By DOMINIC GUTOMAN and KEVIN ORTIZ

MANILA – The deepening and deteriorating human rights crisis in the Philippines has been the core of the legislative agenda advocated by international human rights group Amnesty International Philippines, launched in a press conference on June 10, Quezon City.

Jepie Papa, acting director of Amnesty International Philippines, said the group’s human rights legislative agenda brings forth human rights recommendations on a number of priority issues. 

The group called upon all legislators to commit to putting human rights at the center of the Philippines laws that are responsible for shaping. What are the key policies they are pushing for? 

International obligation

• Reinstatement of the Philippines to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Amnesty International Philippines stated that it is a brief respite for the family of victims and organisations protesting the non-cooperation of the Marcos Jr. administration during the last few years, emphasizing that the victims of the so-called “drug war” were met with injustice and impunity.

“By rejoining the Rome Statute, fully cooperating with the ICC, and prosecuting perpetrators outside of Duterte’s case, the Philippine government through the Department of Justice (DOJ) can show that it can carry out credible investigations and deliver its promises of ‘real justice in real time’,” said Papa.

• Ratification of treaties on human rights and international humanitarian law, such as the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, Optional Protocol of the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Arms Trade Treaty.

It was not the first time that the Philippine government has been urged to ratify the said treaties, most especially the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

During the Marcos Jr.’s administration, human rights groups have repeatedly called out the government for the prevalent practice of enforced disappearance and targeting of activists and human rights defenders. The Philippines enacted the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act in December 2012, the first country in Asia to criminalize the practice of enforced and involuntary disappearances. However, no one has been convicted despite the documented incidents by various human rights groups. 

• Establish a national preventive mechanism on torture, in line with the obligations of the country under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and the Anti-Torture Act of 2009.
  
• Ensure all relevant legislation is consistent with the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights’ General Comment No. 23 on the right to just and favorable conditions of work.

Passage of domestic laws

• Human Rights Defenders Protection Act, a law that aims to strengthen the legal framework for protecting human rights defenders and their work. The group said this will be crucial in ensuring that the human rights defenders carry out their work, including the right to life, due process, freedom of expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly, free from harassment, threats, and harm.
  
• Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Bill and the SOGIESC (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sexual Characteristics) Equality Bill: Both legislations can provide LGBT community and different marginalized and vulnerable groups the protection they need against violence, harassment, discrimination, and other forms of attack.
  
• Legislation supporting families of victims of drug-related killings, particularly assistance and reparation, which should include, but are not limited to, financial aid, legal support, and psychological services.
  
• Harm-reduction based drug control policy to ensure relevant services are diverse, available, acceptable, and easily accessible to everyone on a non-discriminatory basis and of good quality.
  
• Legalization of absolute divorce which seeks to provide opportunity to spouses in irremediably failed marriages to secure an absolute divorce decree as an alternative mode for the dissolution of an irreparably broken or dysfunctional marriage.
  
  The Philippines, alongside the Vatican, is the only country in the world where divorce is illegal. Despite the approval of the House of Representatives of the Absolute Divorce Bill in the 19th Congress, it is still under the review of the Senate.
  
• Expanded Anti-Violence against Women and their Children Act which seeks to amend the existing Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act to include information, communication, and technology-facilitated violence and abuse.
  
• Climate Accountability Bill, a legislation that aims to set up a framework for accountability, support, and reparation for climate-change-induced losses, damages, and human rights harms. Amnesty International also states that it will serve as a rights-based standard for corporations, aligning businesses with the Paris agreement.
  
• Adoption of Alternative Minerals Management Bill to establish accountability mechanisms that cover mining companies and other enterprises across the value chain, including mandatory human rights and environment due diligence regulation.
  
• Human rights-consistent legislation, policies, and services relating to disaster preparedness and response, and adaptation measures that adequately protect people from the foreseeable and unavoidable impacts of the climate crisis.
  
• Enabling law to the constitutional right to freedom of information for the communities impacted by mining projects.
  
• Increase minimum wage, legislate measures to ensure fair wages for all, and ensure legal protection for workers protesting and advocating for better labour practices, working conditions, and government oversight.

Repeal of laws or state policy

• Abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), which has consistently been proven to target activists and curtail humanitarian work and peaceful dissent.

Two United Nations Special Rapporteurs, particularly Ian Fry and Irene Khan, have also called for the abolition of the task force, especially its impact on the human rights community and their cause. It has been the long-standing call of the human rights defenders in the Philippines since the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, when the task force has been institutionalized.

“Supposedly the government’s primary counter-insurgency body, the task force has further perpetuated red-tagging, and enforced a strategy of intrusive propaganda in schools and communities that has increasingly focused on discrediting and dismantling civil society organizations and vilifying human rights defenders,” said Amnesty in their agenda.

• Anti-Terrorism Act and related laws, including the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA), which has been used against human rights defenders and media workers.

“The Anti-Terrorism Act continues to pose a threat to those wrongly accused of terrorism, by granting the government excessive and unchecked powers and being susceptible to arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement,” the agenda read.

Community journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio has been wrongfully charged with terrorism financing, and another journalist Deo Montesclaros has been accused of the same crime.

Media organizations were among those who questioned the constitutionality of the ATA In the past four years this law has indeed been used to undermine freedom of speech and expression.

The abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict and the repeal of Anti-Terrorism Act and Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act are also included in the electoral agenda of the broad human rights network in the 2025 midterm elections, and also of the media groups.

• Public Assembly Act (Batas Pambansa 880), a relic law of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. prevalently used against activists, which curtailed the right to peaceful assembly. Among the latest victims of this Marcosian law are the progressive senatoriables under the Makabayan bloc.
  
• Laws unduly restrict the right to freedom of expression, including the Cybercrime Prevention Act, and bring them in line with international human rights law and standards.
  
• Decriminalization of abortion. The international group said that without the right to safe abortion, sexual and reproductive rights cannot be fully realized. It was also recommended by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Human Rights Committee in 2022. 

Policies for review and investigation

• Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 (Republic Act 9165) with particular focus on ensuring that the law respects and upholds the right of everyone to the highest attainable standards of mental health. Papa also emphasized that among the recommendations for amendment is the active role of the Department of Health  in the implementation of the law.
  
• Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act and the mechanism on free prior and informed consent (FPIC). Amnesty International said that corruption, bureaucracy, and the domineering presence of corporations, including the mining industry spurred by heightened global demand for transition materials, have made the ancestral domain claiming process even more complex, tedious, and life threatening. They also documented several irregularities with the FPIC of the indigenous community, in their previous report about the nickel boom.
• Implementation of Reproductive Health Law. Amnesty International said that the government must ensure that the programs and initiatives under the law are funded adequately for effective implementation.
  
• Existing legislations overseeing business operations, disaster risk and management, sustainability efforts to strengthen environmental protection and human rights safeguards

Amnesty International Philippines also called for independent, impartial, and transparent investigation of the abuses in the application of Anti-Terrorism Act, Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act, journalist killings, attacks, harassment, and illegal arrests against indigenous communities and human rights defenders.

Prior to the launching of Amnesty’s legislative agenda, some of these key human rights policies have also been advocated by the broad human rights network in the 2025 midterm elections, led by Human Rights and People Empowerment Center (HRPEC). Eighteen civil society organizations craft the 12-point human rights electoral agenda, which include human rights group Karapatan. Media groups spearheaded by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines have also called for similar policy reforms in their electoral agenda.

Their common demands of their legislative concerns are: abolition of the NTF-ELCAC, rejoining the ICC, ratification of major international conventions, sponsorship of the human rights defenders bill, repeal of ATA, passage of SOGIESC Equality Bill and CADB, increase in minimum wages, and protection of indigenous peoples, among others.

“Every election in the Philippines, Amnesty International offers a clear pathway for reform through legislation calling newly elected Senators and Congress representatives to put human rights at the center of policy making,” said Papa. (RVO)