Report: Marcos admin’s human rights performance falls short

Human rights groups in Davao City protest the killings not only of petty criminals but also of political activists, peasant and labor leaders. MindaNews file photo by TOTO LOZANO

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews / 17 January) – The administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made some improvements in the Philippine human rights situation but “failed to address past and ongoing violations,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement timed with the release Friday of its World Report 2025.

The statement cited that “drug war” deaths continued throughout 2024 amid vows to investigate and prosecute extrajudicial killings, “but no legal action was taken against officials of the previous Rodrigo Duterte administration despite new evidence of abuses.”

“While President Marcos sent a positive message that he intends to address serious human rights concerns in the Philippines, he needs to match his words with action,” Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, was quoted in the statement as saying. “New revelations about the role of senior Duterte administration and police officials in ‘drug war’ atrocities highlight the need for sweeping reforms in law enforcement.”

Lau was apparently referring to the congressional hearings where resource persons and witnesses accused Duterte-era officials, including Senators Bong Go and Ronald dela Rosa, of playing major roles in the bloody “war on drugs.”

Dela Rosa served as director general of the Philippine National Police under Duterte before becoming senator in 2019. Go, who was also elected in 2019, was a long-time close aide of Duterte since the latter’s time as mayor of Davao City.

Aside from the continuing “drug war” killings, the Human Rights Watch statement said that authorities “harass and prosecute, without basis” activists through red-tagging and “terror-tagging,” the practice of linking individuals or organizations to the communist insurgency.

The group added that four cases of enforced disappearances of activists happened in 2024, bringing to 11 the total number of victims under Marcos.

It asked Marcos to “promptly carry out the sweeping reforms needed to improve the country’s human rights situation,” and the Philippines’ international partners to “urge the government to deliver accountability for abuses committed in the ‘war on drugs,’ other extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances.”

The 546-page world report reviewed human rights practices in more than 100 countries. (MindaNews)