

Such stories show the kind of journalism Ledesma pursued. It did not begin with a copy and paste military-fed press release or government or corporate photo ops. It began with the people at the heart of the story who stood to lose the most. 

This was the Negros that Ledesma documented, not an island of postcard sweet sugarcane but the bitter realities sustaining the island’s semi-feudal structure kept hidden by the powerful few.

It was also the Negros that had buried many of its brightest souls that dared to not only serve the marginalized but also critique the system that sustains the island-wide injustice.

Human rights worker Zara Alvarez was fatally shot in Bacolod City in August 2020 during the height of the pandemic. The deceased Karapatan paralegal and research officer of the Negros Island Health Integrated Program had faced threats and harassment linked to her human rights work, and had been among the many frequently red-tagged activists in Negros. 

In November 2018, lawyer Benjamin Ramos was killed in Kabankalan City. He was a founding member of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Negros Occidental. He was a peasant rights advocate and a lawyer who provided free legal aid to marginalized communities. At the time of his death, he was representing families of farmers killed in the Sagay 9 massacre.

Their stories form part of a grim pattern in Negros. Those who defend farmers, document abuses, or challenge official state narratives often do not only face death. They face a second violence after death, which is the attempt to define their lives for them.

The state and military have repeatedly vilified activists, organizers, and alternative media workers through the language of insurgency and red-tagging. At the time of his murder along with 18 others in Toboso, the military quickly labeled them as “terrorists” and combatants of the New People’s Army.

But for the farmers Ledesma covered, the state’s attempt at slandering his life could not erase the person they knew.

In Candoni, former palm oil plantation worker Rosie Canillo said that Ledesma was not a distant reporter who arrived only to collect quotes. He stayed with communities, listened to their accounts, and helped bring attention to land displacement, labor retrenchment and environmental destruction linked to plantation expansion.

When asked if her name could be used to tell her story about him, Canillo answered in Hiligaynon: “Definitely, anything for RJ.”

Canillo said that Ledesma helped retrenched workers file a case with the Department of Labor and Employment after they lost their jobs. Another local farmer, Lynlyn Casenio, remembered him spending days with farmers facing displacement. She said that he did not treat their experiences as ordinary interviews but as stories carrying the pain of families at risk of losing land, homes, and livelihood.

That is the kind of memory the state has difficulty destroying. A press release can call a person an enemy. Trolls can flood social media with impunity. Officials can reduce a journalist’s life to an allegation.

But the people who were heard, because Ledesma listened, remember differently. They remember who sat with them. They remember who wrote their names. They remember who made their struggles harder to erase.

In the harsh reality that Negros has endured for decades, it is often the privileged few who get to live fully and safely. The activists, journalists, lawyers, and organizers are made to know death intimately. But it is the masses and the people’s movement that continue to tell the story, despite every attempt to demonize those who choose to serve the marginalized, whether by the gun, the law, or the pen.

This is the paradox of Negros. Death is used as a warning but memory becomes a form of defiance.

Ledesma once said in an essay, “To live in Negros is to know death.” It is a sentence that now reads almost like prophecy. But his life also showed another truth: To write in Negros is to resist.

And because of the farmers, workers, students, advocates, and communities whose voices he carried, RJ Ledesma’s story will not end with the military’s version of his death.

It will live in the people who still speak his name. It will live in the struggles he wrote about. It will live so long as people continue to resist and hold truth to power. (DAA)

DISCLOSURE: The author was a friend of RJ Ledesma and a previous assistant editor of Paghimutad prior to Ledesma taking over in 2021.

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Bella Lutap, 20, who had been missing for two days, was found dead in an irrigation canal in Nueva Ecija at around 3:40 p.m. on June 19, 2026. Her body was discovered submerged in the water with rocks tied to it, and was reportedly almost unrecognizable.

“I know Bella Lutap and she is my friend,” says Yell Teresa, spokesperson of gender rights group Bahaghari. “I heavily mourn for Bella because their stories reveal how violence against trans people is sustained by machismo and patriarchy that treats trans existence as disposable.”

