Cristina Palabay, Secretary General, Karapatan Philippines: Ibon man may layang lumipad: Political Imprisonment and Lawfare in the Philippines

The use of political imprisonment and lawfare in the Philippines is intrinsically linked to the history of colonialism, neocolonialism, and political resistance of movements for national and social liberation.
During precolonial times, the informal prison system was community-based, whereby penalties were meted out by local chieftains in accordance to local laws and incarceration was within the communities.
The formal prison system in the Philippines started during the Spanish colonial rule, marked by the establishment of the Old Bilibid Prison in 1847,¹ within a period when early organized peasant movements and underground dissent were growing against the colonial regime’s abuses and exploitation. The prison, the main penitentiary in Oroquieta Street in Manila and known as Carcel y Presidio Correccional, was built for common prisoners (“Carcel”) and for political convicts (“Presidio”).
Later, in 1869, the San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm was also established as a penal colony for Muslim rebels and political prisoners,² as deportation or exile to remote areas became a common punishment for so-called political offenders to remove them from the centers of rebellion.
Much later, especially when the political reform and revolutionary movements against the Spanish occupation were established, the dungeons of Fort Santiago in Intramuros,³ Manila, were used to imprison political dissidents, who were subjected to physical torture and severe mistreatment.
The construction of prisons by the Spanish colonizers had been a deliberate tactic to suppress resistance to colonial rule and instill a social order in accordance to the interests of Spain. Pacification campaigns, including arrests, were carried out by the Spanish Army, Navy, and the Guardia Civil.⁴ Among the notable cases of those imprisoned due to their roles in political resistance include the leaders and participants in the Magalat Revolt of 1596 against abusive Spanish tribute collectors and forced labor; the three Filipino priests collectively known as Gomburza (Mariano Gomez, Jose Burgos, and Jacinto Zamora), who were detained following the 1872 Cavite mutiny⁵ and publicly executed via garrote; writer Jose Rizal,⁶ who was detained at Fort Santiago before his execution; and worker revolutionary Andres Bonifacio,⁷ who was tried, detained, and executed in Cavite.
As the American colonial rule came, the US used the legal architecture of legislation to suppress resistance and criminalize advocacy for independence, reclassifying anti-colonial fighters as common criminals. Five laws passed by the US colonial government had been crucial tools to suppress nationalist movements and quell armed resistance. The first of these laws authorized the organization of a national police force, the Philippine Constabulary, in July 1901. The other four laws were the Sedition Law (November 1901), the Brigandage Law (November 1902), the Reconcentration Law (June 1903), and the Flag Law (September 1907), which had been intended to suppress Filipino nationalism and ensure the colonial government’s control over society. Upon the enactment of the National Defense Law in 1935, the Armed Forces of the Philippines was officially established, and in 1938, the Constabulary Division (precursor of the Philippine Constabulary) was reorganized into a national police force which undertook roles on “peace and order” in the islands and conducted the arrests.
The Philippine prison system was reorganized through the creation of the Bureau of Prisons (now the Bureau of Corrections) under the Reorganization Act of 1905. Prisons became tools of “benevolent assimilation” and surveillance to contain anti-colonial resistance.
The Old Bilibid Prison had been renamed as the Manila City Jail in 1940, when inmates were transferred to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa⁸ due to extreme overcrowding. The following facilities were also established mainly to imprison ladrones, tulisanes, and bandoleros (bandits, outlaws, or brigands), as the recent laws have regarded revolucionarios (revolutionaries) or insurrectos (insurgents): the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm in 1904, the Davao Penal Colony in 1932, and the Correctional Institution for Women in 1929. Revolutionaries Crisanto Evangelista, Jacinto G. Manahan, and Dominador J. Ambrosio of the old Communist Party of the Philippines,⁹ Luis Taruc of the Socialist Party of the Philippines,¹⁰ Macario Sakay and brothers Quintin and Adoy Tabal were among those imprisoned in said facilities. During the Japanese colonial period, the same facilities, and more, were used in the torture and detention of leaders and members of the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People’s Army Against Japanese Colonization).¹¹
As nominal independence was declared by the United States in 1946, laws of the neocolonial government defined laws on rebellion, insurrection, sedition, or disloyalty and used them against dissidents who opposed the continuing US dominance on Philippine politics and the puppet elite rule. The AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), trained by the US government, and the Philippine Constabulary undertook the arrests of political prisoners.
