https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3308-942X
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ABSTRACT
The Duterte administration in the Philippines displayed broad hostility towards civil rights. Yet its approach to specific civil rights issues varied significantly. This paper analyses this variation by focusing on two cases: the lowering of the minimum age of criminal responsibility and extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs. In both cases, Duterte and his allies sought to enact and implement policies that infringed civil rights, yet they only succeeded in the latter. The nature and role of mediating coalitions — configurations of actors that opposed, supported, or disengaged from efforts by Duterte and his allies to undermine civil rights — were the key determinants of this variation. The government backed down on lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility because unified rights groups were supported by sections of the oligarchic elite. But it conducted, incited, and persisted with extra-judicial killings in the war on drugs due to fragmentation among rights groups and an absence of significant support for these groups from oligarchic elites. This variation has significant implications for how scholars understand the politics of civil rights in the Philippines, particularly during the Duterte presidency, as well as strategies to better protect civil rights in the country.
Acknowledgements
Our thanks for research support from the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Research Scholarship and the Fox Fellowship at Yale University.
Notes
1 Commission on Human Rights Citation2022; Karapatan Citation2023.
2 Coronel Citation2017; Evangelista Citation2023.
3 Lozada Citation2023.
4 “Red-tagging” in the Philippines is labelling someone a communist or communist sympathizer.
5 Karapatan Citation2023.
6 Karapatan Citation2023.
7 Parrocha Citation2022.
8 CNN Philippines Citation2022.
9 Sevillano 2022.
10 United Nations Human Rights Council Citation2023.
11 Not all parts of this strategy were popular. The push to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility, for instance, lacked popular support from the beginning.
12 Dulay, Hicken, and Holmes Citation2022.
13 Hamlin Citation2023.
14 Fredman Citation2018, 62.
15 Fredman Citation2018.
16 Cf. Curato Citation2017; Casiple Citation2016; Kenny Citation2019; Heydarian Citation2018.
17 Heydarian Citation2018, 32.
18 Heydarian Citation2018, 9.
19 Heydarian Citation2018,150.
20 Kenny Citation2019,121.
21 Curato Citation2017, 150.
22 Berehulak Citation2016.
23 Coronel Citation2017.
24 Evangelista Citation2023.
25 Ramos Citation2020, 500.
26 Pernia Citation2019.
27 Curato Citation2019, 117.
28 Webb Citation2017, 98.
29 Quimpo Citation2008.
30 Casiple Citation2016; Heydarian Citation2018.
31 Cf. Oh Citation2016; Regilme, Citation2016.
32 Ramos Citation2020.
33 This section and those below draw on fieldwork conducted by the first author in Metro Manila, Iloilo, and Bacolod from July to December 2022. He carried out thirty-five interviews with civil society actors, religious leaders, human rights defenders, journalists, family members of extrajudicial killings (EJK) victims, government officials, and politicians regarding these two issues. He also conducted participant observation of actors involved in mobilizing against EJKs. These sections also draw on reviews by both authors of human rights reports, NGO programs, government resolutions, religious documents, and news reports. Fieldwork was approved by the University of Melbourne’s Office of Research Ethics and Integrity valid from July 2022 to July 2024.
34 Anderson Citation1988; Hutchcroft Citation1998.
35 Sidel Citation1999; Tadem and Tadem Citation2016.
36 Bello Citation2017a.
37 Raquiza Citation2014.
38 McCoy Citation1994.
39 Sidel Citation1999, 9.
40 Tadem and Tadem Citation2016.
41 Sidel 2004:3.
42 Regilme Citation2016, 223.
43 Sidel Citation1999.
44 Rodan Citation2021; Tadem and Tadem Citation2016.
45 Bello Citation2017b, 31.
46 Cabacungan Citation2016.
47 Cabacungan Citation2016; Pasion Citation2016.
48 Viray Citation2017.
49 Coronel Citation2019, 214.
50 Alston Citation2008, 15.
51 Global Witness Citation2019.
52 Oh Citation2016, 198.
53 Lozada, Citationforthcoming.
54 UNICEF Citation2017; Save the Children nd.
55 Online interview with a former CHR Commissioner, December 20, 2023.
56 Alston Citation2008; Global Witness Citation2019.
57 Lamchek & Sanchez Citation2021.
58 Asian Development Bank Citation2007, 3.
59 Hutchison & Wilson 2016.
60 Clarke Citation2012.
61 Asian Development Bank Citation2007; Clarke Citation2012.
62 The CPP has a paradoxical record on rights in that while it mobilizes against government rights abuses, the New People’s Army is known to have carried out abuses of its own (Alston Citation2008).
63 A split within the Communist Party in the 1990s between those who supported and those who rejected its doctrine led to the creation of the Social Democratic Left and political parties like the Philippine Democratic Socialist Party and Akbayan. Akbayan, for instance, participates in elections, strives to have grassroots members, and presents concrete development alternatives while foregoing the idea of a revolution (Quimpo Citation2008). In Congress, Akbayan has consistently authored and supported progressive legislation that promotes rights, most notably the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law.
