By Shannia Cabuello
Bulatlat.com
MANILA — “Why ban human rights defenders if there is nothing to hide?”
This was the question of Malaya Movement USA Secretary General Julie Jamora to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a virtual press conference held on December 10.
She is the first known Filipino-American to be blacklisted and barred from the Philippines under the Marcos Jr. administration, creating a repressive pattern targeting human rights defenders and critics.
On November 17, Jamora arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport to participate in a peace mission organized by Bayan USA and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.
The mission aims to research and interview local communities on the social and environmental impacts of US militarism and of military bases.
At immigration, she was told she had been blacklisted and denied entry into the Philippines and told to return to the United States.
Her passport was also confiscated, and she was detained at the airport for eight hours where she was constantly escorted by security personnel.
“They had no basis why, no documents or forms, and no explanation,” said Jamora.
She was ushered from Manila to Hong Kong and until New York immigration.
When she landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the Philippine government sent her paperwork tagging her as blacklisted without reason.
Jamora worries that she will not be able to go home as the blacklisting could last for from five to tenyears, or even indefinitely.
“Marcos Jr. feels threatened by those of good conscience, those who expose the failures of the government and the actual conditions of everyday Filipino people, that they banned them from entering the Philippines,” Jamora stated.
Pattern of repression
Since 2018, Jamora has experienced several political repression and attacks from the state and supporters of the Duterte and Marcos dynasties.
Jamora shared about her Mindanao research and immersion trip where they faced repeated military harassment, detention, and intimidation merely for examining the aftermath of the Lake Sebu massacre that killed eight Indigenous leaders and displaced hundreds of communities due to fear and military surveillance.
They were only released with the help of people’s lawyers, including Juan Macababbad, who was killed in 2021 for defending human rights.
In 2022, she was also violently handled by security at an Asia Society forum while participating in a civil disobedience protest against the Marcos dynasty in the U.S., coinciding with Marcos Jr.’s first official visit there.
Jamora asserts that this is a part of an increasing and disturbing pattern of repression under the Marcos Jr. administration.
Since his presidency in 2022, at least five activists have been denied entry into the Philippines.
Among them are the members of International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) US Gordon Mutch and Copeland Downs.
Mutch has been part of ICHRP since high school, when he had an opportunity to join the International Observers Mission during the 2022 elections.
The observers mission wanted to investigate the human rights violations at the end of the Duterte regime and allegations of cheating, red-tagging, and violence as the Marcos Jr. presidency began.
They learned the impacts of neoliberal policies and militarism to the farmers and indigenous people, and how their resistance results in illegal arrest, abduction, and killings.
For International Observers Mission 2025, Mutch was denied entry to the Philippines.
His passport was taken, and he was interrogated about his human rights work in 2022. He was sent back to the US on the same day over “a confidential matter of national security.”
Downs traveled to the Philippines in October 2024 for the Karapatan Human Rights Alliance Sixth Congress.
He was also held at immigration, which cited an exclusion order filed by the US in October 2022. The order was allegedly due to his participation in a political rally.
According to the Malaya Movement USA, Marcos Jr. intensified the National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) in the name of “security,” increasing the human rights abuses and violations of International humanitarian law (IHL).
Karapatan and DAHAS reported the widespread human rights violations in the Philippines from the Duterte regime to the Marcos Jr. administration which includes 134 extrajudicial killings, five massacres, 696 (163 under Marcos Jr.) arrests of political prisoners, 14 enforced disappearances, 822 illegal arrests, 227 victims of terror laws, and 250 drug-related killings.
The groups also documented 10 million victims of threat, harassment and intimidation, 57,156 were affected by bombings, while the flood control funds corruption led to 345 deaths and 142 missing after recent major typhoons.
On the other hand, migrants in the US are also facing fascism under the Trump regime, recording a total of 61,000 individuals in detention and 400,000 deported individuals that includes 20 people who died in detention.
“Marcos Jr. prioritizes political repression against activists instead of responding to the many political crises happening in the Philippines and among overseas Filipinos,” Jamora lamented, emphasizing that mass protests are the result of the government corruption scandal, human rights crisis, landlessness, unemployment, and attacks on Filipinos.
“Aside from the personal experience and feelings that I have, the use of blacklists and travel bans are meant to chill dissent, meant to intimidate and isolate activists but my experience has done just the opposite,” Jamora asserted.
She said her experience has only strengthened her commitment in the continued fight for a just, democratic, and sovereign Philippines.
“The Marcos government will never stop me from fighting for what is right,” she said. The Malaya Movement USA asserts that this will serve as a rallying cry and call to fight back against the present rule of Marcos Jr., Duterte’s pursuit of more power, and Trump’s fascist regime. (JDS)
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