Most notable among the political prisoners at that time were poet, writer, and trade union organizer Amado V. Hernandez¹² and more than 500 other trade unionists. Hernandez faced charges of rebellion with murder, arson, and robbery. Five years after his arrest, and imprisoned at the New Bilibid Prison, Hernandez filed a petition for bail with the court where his case was pending, but was denied on the basis of the nature of the offense (if the crime was complexed, the penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed). Thus, he filed a petition at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that rebellion cannot be complexed with other crimes, such as murder and arson; granted Hernandez’s bail, and eventually issued an acquittal in 1964. The landmark decision, known as the Hernandez doctrine, has since been cited in in jurisprudence regarding criminalization of political offenses.
The regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. paved the way for the imposition of martial law and the use of US-driven counterinsurgency programs, which resulted in thousands of killings, torture, disappearances, and illegal or arbitrary arrests. At this time, the Communist Party of the Philippines had been reestablished in 1968,¹³ and a resurgence of the protest movements, mass organizing, and armed resistance was seen.
From 1972 to 1986, it is estimated that at least 70,000 individuals including revolutionaries, activists, peasants, workers, urban poor, students, journalists, academics, church workers, and members of the political opposition have been incarcerated. Most of the political prisoners were arrested without warrant and detained without charges, and suffered various forms of torture in various military camps and military safehouses and in at least 80 detention centers. In cases where there were charges, they faced charges of rebellion, subversion, inciting sedition, or illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
In response, the political prisoners organized themselves within prisons and detention centers to resist their maltreatment, advocate for their rights, and maintain solidarity. They conducted various forms of protest, including hunger strikes, to highlight their situation, demand better jail conditions, and press for immediate and just trials or release. In some instances, they organized prison escapes. They established links with organizations and individuals outside prison to amplify their demands. These forms of mass struggles inside prisons was considered part of the Filipino people’s struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.¹⁴
Political prisoners also used art as their form of expression and resistance. Volunteers from groups brought art materials into prisons and helped market the finished products outside to provide some financial support to the prisoners and their families. These organizations also helped in providing legal aid, scholarship funds for children of political prisoners, and livelihood support for released political prisoners.
Organizations supporting political prisoners were established including an organization of their families in 1979, and an organization of former political prisoners called the Samahan ng Ex-detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Para sa Amnestiya (SELDA; Association of Former Detainees Against Detention and for Amnesty).
In February 1986, after years of the dictatorship and upon Marcos’s ouster from office,¹⁵ the new President Corazon Aquino¹⁶ issued orders to release political prisoners, and by February 1987, issued Proclamation No. 80 on the full and unconditional amnesty for political prisoners. Victims of the Marcos dictatorship, including former political prisoners, filed a class suit in Hawaii to seek recognition and reparations.
However, the legal and political infrastructure that enabled illegal or arbitrary arrests, including warrantless arrests, and political imprisonment had been maintained, despite the ouster of the dictator Marcos and the 1987 Constitution which contains a Bill of Rights. The US government’s low intensity conflict had been adapted as a counterinsurgency and military strategy by the Aquino government, and such arrests, detention, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearance continued. In 1991, the Supreme Court ruled in a case that warrantless arrests are permissible, emphasizing requirements of probable cause, good faith, and the circumstances of the arrests. In the same year, the Philippine National Police was created.
From 1986 to 1992, human rights groups documented 20,523 victims of illegal arrests and detention, 816 desaparecidos,¹⁷ 135 cases of massacres, 1,064 victims of extrajudicial killings, and 1.2 million civilian victims of forcible evacuations due to military operations. From 1988 onward, an average of 200 persons were arrested daily, with 94% of the arrests conducted illegally. From January 1989 to September 1990, 4,408 political detentions were reported, 535 of which showed signs of torture. 109 disappeared following their arrests, and 218 people died from massacres. From January 1987 to September 1991, there were 18,281 arbitrary arrests, 701 involuntary disappearances, and nearly 2,000 extrajudicial killings.
The 1992 national elections brought President Fidel Ramos,¹⁸ a major implementer of martial law and the total war policy, into power. In 1992, Ramos was compelled to repeal the Anti-Subversion Law, and with much work done by human rights groups, releases of political prisoners were facilitated. However, Ramos maintained many repressive decrees promulgated under martial law, militarized the civilian government by appointing at least 92 former military and police officers in key positions and resorted to the practice of criminalizing political offenses instead of addressing head-on the roots of political dissent. Human rights groups conducted activities for the repeal of repressive laws, for the release of political prisoners, and to seek justice for human rights violations.
As Joseph Estrada assumed the presidency, he signed in August 1998 the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the first point in the substantive agenda of the peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP)¹⁹ and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP). Articles in the CARHRIHL contain affirmation of the Hernandez doctrine and review of cases of all political prisoners and their release, as well as the GRP’s work for the immediate repeal of repressive laws including Marcosian decrees.
But soon after, the regime terminated the peace negotiations and eventually discarded all agreements between the NDFP and the GRP forged in almost 10 years of talks between the two panels. Illegal arrests and detention, killings and massacres, enforced disappearances, and violent dispersals of rallies continued. Before he was ousted from power, in December 2000, Estrada announced that he would release some 200 political prisoners convicted of or being prosecuted for offenses allegedly committed within the context of armed insurgency. This, however, did not materialize as Estrada was removed from the presidency the next month.
Estrada also scuttled the government’s peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, resulting in forcible evacuations of Moro communities during bombings and indiscriminate firing operations of the Philippine military.
The regimes of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Benigno Aquino III, Rodrigo Duterte,²⁰ and current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr.²¹ saw the increased criminalization of political offenses, as counterinsurgency programs were framed in the US “war on terror” campaign and the subsequent adoption of the “whole of government,” “whole of society,” and “whole of nation”²² approaches to counterinsurgency.
Red-baiting, red-labeling, or red- or terrorist-tagging by government officials and agencies have been on an uptick, seemingly to mark their targets of “neutralization.” Civilian agencies of government have been oriented for counterinsurgency purposes but with a predominantly militarist approach. Such has resulted in more than 2,000 extrajudicial killings of civilians, nearly 300 victims of enforced disappearances, hundreds of victims of torture and more than 1,300 political prisoners. The climate of impunity worsened, especially during the Duterte administration’s “war on drugs” which normalized staged crime scenes, planting of evidence, and other various forms of violations of the right to due process, as well as Duterte’s scuttling of the talks of the NDFP and GRP, all of which is continued by Marcos Jr. up to present.
The use of laws and the Philippine justice system for political repression has been deeply institutionalized, with the enactment of laws such as the Human Security Act, the Anti-Terrorism Law and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Law, and the massive use of criminal charges against activists and revolutionaries. Government bodies were created to either systematize the filing of trumped-up charges against activists and revolutionaries and put them in jail, or to justify their killings, disappearances, arrests, and torture. To date, more than 200 had been charged using the terror laws, with more 80 arrested and detained based on these charges.
Almost all 700 political prisoners at present face criminal, not political, charges ranging from murder, attempted or frustrated murder, arson, robbery, kidnapping, and illegal possession of firearms and explosives, coupled with facing rebellion or terrorism charges. More than half face the trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, probably due to the ease by which these charges are concocted through planting of evidence and the presumption of regularity protocol in the military or police operations during arrests and the non-bailable provisions regarding these charges.