64 Miller Citation2021.
65 Hedman Citation2006, 33.
66 Leviste Citation2016, 38.
67 Leviste Citation2016, 38.
68 Clarke Citation2012; Lorch Citation2021.
69 Quimpo Citation2008.
70 Article 40-3a.
71 Amnesty International Citation2003 and interview with a former CHR Commissioner, Quezon City, Philippines, October 6, 2022.
72 Interview with CHR-Child Rights Center representative, Quezon City, Philippines, October 20, 2022. See also Jimenez-David Citation2005 and Manila Standard Citation2006.
73 Philippine Action for Youth Offenders Citation2008; Save the Children Philippines Citation2007.
74 Online interview with Children Not Criminals campaigner, November 4, 2022, and with CHR-Child Rights Center representative, Quezon City, Philippines, October 20, 2022. See also Villanueva Citation2014.
75 Agence France-Presse Citation2016.
76 Philippine Daily Inquirer Citation2016.
77 Cruz Citation2017.
78 CNN Philippines Citation2019.
79 House of Representatives Public Affairs 2019.
80 Sunstar Citation2019.
81 Online interview with Child Rights Network campaigner, November 5, 2022. The original Facebook post can be seen here: https://m.facebook.com/childrennotcriminals/photos/a.1317969091557342/1335200993167485
82 See: www.change.org/p/no-to-lowering-the-minimum-age-of-criminal-responsibility-in-the-philippines.
83 See the following Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/salinlahiphilippines/photos/a.1497924023803305/2569395749989455/
84 Tomacruz Citation2018.
85 Interview with CHR-Child Rights Center representative, Quezon City, Philippines, October 20, 2022. See also Estorninos Citation2017.
86 Online interview with a Children Not Criminals campaigner, November 4, 2022.
87 Civil Society Coalition on the Rights of the Child Citation2020.
88 UNICEF Citation2017.
89 Rodan and Hughes Citation2014, 12.
90 Interview with former CHR Commissioner, Quezon City, Philippines, October 6, 2022. Similar views were expressed in interviews with an anonymous Children Not Criminals campaigner, November 4, 2022, and a CHR-Child Rights Center representative, Quezon City, Philippines, October 20, 2022.
91 Online interview with a former Congress representative, December 15, 2022.
92 Gavilan Citation2019.
93 Sidel Citation1999.
94 Alston Citation2008; Franco and Borras Citation2007.
95 Commission on Human Rights Citation2022; Evangelista Citation2023.
96 Karapatan Citation2023.
97 Sarao Citation2022a.
98 Regencia Citation2021.
99 Karapatan Citation2023.
100 Cabato Citation2019.
101 Bacelonia Citation2022.s
102 Gatmaytan Citation2018; Lamchek & Sanchez Citation2021
103 Karapatan Citation2023; Lozada, Citation2021
104 Interview with IDEALS Human Rights Program representative, online, 15 December 2022 and National Union of People’s Lawyers NCR representative, Quezon City, Philippines, 14 December 2022.
105 Buan Citation2017.
106 Esmaquel Citation2017.
107 Senate of the Philippines Citation2017.
108 Interview with a former Senator, Quezon City, Philippines, December 13, 2022.
109 Dizon Citation2017.
110 CHR had thinly spread manpower across its sixteen regional offices. Each region only had between six and eight investigators, who had to both investigate alleged killings and do jail visitations for persons deprived of liberty. Interview with a former CHR Executive Director, Quezon City, Philippines, November 24, 2022.
111 Interview with a former CHR Executive Director, Quezon City, Philippines, November 24, 2022.
112 See https://chr.gov.ph/gojusthrp/.
113 Karapatan Citation2023.
114 Symmes Citation2017.
115 Talabong Citation2019.
116 Ropero 2021.
117 Mogato Citation2018
118 Ibarrra Citation2020; Mogato Citation2018.
119 For details, see Lozada Citation2023 and Ranada 2019.
120 Interview with a former Senator, Quezon City, Philippines, December 13, 2022.
121 Parmanand Citation2023,111.
122 Online interview with a former Congress representative, December 15, 2022.
123 Gatmaytan Citation2018. During his six-year term in office, Duterte appointed twenty Supreme Court Justices, thirteen of whom remain on the fifteen-person court.
124 Adams Citation2018.
125 Santos Citation2019.
126 Gideon Lasco and Vincen Yu (2021:5) describe this situation as one of “methamphetamine exceptionalism” and argue that it created “an enabling, or at least permissive, political environment” for extra-judicial killings. See Vasco and Yu 2021, 5.
127 Kerkvliet, 1990; Kerkvliet, 1995; Quimpo, Citation2008.
128 Pernia Citation2019.
129 Curato 2016.
130 Lorch Citation2021; Pernia Citation2019.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
David Lozada
David Lozada is a doctoral candidate at the Asia Institute of the University of Melbourne, and a 2023-2024 Fox International Fellow at Yale University.
Andrew Rosser
Andrew Rosser is Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne.