Press Statement
May 29, 2026
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers strongly condemns the Philippine National Police Cateel Municipal Police Station in Davao Oriental for publicly labeling human rights defenders as “Active Wanted Persons” without legal basis, due process, or regard for constitutional rights.
On May 27, 2026, the PNP Cateel station posted on its official Facebook page the photographs of KARAPATAN-Southern Mindanao Region Deputy Secretary General Grecian Gasoy, along with known rights leaders from Kabataan Partylist and Gabriela Youth, with captions suggesting criminal liability. The posts have since been taken down, but their removal does not erase the danger they created, nor the accountability that must follow.
In the numerous cases NUPL has handled, the vilifying activists, community organizers, humanitarian workers, journalists, church people, lawyers, and human rights defenders as “criminals,” “terrorists,” or “enemies of the State” has led to intimidation, harassment, unlawful arrests on fabricated charges, enforced disappearances, and killings. Red-tagging, as these cases make plain, is used to justify attacks against individuals and organizations engaged in legitimate human rights and development work.
The consequences extend beyond the defenders themselves. This practice of public and baseless vilification has shrunk civic space and cut off humanitarian services from the communities that need them most. When rights defenders step in to provide aid that the state fails to deliver and demand accountability for that failure, they are vilified by the very institutions obligated to serve the people. For some, such vilification has proven fatal.
NUPL joins the call for a full and impartial investigation into this incident and demands that all those responsible be held accountable. ###
Photo credit: Karapatan