While in jail, the extremely slow-paced justice system enables prolonged detention even of those who are still in the process of being tried in court. There is no regularity of court hearings, prosecution witnesses are given wide latitude in being remiss or postponements in giving their testimonies in court, and perjured testimonies as well as planted evidence are admitted as evidence. It is estimated that a political prisoner is kept in prison for an average of 5 to 6 years, before most of the charges against them are dismissed or they are acquitted of these charges.
In the meantime, they are subjected to prison conditions in one of the most overly congested jails in the world, with an average of more than 500% over-congestion prison rate in the last five to ten years. Political prisoners are mixed with common offenders in cramped detention cells, where many sleep on bare floors or would have to pay a hefty fee for a decent bed. Food is rationed, with government allotting Php 75.00 (or USD 1.20) per day as a budget and few more pesos minus that are lost in the web of jail corruption. Thus, prisoners, including political prisoners, are left with food that is unhealthy, at times rotten, and barely digestible, while access to drinking water and water for hygiene and sanitation is very minimal.
Prison conditions likewise aggravate the medical conditions of the elderly and those with illnesses, including especially debilitating ones. With a very measly Php 15 (USD 0.25) per day medicine budget, without regular doctors and nurses in jails, without health care including reproductive and mental health facilities and services in jail, many political prisoners have considered these prisons as the “cemetery for the living.”
Administrative policies in relation to accreditation and registration of non-profit or non-governmental organizations have been hewed in accordance to the laws on terrorism, which meant a more restrictive environment for and increased state intrusion on the operations of NPOs (non-profit organizations) and NGOs (non-governmental organizations), as well as more stringent processes on funding. International solidarity allies, some of them based in the Philippines for years, have faced deportation proceedings and blacklisting of the immigration office.
In all these and more, the intent of the reactionary regimes is clear – to destroy the revolutionary movement and to quell political dissent of the citizens. Political imprisonment and lawfare are but among the tools of repression that are deployed, though other tools such as the use of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and other grave violations have not wavered.
Through the years, the legal and democratic movement in the Philippines has utilized legal and campaign tactics and forms to counter such machinations. Court battles are being waged in the lower courts up to the Supreme Court to question the legal bases of the arbitrary or illegal arrests and detention. Legislative proposals of progressives in parliament are coupled with mass campaigns to frustrate or blunt attempts to impose more draconian legislations, pursue bills which uphold rights to due process, and defend against arbitrary and illegal arrests.
Engagement in these arenas is combined with campaign tactics, which range from effective documentation of human rights violations; mobilization of legal, campaign, and public advocacy, logistical and financial support at the local and national levels; organizing of political prisoners, families of political prisoners, and support groups; and utilization of international mechanisms of support and solidarity.
Innovations through development of newer forms in both legal and campaign tactics are likewise inevitable. Legal remedies and strategies are tried out in judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. Social or digital technologies have enabled broader campaign platforms. Alliance and organizing tactics inside and outside prisons are shared and developed, as international solidarity support and mobilization of the international community are likewise works in progress.
One must note, however, that as the objective conditions remain unresolved—i.e., the root causes of the armed conflict including the predominance of US imperialism in the country’s affairs, the feudal exploitation of the majority of peasants, the rot of bureaucrat capitalism, and the fascist machinations of the State—the struggle continues. Through these, and the greater work of organizing, education, and mobilization in the rural and urban communities in the country, there is continuity of the political work and organizations.

1. Today’s Manila City Jail, during the period of Spanish colonization it was called “Carcel y Presidio Correccional” (“Correctional Jail and Military Prison”). Old Bilibid Prison functioned as a central carceral apparatus used by the state to discipline the oppressed and neutralize political dissenters.—Material.
2. Founded in Zamboanga City, Mindanao, the San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm served as a colonial outpost for the confinement of the Moro—the indigenous Muslim populations of the southern Philippines—and political activists who resisted central state authority. By situating the facility in the Zamboanga peninsula, the ruling administration sought to pacify the Moro heartlands and utilize forced labor to integrate the southern frontier into the broader colonial economic structure. The prison functioned as a strategic tool to suppress movements for regional autonomy and to maintain the hegemony of the Manila-based legal and political order over the diverse ethnic groups of the Sulu Archipelago and Mindanao.—Material.
