Working with a target on your back: The struggle for justice and human rights in the Philippines

This episode of VC Mytilini is the first of a two episode series about the human rights struggle in the Philippines. For many decades, people who opposed one of the various regimes in the Philippines have been suffering repression in various forms, and over the years hundreds of people have been killed by or through actions of the Government. Despite their severity, the situation seems to fly very much under the radar in the mainstream news, and when I heard about it from my friend Ceren Uysal, I was eager to find out more.

I have interviewed two people, Christina Palabay who is working with the left wing organization Karapatan, and Rhea Padilla, who is a journalist and activist. Topics include the practice of “Red Tagging”, which is a tactic the government uses to discredit dissidents by painting them as communists, and the high amount of extra-judicial killings most likely perpetrated by the government.

Part two and the full, unedited interview I did with Christina Palabay will be released at a later date.

Additional links:

More info on Karapatan:

https://www.karapatan.org/

And more specifically reports I used as a resource for this episode:

https://iftd.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/IFTD-2024-Focus-Country_Philippines_-announcement.pdf

https://www.karapatan.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Karapatan_YearendReport2023.pdf

A recording of a presentation that Christina Palabay participated in:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4kg1JEgGqw   (Christina speaks after  2 hours 40 min)

Music:

A Hawk and a Hacksaw – Turkish

Comfort Fit – Swabian Sound System

MOHMOHRAP – Free rap trap free instrumental _face_

BOPD – aint no thing

Comfort Fit – Remember Something I Forgot