“Kapag ang isang bata ay hindi nakakakain ng tatlong beses sa isang araw, paglabag na iyon sa karapatang pantao,” said Kyle Lura of People Act Now.
[It is considered a human rights violation if a child cannot meet the standard of adequate nutrition]
Under international human rights law, adequate food is a guaranteed human right.
In the Philippines, about 50 million Filipinos reported moderate to severe food insecurity. A recent survey also revealed that around 14.2 million families said they were poor.
In 2023, roughly 23.6% or about 2.6 million Filipino children under five (5) are estimated to be stunted or significantly shorter than the average height for their age due to long-term insufficient nutrition. This means that for every one child suffering malnutrition, there are almost 20 Filipinos living in daily food insecurity.
In February this year, the country declared a national food security emergency to stabilize rice prices and release buffer stocks. However, many human rights advocates argued that these measures neglect to address the root causes of food insecurity stemming from an import-dependent-export-oriented industrialization model. Such a system that Lura highlighted has been worsened by the country’s subservience to the United States.
“Malaki ang papel dito ng US, partikular sa talamak na paglabag sa karapatang pantao ng mamamayang Pilipino,” Lura emphasized.
On PH-US ties
This December 2025, the US released its updated National Security Strategy (NSS) that prioritizes an “America First” posture and reaffirms its ambition to remain the “greatest and most successful nation in human history.”
US President Donald Trump further asserts that achieving peace requires the US to consolidate its economic, political, military, technological, and cultural dominance to deter threats to its interests.
Human rights groups Karapatan noted that it is likewise clear in Trump’s NSS that his administration will continue to foment unrest by mobilizing its allies and puppets in Asia and utilizing them as launch pads in its conflict with China. Case in point: the escalating tension between the Philippines and China in the disputed West Philippine Sea.
Over the decades, the US has strengthened its strategic grip on the Philippines, especially under agreements such as the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and Visiting Forces Agreement, among others. The US is also the top key supplier of defense equipment to the country, but faces competition from other countries like China, Israel, South Korea, Turkey, Italy, Spain, France, Sweden, and Germany. The Philippines further receives roughly $40 million annually in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for the acquisition of defense articles and services, as per the International Trade Administration.
In July this year, the US announced at least $60 million (P”) in foreign assistance funding to support energy, maritime, and economic growth programs in the country. Part of the said fund includes $15 million (P825 million) proposed for private sector development in the Luzon Economic Corridor, which many experts and activists stressed could carry geopolitical and security implications beyond US economic interests.
Meanwhile, the Marcos Jr. administration issued the National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) with the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) as its lead agency.
“With the NTF-ELCAC at the helm, the Marcos Jr. regime has been utilizing all of the government’s resources to profile activists, red-tag them, harass and pressure them to surrender as armed rebels. Those who refuse to fall into the NTF-ELCAC’s trap become victims of EJK or enforced disappearance, or are arrested and detained on trumped-up charges,” said Karapatan in a statement, calling NAP-UPD the latest counterinsurgency blueprint that is also backed by the US.
Following the escalating sociopolitical situation in the country, Karapatan highlighted the massive corruption that entangles the Marcos-Duterte administration in such a bureaucracy that involves not only senators, congressmen, and other government officials but also President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte, alongside their allies.
“Long before the corruption scandals came to light, Marcos Jr. was already accountable for using his power to recover his family’s ill-gotten wealth from sequestration while failing to pay the family’s multi-billion peso estate tax obligations. He created the Maharlika Wealth Fund using government monies as seed capital to invest in large projects, which many suspect are being used to launder recovered Marcos wealth and generate billions in kickbacks and profits, all while Marcos Jr. seeks to portray his father’s brutal and kleptocratic rule as a “golden era” of Philippine history,” Karapatan stated.
The group further lambasted VP Duterte amid her anomalous use of Confidential and Intelligence Funds, emphasizing the call for the resignation of both Marcos and Duterte.
Lura seconded, noting that every peso siphoned by bureaucrat capitalists diverts resources from essential social services such as education, health, and food programs.
“Kaya ang usapin ng karapatang pantao ay hindi lang usapin ng political repression, papasok din diyan ang economic repression at tampok ang US na ginagawang negosyo ang basic social services tulad ng edukasyon, pagkain, at mga trabaho,” he explaned.
Lura added that without structural reforms and an independent foreign policy, Filipinos will continue to bear the brunt of systemic and pervasive state neglect.
Hunger, poverty, and repression on the ground
Vulnerable groups, particularly children and marginalized sectors, bear the brunt of such policies and operations led by state agents, including the NTF‑ELCAC and the Philippine National Police-Armed Forces of the Philippines (PNP-AFP), that caused livelihood destruction, displacement, and disruption of food production.
Cases across Southern Tagalog, Negros, Mindanao region, and among highly militarized provinces were marred by the presence of foreign-backed infrastructure projects built on ancestral lands. These rural communities continue to face relentless attacks by the AFP through hamletting or a food blockade. All these came even when Marcos Jr. announced in 2023 that the military must shift focus from internal to external threats.
Think tank IBON Foundation noted that the Marcos Jr. administration has failed to address the need for agricultural policies that expand production and support poor farmers. Instead, chronic landlessness remains pervasive through land grabbing and land conversion.
Over decades, seven out of 10 farmers remain landless since Cory Aquino’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, up until the present, as in the case of Marcos Jr.’s New Agrarian Emancipation Act.
Many human rights groups and environmentalists further slammed NTF-ELCAC’s farm-to-market roads, referred to as “farm-to-pocket roads”, for being poorly planned or substandard to address agricultural productivity.
The legacy of yet another Marcos
“Since Marcos Jr. took power in July 2022, his security forces have been responsible for 134 extrajudicial killings (EJK); 15 enforced disappearances; 822 arbitrary arrests; 577 forced or fake surrenders; 70,028 cases of indiscriminate firing; and 57,156 cases of indiscriminate bombing. There have also been 48,247 victims of forced evacuation and millions of victims of threats, harassment, and intimidation, including redtagging,” Karapatan reported, noting that out of 696 political prisoners, 163 were arrested under his watch.
Among the arrested are 12 consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which according to the rights group, violates signed agreements like the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHIHL).
Furthermore, up to 227 mass leaders and activists have been falsely charged with violating the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA). Thirty (30) of them are currently detained, while 34 individuals, including NDFP consultants and leaders of people’s organizations, have been arbitrarily designated as “terrorists” And two are victims of enforced disappearance.
In commemoration of International Human Rights Day, various groups vowed to renew their demands for real justice and accountability.
“We shall rally in defense of the civil and political rights that Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte have ruthlessly trampled on. We shall clamor for an end to the fascism, corruption, and puppetry of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte and to raise calls for genuinely patriotic and democratic alternatives emanating from the people themselves,” said Karapatan.