3. Founded in 1571 on the site of a palisaded Rajahnate fort, Fort Santiago was originally the premier military citadel of the Spanish colonial government in Manila. It served as a strategic defensive bastion to protect the interests of the ruling elite before being repurposed as a prison dungeon.—Material.
4. The “Guardia Civil” was a paramilitary police force tasked with maintaining internal security and protecting the property of the ruling elite against “bandits” and political subversives.—Material.
5. This was an uprising of workers and soldiers at the San Felipe arsenal who protested the colonial state’s revocation of long-standing labor privileges and tax exemptions. The ruling elite used the rebellion as a pretext to execute reformist priests and crack down on dissent.—Material.
6. José Rizal (1861–1896) was a prominent intellectual whose critiques of the colonial administration—such as his novels Noli Me Tangere (1887) and El filibusterismo (1891)—challenged the ideological foundations of the ruling social order. Following his conviction for sedition by a military court, the state executed him by firing squad in December 1896 at Bagumbayan (island of Mindanao) to stifle the growing revolutionary consciousness among the masses.—Material.
7. Andrés Bonifacio (1863–1897) was the founder and leader of the Katipunan (the revolutionary nationalist organization). His leadership ended when he was betrayed by the provincial elite faction of the revolution, subjected to a sham trial for treason, and executed in the mountains of Maragondon.—Material.
8. Situated on the outskirts of the capital, Manila, this facility allowed the ruling elite to geographically isolate thousands of prisoners.—Material.
9. These men were the founding leaders of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) in 1930, representing the first organized political challenge to the ruling class from a proletarian standpoint. They worked to unify the peasantry and urban labor unions into a revolutionary front against both American imperialism and the local landed elite. Following their 1931 arrest and the state’s subsequent banning of the party, they became the first major targets of modern anti-communist lawfare.—Material.
10. Luis Taruc (1913–2005) was the leader of the Socialist Party of the Philippines. Representing the militant agrarian struggle in Central Luzon, he organized the peasantry to demand land reform and challenge the semi-feudal domination of the landed elite. After years of guerrilla warfare, he surrendered in 1954.—Material.
11. Founded in 1942, the “Hukbalahap” was a peasant-based guerrilla army in Central Luzon that resisted Japanese occupation while simultaneously challenging the local landed elite. Representing the militant aspirations of the agrarian masses, the “Huks” established an autonomous social order in the countryside, implementing land reforms and local self-governance that bypassed the collaborationist state. Following the war, the returning American colonial administration and the Philippine ruling class viewed the Huks’ demand for social justice as a threat to the capitalist status quo, leading to the movement’s criminalization and its eventual transition into an anti-government insurgency.—Material.
12. Amado V. Hernandez (1903–1970) headed the Congress of Labor Organizations (CLO), the most militant federation of the post-war era. Representing the intersection of culture and class struggle, he used his platform to advocate for the rights of the urban proletariat against both the local ruling elite and foreign capital. In 1951, the state arrested and imprisoned him for over five years on charges of “rebellion complexed with other crimes”—a legal fabrication designed to criminalize union organizing. While incarcerated in Muntinlupa, he wrote his most influential works (such as his novel Mga Ibong Mandaragit, “Birds of Prey,” and his collection of poems Isang Dipang Langit, “A Stretch of Heaven”), transforming his imprisonment into an indictment of the carceral system and the systemic oppression of the Filipino worker.—Material.
13. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) emerged as a Mao Zedong Thought-inspired vanguard that sought to rectify the perceived errors of the old party (the above-mentioned PKP) by launching a protracted people’s war against the state. By organizing the New People’s Army (NPA) to address the “three basic ills” of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism, the party created a sustained military and ideological challenge to the ruling elite.—Material.
