The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) unites with the Filipino workers and people in marking this year’s All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day by remembering the labor activists who were murdered and disappeared since the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte and by continuing to call for justice for them.

This November 1 and 2, we light candles for the 105 labor activists who were victims of extrajudicial killings and the 3 labor activists who were victims of enforced disappearance since 2016. The flame in our hearts continues to burn in anger against the perpetrators of these grave human rights violations and those who created a climate of impunity for them.

The Duterte regime marked an escalation of human rights violations directed against the labor movement. These violations against labor activists ultimately enforce and support violations of workers’ freedom of association and other basic labor and human rights of the Filipino workers and people, which labor activists fight for.

While it has distanced itself from its predecessor on the issue of human rights, the Ferdinand Marcos Jr regime has failed to hold to account state agents responsible for grave human rights violations against labor activists. It makes pretenses of creating policies that aim to avoid a repetition of the past, but it does not even pretend to seek justice for past rights violations.

We cite as example the despicable March 7, 2021 “Bloody Sunday” joint police-military raids in Southern Tagalog that resulted in the death of long-standing labor leader Manny Asuncion and eight others, and the arrest of labor leader Esteban Mendoza and five others. Three weeks after, labor leader Dandy Miguel who protested the raids, was also gunned down while travelling home from work.

The murder and wrongful arrests of labor and social activists during the “Bloody Sunday” raids were clearly ordered by Duterte government officials and carried out by state forces. Despite this, the cases against the responsible military and police units and officers were junked by the Department of Justice under the Marcos Jr government. Rights violations and injustices were committed, but none were punished.

When Marcos Jr became president, many social activists were abducted and then surfaced as supposedly rebel returnees. Unlike them, labor activists Elizabeth “Loi” Magbanua, disappeared on May 2022, and William Lariosa, disappeared on April 2024, were not surfaced at all and continue to be missing to this day. The Marcos Jr regime has perpetrated its own human rights violations against labor activists.

This All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, we remember our comrades in the labor movement who were murdered and disappeared, especially since the Duterte regime. Duterte may be in the International Criminal Court, but he still has to pay for his crimes against the labor movement. Marcos Jr’s pretenses of upholding labor and human rights mean nothing when he refuses to punish perpetrators of previous violations.