Urgent Alert
October 11, 2025
ICHRP condemns the reported surveillance and harassment of delegates of “Grounding Solidarity: A Learning and Solidarity Mission to Communities Affected by Climate Injustice and Militarism.”
On Saturday October 11th, delegates reported harassment by elements linked to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) at their campsite in Mindoro while others reported being surveilled by covert agents in their respective lodgings in Leyte and Manila mission legs.
Reports indicate that covert agents surveilled delegates’ lodgings and photographed participants without consent. Meanwhile in Mindoro, barangay officials arrived at the campsite demanding a mayor’s permit and a complete list of all delegates, insisting that the previously submitted courtesy letter was “not official.” Officials threatened to declare participants persona non grata if they failed to comply.
According to People Rising for Climate Justice, “Under existing laws, no barangay or mayor’s permit is legally required to hold activities on private premises. There is no law that compels disclosure of the names of participants or delegates, especially in advocacy, humanitarian, or mission-related activities. This includes foreign delegates, whose entry and presence are governed by immigration law.”
In their statement, People Rising for Climate Justice stated “Even as NTF‑ELCAC agents threatened the delegates, the very presence of the mission proved a decisive win. The need for solidarity for affected communities by twin evils of climate injustice and militarism underscores the need to protect the environment and its defenders.”
ICHRP echoes this response from ISM organizers. The surveillance and harassment of ISM delegates further exposes the Philippine government’s active campaign to squash the efforts of people’s organizations. On the one hand, people’s organizations in the Philippines seek to address the economic, environmental and social problems of the country and develop people-to-people solidarity towards genuine solutions to the global climate crisis. On the other hand, the Philippine government sends state forces to try to disrupt and disband people’s organizing while government officials pocket people’s funds through massive schemes of corruption and plunder.
These incidents emphasize the urgent need for global solidarity for the Filipino people’s struggle for land and self-determination. This October, during peasant month, ICHRP calls on the international community to remain vigilant in monitoring the International Solidarity Mission to rural communities and to be bold in exposing the realities faced by peasants and indigenous people in the Philippines.
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