14. The Marcos dictatorship (1972–1986) was a period of centralized authoritarian rule that utilized martial law to consolidate wealth and power within a small circle of landlords and comprador bourgeoisie. By suspending civil liberties and employing systemic state violence, the regime sought to liquidate political opposition and suppress the growing revolutionary consciousness of the masses. This era of institutionalized plunder and human rights abuses deepened the nation’s economic dependency while inadvertently fueling the very resistance movements it aimed to destroy.—Material.
15. The 1986 “People Power Revolution” was a mass uprising led by a united front of nationalist and communist forces along with certain elements of the military. While the movement successfully ended the Marcos regime after fourteen years of dictatorship, it largely resulted in a transition of power between competing factions of the ruling elite rather than a fundamental restructuring of the social order.—Material.
16. Corazon Aquino (1933–2009) assumed the presidency in 1986 as the figurehead of the liberal democratic restoration, representing the return of the traditional landowning elite to political power. Born into the wealthy Cojuangco clan, her social background as a member of the landed gentry fundamentally shaped her administration’s policies. While her government restored formal civil liberties, it maintained the essential economic structures of the old order, most notably through the failure of genuine agrarian reform on her own family’s 6,000-hectare estate, Hacienda Luisita.—Material.
17. The term desaparecidos refers to the “disappeared”—victims of forced disappearance who are abducted by state security forces or paramilitary groups and whose whereabouts remain unacknowledged.—Material.
18. Fidel Ramos (1928–2022) served as president from 1992 to 1998, overseeing the aggressive integration of the Philippines into the global neoliberal order. Before assuming the presidency, he was a central architect of the Marcos dictatorship’s repressive state apparatus, serving as the chief of the Philippine Constabulary, the primary agency responsible for the mass arrest, torture, and surveillance of dissidents under martial law.—Material.
19. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines, established in 1973, serves as the formal united front of the underground revolutionary movement, including the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army. By articulating a program of national sovereignty and social justice, it seeks to build a broad alliance among the oppressed sectors of Philippine society. As the political representative of the revolutionary forces in peace negotiations with the Philippine government, the NDFP utilizes the diplomatic arena to propose fundamental socio-economic reforms, such as national industrialization and genuine land reform, while maintaining that a lasting peace is impossible without addressing the systemic poverty and inequality inherent in the current capitalist social order.—Material.
20. Rodrigo Duterte (born 1945), who served as president from 2016 to 2022, utilized a populist, anti-elite rhetoric to consolidate executive power while overseeing a massive escalation of state-sponsored violence. The son of a provincial governor and a longtime mayor of Davao City, his social background is rooted in the “sub-national authoritarianism” of regional political dynasties, which he scaled to a national level. His administration is defined by the “war on drugs,” a campaign of extrajudicial killings that primarily targeted the urban poor, as well as revolutionary activists and political opponents, serving as a brutal mechanism of social control that liquidated “surplus” populations created by decades of economic marginalization.—Material.
21. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of the dictator, assumed the presidency in 2022, marking the return of the Marcos dynasty to the pinnacle of state power through a sophisticated campaign of historical revisionism that reframed his father’s dictatorship as a “golden age.” Having served as a provincial governor and an officer in the Philippine Constabulary during the martial law era, his ascent represents the rehabilitation of a political lineage once ousted for systemic kleptocracy and human rights abuses.—Material.
22. These are integrated strategic frameworks that mobilize the entire state bureaucracy and civilian sectors to neutralize the revolutionary movement. By expanding the mandate of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), they shift counter-insurgency from a purely military concern to a multi-sectoral campaign that utilizes social services, localized peace engagements, and development programs like the Barangay Development Program as tools of pacification. Critically, this strategy effectively blurs the line between combatants and civilians, institutionalizing “red-tagging” and surveillance across all levels of society to isolate dissent and enforce ideological conformity, thereby preserving the existing social order through a totalizing coordination of state and private resources.—Material.