The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) condemns the harassment by state forces of two labor organizers in the Davao region in July and August. These cases of harassment show continuing violations of workers’ freedom of association and freedom of expression under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr government.

On July 24, military elements led by one Sgt. Roy Tamon visited the residence of Marvin Dacanay, an organizer of labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) among agricultural and service workers. They interrogated Dacanay’s father about his whereabouts, accused him of bearing arms in the countryside, and ordered his father to tell him to stop his labor organizing and surrender to the government.

On August 8, individuals who introduced themselves as elements of the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) apprehended Jeffrey Uypala, an organizer of the KMU and progressive transport group Transmision, PISTON’s Davao chapter, near Abreeza Mall in Bajada. The men coerced Uypala to “cooperate,” promised financial assistance and took his picture.

While these incidents are new, their modus operandi’s are not. Labor organizers continue to be accused of being part of the underground revolutionary movements that the government has designated as terrorist organizations. This accusation, a form of redtagging, sets up labor organizers as targets for human rights violations such as arrest, extrajudicial killing, and abduction.

The military personnel who harassed Dacanay were clear in saying that KMU is a front of armed rebel group New People’s Army (NPA) and the underground Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Such accusations blur the distinction between armed and unarmed organizations and widens the scope of the government’s terrorist designation to the detriment of human rights.

The police personnel who harassed Uypala were riding motorcycles when they apprehended him, an eerie reminder of the perpetrators of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug addicts and of activists in recent years. The harassment of Dacanay and Uypala did not happen in a vacuum, but in the context of repression of labor organizing in the Davao region and the country.

In April 2024, KMU labor organizer William Lariosa, who was previously harassed by military personnel, was disappeared. In the Davao region, as in other regions in the country, the KMU continues to be redtagged and labor and social movement organizers continue to face harassment, threats and trumped-up charges.

The harassment of labor organizers became widespread during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. Their persistence during the Marcos Jr presidency highlights the continuation of the government’s policy of repression as regards workers’ freedom of association and expression in general. Marcos Jr’s claims of upholding human rights and democracy run counter to the sordid realities on the ground.