By Panaghiusa Philippine Network to Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
The Philippines is home to an estimated 14–17 million Indigenous Peoples, whose communities span the archipelago from the Cordillera in the north to Mindanao in the south. Despite constitutional recognition and the passage of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) in 1997, which affirms their rights to ancestral domains, self-governance, and cultural integrity, the Indigenous Peoples continue to face systemic attacks, discrimination, marginalization, and violence.
One of the most alarming manifestations of the attacks against the Indigenous Peoples is the criminalization and incarceration. They have been subjected to arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention, and fabricated charges, often justified under the guise of national security or counterinsurgency. These punitive actions are frequently linked to their opposition to development projects such as mining, logging, dam construction, and the militarization of ancestral lands. The state response to Indigenous Peoples’ resistance has increasingly relied on anti-terror laws, red tagging, and militarized policing.
Arrests are often carried out without warrants, charges rest on questionable evidence, and pre trial detention can last months or years. Prison conditions rarely accommodate Indigenous cultural practices, compounding the injustice.
Across the country, a disturbing pattern has emerged, one that criminalizes the Indigenous Peoples, silences political advocacy, and weaponizes the justice system against those who dare to resist. The cases of around 700 political prisoners, including Rocky Torres and Avelardo “Dandoy” Avellaneda, Christian Comezo, Endelyn and Tiven Malan, Awing Lumpat and Bener Rimbuwan, and Benny Hilamon, reveal how repression operates not through isolated incidents but through a systematic campaign of fear, detention, and legal harassment.
Red-tagging has become a catch-all justification for illegal arrest, surveillance, and public vilification while fabricated charges such as illegal possession of firearms and explosives or murder are routinely filed on the basis of planted evidence or procedural irregularities. The Indigenous Peoples are targeted, with advocacy for ancestral lands reframed as subversion and activism conflated with terrorism under laws such as the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. Detainees are often held far from their communities, weakening their defense and isolating them from family support, while arrests at checkpoints, raids, and intelligence operations blur the line between civilian governance and military control.
These patterns are structural. They reflect a state terror that views the resistance of the Indigenous Peoples and advocates’ as a threat and deploys every tool at its disposal to dismantle it. The plight of Indigenous Peoples political prisoners demands not only legal redress but also political solidarity. Their cases call on the people to recognize the systemic nature of the violence and to demand justice, accountability, and the defense of Indigenous Peoplesrights. This is not merely a list of names. It is a map of resistance.
