Today marks International Humanitarian Law (IHL) day. Commemorating IHL is especially significant in the Philippines because of the growing cases of IHL violations being perpetrated by the Marcos Jr. regime in the course of its counter-insurgency war.
As of June 30, 2024, there have been 105 extrajudicial killings committed by state security forces, with the vast majority of the victims civilians who were either purposely killed on suspicion of supporting the New People’s Army (NPA) or victims of indiscriminate firing, callously referred to as “collateral damage.” In either case, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) often falsely portrays the victims as NPA members killed in military encounters in order to escape accountability. Targeting civilians is a gross violation of IHL, which aims to protect non-combatants.
The Marcos Jr. regime is also increasingly resorting to aerial bombings and artillery strikes against suspected NPA camps or strongholds, in violation of IHL provisions prohibiting the use of weapons that fail to discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. As of June 30, 2024, Karapatan has documented at least 44,065 victims of several incidents of aerial bombings in various parts of the country since the start of the Marcos Jr. regime.
Often targeted in the Marcos Jr. regime’s aerial and artillery strikes are production areas of civilian communities. These attacks often trigger the forced evacuation of civilians and wreak havoc on their livelihoods. In Aurora province where aerial strikes in May and June caused the evacuation of up to 2,500 individuals, civilians have not been able to tend to their coconut and vegetable farms and have already missed at least one rice planting season. The economic hardships endured by the affected civilians come on top of the devastation caused by El Niño.
The Marcos Jr. regime has likewise committed horrific killings of hors de combat, or combatants no longer able to take part in hostilities because they have surrendered, been captured or are suffering from serious illness or injury and are no longer a threat to their enemy. The killing of hors de combat is a blatant violation of IHL, which also has provisions to protect the rights of combatants.
One of the most heinous cases involved the summary execution by elements of the 47th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA) and police forces of five hors de combat in Barangay Campagao, Bilar, Bohol on February 23, 2024. According to accounts from local residents, NPA members Hannah Cesista, Parlio Historia, Marlon Omosura, Alberto Sancho and Domingo Compoc were all captured alive. A picture of Compoc was even circulated on social media, showing him alive, with his hands tied behind his back and being guarded by a soldier in full battle gear. Compoc was hacked in the neck and torso by his captors before being shot in cold blood, to the horror of villagers who witnessed the killing. Cesista was reportedly ordered to crawl through mud before being killed to make it appear that she died during a firefight. The military warned the victims’ families against making public statements and having the bodies autopsied.
The Marcos Jr. regime is committing one atrocity after another in the course of a brutal US-supported counter-insurgency drive that aims to crush the NPA by year’s end. However, it is terribly mistaken if it believes that it can win by terrorizing civilians and grossly violating the rights of hors de combat while ignoring the deep-seated economic, political and social roots of the armed conflict.
Karapatan and other human rights defenders will not rest until the Marcos Jr. regime and all other regimes before it have been held accountable for the human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law they have perpetrated, and justice has been rendered to all of their victims.
