On the third day of the Asia Pacific Regional Conference on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) at the New World Hotel in Makati City, KARAPATAN and activists from various groups protested at the venue of the conference and denounced the Marcos regime’s hosting of the event as “another act of hypocrisy and window-dressing before the international community, amid numerous human rights and IHL violations under the current administration.”
The conference opened on Monday, August 11, 2025, and will run up until the 14th, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Philippines is a State Party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocols, which are international treaties that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment during armed conflict.
“The Marcos administration’s claim of a ‘strong and enduring legacy of championing IHL’ is a hoax. The Philippine government is a notorious purveyor of IHL violations, from bombings, indiscriminate firing, forced evacuations, military encampment in civilian homes, schools, and public facilities, hamletting and imposing de facto martial law in rural and indigenous communities, torture and killing of hors de combat and civilians, desecration of remains of those killed, and denial of return of remains to families, among others,” said KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay.
Palabay said that “the Marcos regime’s refusal to reaffirm commitment to and respect of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), which the Philippine government signed in 1998 with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, as well as its continued counterinsurgency program through the National Action Plan on Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) implemented by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) are grave indicators of its legacy of non-adherence to and contempt for IHL principles.”
Previous counterinsurgency programs and the NAP-UPD deliberately blur the distinction between civilians and combatants in the government’s civil war against the Communist Party of the Philippines, she said, and thus, red-tagging and other forms of violations of human rights and IHL have been repeatedly perpetrated with impunity by State security forces.
“It is ironic that such a conference is being hosted during IHL month and the series of military operations that have caused civilian deaths and terrorized rural communities, including those in Mindoro Occidental and Quezon,” she stated.
“While the military pays lip service to IHL,” said Palabay, “on August 1, 2025, Juan Sumilhig, a Maranao farmer and former political prisoner, was brutally killed by elements of the 4th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA) in Sitio Salidang, Barangay Naibuan, San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. “As in many other instances of this nature,” she added, “the military falsely claimed that Sumilhig, an unarmed civilian, was killed in an encounter between the military and the NPA. Worse, the military and police refused for days to turn over Sumilhig’s remains to his family in violation of IHL, and threatened to shoot members of a humanitarian team assisting the family.
“The 16th IBPA also strafed, shelled and conducted aerial bombings twice in Tagkawayan, Quezon Province from August 2 to 3, 2025, spreading fear among the residents, who could not engage in their farming and copra making activities,” added Palabay.
“The strafing, artillery and aerial attacks were allegedly triggered by clashes between the military and the New People’s Army (NPA) on August 2 but residents have reported that since 2023, the 85th Infantry Battalion has been encamping in one village,” said Palabay, “During the past week, at least 300 soldiers have been reportedly deployed in four villages, where residents are highly vulnerable to restrictions on freedom of movement, harassment and other forms of IHL violations.
Residents of remote villages in Tagkawayan and other towns in the Bondoc Peninsula in southern Quezon have been bearing the brunt of repressive military operations for months now, according to reports from Karapatan-Southern Tagalog. On March 4, 2025, three copra farmers were almost killed when the 81st IBPA conducted strafing and aerial strikes in their production areas, endangering civilian lives. Soldiers from the 85th, 16th and 81st IBPA have long been encamped in farming communities and coconut lands of Tagkawayan.
Earlier, on December 12, 2024, Ronilo Villanueva, a copra farmer, was shot in the foot by elements of the 85th IBPA in Barangay Guinhalinan, San Narciso, Quezon. Villanueva, however, was only making copra when he was shot and arrested with another farmer named Genaro. “To prevent human rights organizations from investigating the incident, the Guinhalinan village council, at the military’s instigation, passed a resolution declaring Karapatan-Southern Tagalog and other progressive organizations ‘persona non grata,’” added Palabay.
“We are aghast at the sheer hypocrisy of the Marcos Jr. regime as it holds a grand IHL conference in the middle of all these atrocities being committed against civilians by its military forces. We denounce these ongoing IHL violations, as we call for the junking of NAP-UPD and the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC,” said Palabay.