Online attacks vs young Filipino activists spilling into real world

MANILA, Philippines — Persistent online attacks against young human rights defenders in the Philippines have created a climate of fear and mistrust that ripples through families and communities, according to a new report by a human rights watchdog.

Online content that tags young activists as enemies of the state — a practice normalized by the anti-insurgency task force created by former President Rodrigo Duterte and kept by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — has also reached a wider audience through Facebook's lax content moderation, according to Amnesty International. 

The study by Amnesty International, released on Monday, October 14, draws from interviews with 41 young human rights activists between ages 19 and 28, extensive desk research, and analysis of social media content. Conducted between January and June 2024, the study is based on in-person discussions with activists in Manila, Baguio City, and Laguna, along with online interviews with rights defenders from Negros and Mindanao.  

The report covers events from 2018 to 2024, which coincides with the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act (2020) and the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic — both of which the group said escalated state-led attacks on these activists.

Wilnor Papa of Amnesty International Philippines said the study highlights the government's lack of protections for Filipino human rights defenders and how Meta inadvertently amplifies attacks against them through their platform.

The report forms part of Amnesty International's campaign to protect protests worldwide, which it says is increasingly being vilified by different governments, including the Philippines, Papa said at a press conference on Monday.

"Our protests are where we raise the issues we see and share with the government what needs to be done, as sometimes these matters go unnoticed," Papa said, adding: "We see in different parts of the world, not just in the Philippines, that protesting is blatantly criminalized."

Trauma from being red-tagged

Red-tagging crops up as the government's main strategy to discredit young activists and other critics, and contrary to the Marcos administration's claims, remains a widespread practice even post-Duterte, the study found.

It was under Duterte that posts red-tagging activists became a "widespread, cheap and effective" method to harass critics during the COVID-19 lockdown, when most turned to the internet for sources of information. The practice was led by National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, whose red-tagging legitimized threats against young rights defenders.

High-ranking members of the NTF-ELCAC, as well as other public officials, "created a hostile climate for young human rights defenders, using red-tagging as a dog whistle to incite hatred against young advocates engaged in diverse human rights causes and against student journalists," the study said. 

The study cites a 26 year-old activist in Baguio named Miguel, who said: "[Online] red-tagging was very noticeable under the Duterte administration, because pre-pandemic, it was the trolls commenting, and then suddenly during the pandemic, it became online red-tagging, outright red-tagging." 

"Our faces were being put up, even children's faces, even families," he said.

The consequences of being red-tagged took on a more sinister tone after the passage of the widely contested Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, which gave state security forces the impetus to file "baseless complaints against young activists," make arbitrary arrests, and cause several to disappear. 

“We break down and it's traumatic. It's not a normal thing to be facing at our age," activist Hailey Pecayo said, as quoted in the study. 

Pecayo at 19 was charged with criminal cases, including attempted murder and violations of the Anti-Terrorism Act, after she joined a 2022 fact-finding mission on the military's alleged rights violations in Batangas.  

Meanwhile, a 26-year-old student activist named "Ana" said: “When you're harassed online or when you're posted online, that makes you a target. It's letting people know that this person is a target, that you should not get close to this person."

"Of course, if you're not yet organized, it would make you think that you wouldn't want to be an activist because your life would be put in danger.” 

Government actors under Marcos — who refuses to disband the NTF-ELCAC despite recommendations to abolish the body for overstepping its mandate — have also extended the practice of red-tagging. During the first half of 2024, the Ateneo Human Rights Center's Anti-Red-Tagging Monitoring Project documented over 450 red-tagging incidents, with 61% coming from government sources.

RELATED: Attacks vs activists persist despite Marcos' new human rights 'super body' | Group blasts 'AFP-led seminar' for handing out red-tagging pamphlets at Taytay SHS

Since Marcos assumed office in 2022, at least 14 persons, mostly rights defenders or their relatives, have gone missing after reportedly being abducted. This has made enforced disappearance a "fast-growing phenomenon" under the presidency of Marcos Jr., similar to the phenomenon under his father, the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., human rights group Karapatan said.

Most abductions took place in "heavily militarized regions," including places covered by the controversial Memorandum Order No. 32 issued under former President Rodrigo Duterte.

RELATED: Abducted activists under Marcos a 'fast-growing' scourge — rights groups

Families, communities silenced

Young rights defenders said the harassment they experience, often as retribution for their human rights advocacies, exact a tall personal cost, including social isolation and mental distress. 

The chilling effect is also felt across organizations and, on top of pressure from concerned relatives, has driven others to give up on their advocacies, the group said.

The study quotes a student journalist and member of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines as saying: “We really do not blame our parents for having views that are opposed to us. It is because of how every government has built this systemic public distrust against student activists.”

The government's vilification of young activists online, while do not always directly lead to offline consequences, often set the stage for acts of intimidation from state forces.

The study highlights a chilling incident involving a Southern Luzon activist, who said they and their group was confronted by military or plainclothes officers at their family's homes.

There are at least eight similar cases where military personnel visited the homes of student journalists to baselessly accuse them of being New People's Army recruits, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines as cited in the study.  

As a result of such intimidation and surveillance, activists and journalists of various ages reported to Amnesty International that they now struggle to mobilize volunteers and speak to sources due to people's fear of experiencing the same. 

Mia Tonogbanua, a former member of Amnesty International Philippines' youth board, said young activists like her are indiscriminately targeted regardless of their advocacies.

When asked if she sees a pattern in government red-tagging, she said: "What they usually see are the journalists or their involvement in rallies. Whatever issue is being talked about, as long as they're seen there, they are subject to red-tagging."

"It doesn't matter what issue is bannered in the protest. Just participating in rallies subjects you to red-tagging," she said.