Authorities identified her ex-boyfriend, Calvin, as the primary suspect in her brutal killing. He is currently under police custody and was charged with murder. It was Calvin’s father who discovered Lutap’s body.

In a report by Nueva Ecija-based community media, Calvin denied involvement in the crime but apologized to the family for leaving Lutap behind. They also reported that Marivic Lutap, the victim’s mother, called for justice and accountability to the people behind the killing.

Forensic investigation from the Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) revealed that Lutap died of manual strangulation. It also showed that Lutap resisted the violence based on her wounds in the neck and arms.

“During a month meant to honor the resilience, dignity, and humanity of LGBTQIA+ people, Bella’s brutal killing reminds us that Pride is not only a celebration. It is also a call for justice, safety, and accountability,” said the Society of Trans Women of the Philippines (STRAP) in a statement.

Pioneer Filipino Trans Men Movement (FTM)’s data show that there have been more than 300 documented murders of transgender Filipinos due to transphobia. These cases are perceived to be lower, Pioneer FTM Executive Director Rocky Rinabor said, due to misgendering, underreporting, family concealment, and limitations in the monitoring system.

Read: Legal gender recognition upholds rights of transgender, non-binary people

“We refuse to let Bella become just another statistic. Her life mattered. Her story matters. And her death demands answers,” STRAP added.

Bulatlat asked the Philippine National Police (PNP) for the 10-year data of victims of homicide and murder, stratified by gender identity, including transgender people. The agency has yet to respond to the request. 

“These incidents are not isolated but rather the consequences of systems that fail to protect transgender Filipinos,” Teresa added. “Justice for Bella, justice for all trans people whose names we may never know, unreported, and hidden.”

Meanwhile, the international project Trans Murder Monitoring revealed that there have been more than 100 LGBTQ+-related killings in the Philippines.

Bahaghari vowed that the LGBTQIA+ community will continue to protest for equal rights, safe, and inclusive spaces for all. (AMU, RVO)

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In a statement, the Negros Island Region chapter of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said that the incident aimed to intimidate, silence, and instill fear among journalists and media workers.

The group rejected attempts to reduce the assassination attempt as a mere personal dispute.

“Lavapiez, as a station manager and broadcaster, holds a public trust. Any attack against him strikes at the very heart of the people’s right to know and the freedom of the press guaranteed by our Constitution,” the group said.

According to NUJP’s national office, Lavapiez, station manager of Baskog Radyo, was on his way to the station past 5 a.m., driving his vehicle. He then saw two men on board a parked motorcycle across the highway of Villa de San Lorenzo, Barangay Cagay, Roxas City. Shots were then fired in his direction.

He reportedly parked his vehicle straddling the gutter to make the gunmen believe that he was injured. After this, the assailants fled the area.

Baskog Radyo said in a statement that they chose not to comment further on the incident as they want the authorities to do their investigation.

What happened to Lavapiez, it said, is a harsh reminder of what journalists and media workers face every day. However, it said honest and responsible journalism continues.

“If this attack was meant to scare us, it failed. No threat will ever change our commitment to honest, responsible journalism. No act of violence will stop us from keeping the public informed, and nobody is going to silence the questions this community deserves answers to,” Baskog Radyo said.

Lavapiez and his wife India faced multiple cyberlibel cases reportedly filed by local officials. India was arrested on March 11 for four counts of cyberlibel. She was freed that same day after posting bail.

Read: Group denounces libel vs Capiz broadcasters

In August 2025, the Sangguniang Bayan of Sigma approved a resolution declaring the two radio anchors personas non grata for allegedly disseminating false and misleading information.

NUJP’s national office urged authorities to promptly identify the perpetrators and the mastermind behind the attack. (DAA)

Disclosure: Bulatlat’s editor-in-chief, Ronalyn Olea, is the secretary-general of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.

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