Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s regime stands guilty of heinous war crimes and grave violations of international humanitarian law (IHL). In the countryside, farmers who till the land and feed the nation have borne the brunt of militarization, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and forced surrenders.

From July 2022 to December 2024, at least 86 peasants were killed under Marcos Jr.’s supposed counterinsurgency campaign, with many murdered in cold blood and later falsely presented as armed combatants. In Masbate, elderly peasant couple Pedro and Florencia Regala (aged 78 and 67) were abducted from their home by soldiers, summarily executed, and then falsely tagged as New People’s Army members. In Negros, farmers like Jayjie Redobles were abducted by masked soldiers and later found dead, with the AFP spinning an “encounter” narrative that villagers and eyewitnesses insist never occurred.

The Marcos Jr. regime has weaponized indiscriminate bombings, artillery shelling, and forced evacuations. Karapatan documented 46,921 cases of bombing and 43,582 forced evacuations between 2022 and 2024– direct violations of IHL prohibiting attacks on civilians and destruction of livelihood. The use of civilians as guides or shields in military operations (at least 520 documented instances), alongside military occupation of civilian infrastructure like schools and barangay halls, further illustrates a systemic disregard for IHL.

In San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan, a solidarity mission conducted by Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) on August 20 2024 that documented at least 20 incidents of human rights and IHL violations where the 80th Infantry Battalion (IB) had encircled farming communities. These included the establishment of military encampments near farm areas, coercion of residents into signing “disaffiliation” documents, forced surrenders, and profiling of peasants who were threatened with arrest or abduction if they refused to cooperate.

Encampment of soldiers next to Tungkong Mangga Barangay Hall became a site of military summons, while forced surrenders and violation of freedom of association highlighted the military occupation of civilian spaces: clear violations of IHL, specifically Articles 48, 51, and 53 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. These acts obliterate the principle of distinction, exposing civilians to heightened risk of harm and unwarranted attacks while the psychological and socio-economic impact on farmers has been profound.

Following the footsteps of his dictator-father and his imperialist masters, Marcos Jr. presents himself as a true war criminal. The willful killing of hors de combat fighters such as the murder of Ericson Acosta, a celebrated poet, activist, and cultural worker, who was gunned down alongside peasant leader Joseph Jimenez inside in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental on November 30, 2022 in a staged “firefight”.

By targeting peasants, the backbone of the nation’s food security, Marcos Jr. has revealed the fascist core of his counterinsurgency campaign: terrorizing rural communities into submission and dispossessing them of their lands for landlords, mining interests, and foreign agribusiness.

Farmers hold Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his security apparatus– the Armed Forces of the Philippines accountable for these war crimes. The Filipino people, especially the farmers who toil yet continue to resist, demand justice. ###