When: Our Present Is Our Past

To understand violence in the Philippines, we must begin with history.

Our history is marked by successive periods of colonization under Spain, the United States and Japan. While the Philippines formally gained independence in 1946, our status has remained that of a US neo-colony—a vassal state whose political, economic and cultural affairs continue to be shaped by US interests.

This history is also a history of political violence.

From massacres and killings of leaders and members of reform and revolutionary movements during the Spanish colonial period, to the mass murders and sexual violence of the Japanese occupation, to the massacres and other brutal crimes committed during the US colonial and neocolonial regimes, state violence has consistently functioned as a tool of conquest and domination.

Contemporary history is not so different from our colonial past.

As the United States granted the Philippines nominal independence, what I describe as its “little brown Americans” continued to run one administration after another, ensuring that the Philippines served US interests both at home and across the Asia-Pacific region. As China increasingly challenges US regional and global hegemony, the Philippines is once again being positioned as a strategic outpost.

In a very real sense, our now is our past.

Where: From Local Communities to Global Power

This system operates simultaneously at the local, national and international levels.

The Philippines is not simply an ally of the United States; it is a treaty ally, bound through military agreements, visiting forces arrangements, enhanced defense cooperation and unequal trade agreements that reinforce US strategic interests in the region.

The US Indo-Pacific Command considers the Philippines strategically located for projecting military power and securing trade routes in Asia. Although the military bases agreement was rejected in 1991, US troops continue to maintain what is described as a “rotating” presence across the country, alongside year-round military exercises with the United States and its allies.

At the same time, new economic initiatives are deepening this relationship. The so-called Pax Silica initiative positions the Philippines as a hub for the extraction of critical minerals needed for artificial intelligence technologies, semiconductor production and war materiel.

The consequences are felt most acutely in local communities through environmental destruction, the displacement of farmers and Indigenous Peoples, and the continued exploitation of workers.

What and How: Violence Through Doctrine, Militarization and Law

As if using the country and our people as cannon fodder were not enough, state violence is also driven through what I describe as doctrinal hegemony.

Counterinsurgency strategies implemented by successive Philippine governments bear the unmistakable imprint of US military doctrine. From the “war on terror” to “whole-of-government” approaches, from red-tagging—a throwback to McCarthyism—to counterterrorism legislation, Philippine security frameworks have been shaped by policies and concepts developed in the United States.

Military aid has enabled the acquisition of Black Hawks, drones and other equipment that have resulted in violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. At the same time, counterterrorism legislation, administrative regulations and other legal measures have further restricted civic and democratic space. Trainings, the sharing of practices and other forms of cooperation continue to provide Philippine authorities with tools that are used against progressives, political opposition, social movements and ordinary Filipinos.

Who Benefits—and Who Resists?

The question is not only who carries out violence, or even who benefits from it. It is also who resists it.

The United States maintains its strategic dominance in the region, while the “little brown Americans” benefit through corruption, patronage politics, land grabbing and corporations that profit from the labour of peasants and workers.

To sustain this system, they point to communists, political opposition, progressives, civil society organizations, social movements and ordinary Filipinos as the cause of the country’s problems. In doing so, they justify repression, terror and killings.

But the question of who is not only about the antagonists in this political economy of violence. It is also about the protagonists.

Social movements and civil society in the Philippines have not only pushed back against this system. They have played a central role in determining the ways forward.

Documentation as a Tool of Resistance

I would like to end with one of the strategies that has been central to this resistance: documentation.

Organizations such as Karapatan have built databases, conducted research and fact-finding missions, and documented violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Together with networks of peasants, workers, women, youth, church groups, health workers, survivors and victims, this work has contributed to landmark accountability efforts, including the successful litigation against the Marcos dictatorship in US courts and the International Criminal Court proceedings against Rodrigo Duterte.

At the same time, we continue documenting violations because the struggle against institutional impunity is far from over.

Journalists—particularly those working in alternative media—have also played a crucial role through investigative reporting on human rights violations, even as many have themselves become targets because of their commitment to the people’s right to information. Members of the academe, artists, citizen-led initiatives and human rights organizations are likewise engaged in archiving, historicization and memorialization, preserving accounts of the past while contributing to common resistance.

More importantly, when documentation is owned by the people, it becomes inseparable from political education, mobilization and the expansion of movements and collective action—from the community level to the national and international levels.

This is why documentation remains one of our most important tools of resistance. It connects communities, political education, mobilization and collective action, helping strengthen movements for self-determination while continuing the struggle against impunity.