Five Years Too Long: End the Anti-Terror Law and the Criminalization of Development Work
- Defend NGOs Alliance
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Today July 3, 2025 marks the fifth year of the Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL)—five years of heightened repression, unjust persecution, and systematic attacks on civil society in the Philippines. Rather than safeguarding national security, this law has been used to criminalize dissent, disrupt humanitarian and development work, and silence the very people and organizations committed to serving the country’s most vulnerable communities.
The government has used the ATL and Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA) of 2012 to launch an all-out legal and political offensive against non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations (CSOs), activists and human rights defenders (HRDs). These laws are used to brand legitimate development work as criminal activity. Groups advocating food security, disaster response, rights of the marginalized sectors, accessible social services, rural development, and alternative people-led development are routinely red-tagged, surveilled, and falsely accused of links to terrorist groups.
Development and humanitarian organizations like the CPA (Cordillera Peoples Alliance), LCDE (Leyte Center for Development), PDG (Paghidaet sa Kauswagan Development Group), CERNET (Community Empowerment Resource Network), and RMP (Rural Missionaries of the Philippines) and others have been attacked. These organizations are deeply rooted in their communities and known for delivering emergency relief and development projects in disaster-prone, far-flung and distressed communities -- yet they are maligned and red-tagged, and face spurious accusations of financing terrorism. The freezing of their accounts and assets has severely disrupted their operations and left entire communities cut off from urgently needed services.
The impact is not only organizational, but deeply personal. Frenchie Mae Cumpio, a young journalist and development worker from Eastern Visayas, remains detained under trumped-up illegal firearms possession and terrorism financing charges. Her arrest reflects a disturbing trend of criminalizing youth, journalists, and community workers under the pretext of national security.
Enforced disappearances have re-emerged as a tool of fear and intimidation. Development workers and environmental defenders have been abducted, held incommunicado, and forced into false confessions—all under the shadow of the ATL and the culture of impunity fostered by the state.
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) serves as the central engine of state repression, operating as both the propaganda and operational arm of this crackdown. It has weaponized public platforms and government resources to target NGOs and CSOs with baseless accusations. NTF-ELCAC’s red-tagging campaigns put development actors at constant risk of harassment, imprisonment, and extrajudicial violence.
The combination of the ATL, the TFPSA, and NTF-ELCAC has created a hostile environment for civil society. Humanitarian missions are blocked. Funding is cut. Programs are suspended. People are imprisoned. These laws have transformed service into suspicion, and dissent into a punishable offense. As a result, communities already living at the margins suffer even further.
The Defend NGO Alliance calls for the immediate repeal of the Anti-Terrorism Law and the TFPSA, and the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC. These repressive policies must be dismantled to restore the democratic space necessary for development work, people’s participation, and humanitarian service. We also call for an end to red-tagging, enforced disappearances, asset freezing, and the broader criminalization of civil society and development work.
We are not the threat—we are the lifeblood of a democratic society. We are development workers, humanitarians, educators, and defenders of justice. We build where the government has abandoned. We serve where the state has failed. And we resist because we must. Our work is not a crime. We will not be silenced, dismantled, nor disappeared. We will continue to expose injustice, defend communities, and fight for a future free from fear and repression. The state may brand us as enemies, but history will remember who truly stood with the people.
Comments