Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) sends its solidarity to the Filipino people as they hound the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) representatives in the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Summit held in New York, from June 26-July 2. FFPS continues to struggle against the intensifying repression and oppression of the Filipino people backed by the US in the name of counter terrorism.
In the Philippines, “counter-terrorism” has been used to conflate terrorist groups with the revolutionary movement. Under the “war on terror” of the US, the Philippine government’s primary goal is to crush the revolutionary movement by painting it as a terrorist group and curtailing dissent in all its forms.
The NTF-ELCAC was established under the now ICC-detained Rodrigo Duterte. The NTF-ELCAC has played a central role in implementing policies that have fostered a climate of fear and impunity throughout the Philippines. Numerous international human rights organizations, legal experts, and UN Special Rapporteurs have documented patterns of red-tagging, harassment, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings linked to counterinsurgency operations carried out under the guise of counterterrorism.
This summit also coincides with the sixth anniversary of the Philippine Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, a law that has become a powerful tool for suppressing dissent rather than protecting public safety. Since its enactment, the Anti-Terror Law has been used to intimidate activists, journalists, humanitarian workers, trade unionists, Indigenous peoples, and human rights defenders through surveillance, arbitrary designation, prolonged detention, and criminalization of legitimate political activity.
Both the NTF-ELCAC and the Anti-terror law are continuously used by the Marcos regime to wreak havoc against the Filipino people in struggle. The current administration has implemented the National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) which has long been exposed by the Filipino people as an expanded counterinsurgency framework designed to institutionalize the ‘whole-of-nation approach,’ strengthen the NTF-ELCAC, and intensifying political repression.
As a result the Filipino people, especially the peasant and indigenous people’s communities, bear the brunt of these policies. Communities face strafing, bombings and massacres on a daily. Peasant leaders targeted to be killed and jailed.
FFPS stands in solidarity with the Filipino people in struggle, who continue to resist repression and fight for justice, democracy, and national sovereignty. We call upon the international community to critically scrutinize the Philippine government’s counterterrorism policies and reject efforts to whitewash these ongoing human rights and international humanitarian law violations.
We amplify the Filipino people’s call to repeal the Philippine Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020; dismantle the NTF-ELCAC and end the practice of red-tagging; and expose and oppose the NAP-UPD.
As an organization that recognizes the peoples’ right to self-determination, FFPS asserts that revolution is not terrorism and affirms that lasting peace cannot be achieved through militarization and repression. Peace with Justice can only be realized by respecting human rights, addressing the root causes of conflict, and upholding the national democratic aspirations of the Filipino people. ###