Stop the bombings in the Philippines! Release Chantal Anicoche! Justice for the Mangyan 5!

Stop the bombings in the Philippines! Release Chantal Anicoche! Justice for the Mangyan 5!

On January 1, the Armed Forces of the Philippines launched a major attack on Barangay Cabacao in Abra de Ilog, Occidental Mindoro. In a clear violation of international humanitarian law, four attack helicopters dropped at least twelve bombs, followed by hours of aerial strafing, terrorizing the peasant and Indigenous Mangyan communities.

The AFP’s attacks killed 3 Mangyan children, injured their mother, and forcibly displaced 188 families from the area. It also led to the death of at least 2 student researchers who had been integrating with the Mangyan community to more deeply understand their conditions. One of these youth was Jerlyn Rose Doydora, a leader with Kabataan Partylist, who died from an illness while trying to escape from the relentless bombing in the area.

According to Mindoro Youth for Environment and Nation, the AFP is the “main threat to Mindoro’s environment and people.”
“Militarization is a grave attack on the people’s rights for a safe, balanced, and sustainable environment,” the group said in its statement. “Military presence is repeatedly being used not to protect the people but to secure disingenuous projects like mining, renewable energy projects, and eco-tourism that only serves the interests of the few.”

We have learned from media reports that Chantal Anicoche, the 24-year-old Filipina community leader from the United States, who was reported missing at the time of the military attacks in Abra de Ilog, Occidental Mindoro, has been surfaced. She traveled to the Philippines to learn from Indigenous communities and participate in volunteer and relief activities related to environmental disasters and rural poverty. Chantal should be safely returned to her family, she should be immediately released from the custody of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and she should be protected from any form of torture, interrogation, threat, harassment, and intimidation from any unit of the AFP.

This treatment is consistent with military counterinsurgency campaigns like President Marcos' “National Action Plan for Unity, Peace, and Development” (NAP-UPD) recently adopted May 2, 2025. These counterinsurgency campaigns are deceptively-worded fascist policies that have only led to increased human rights violations against the Filipino people and fail to address the root causes of the ongoing armed conflict in the Philippines. At least 16,733 individuals were victims of alleged human rights abuses in Mindoro from January to November 2025. The NAP-UPD has intensified political repression to attack anyone who is critical of the Marcos regime. These state-sponsored acts of psychological warfare sow confusion and fear among those who support change from the rotten political system and fight for a genuine just and lasting peace.

The NAP-UPD comes right off the US playbook for counterinsurgency while being fully funded and backed by this imperialist power. Its legacy, like in the recent case in Mindoro, is one of harassment, the militarization of the civilian bureaucracy as part of counterinsurgency operations, direct attacks on activists, and increased protection of the interests for the local elite and foreign domination. The US National Defense Authorization act just passed the PERA Act which will fund 2.5 billion in military aid to the AFP which commits these gross human rights violations. The US does this to maintain its colonial control over the country in partnership with the local ruling classes, to use its land and people in its wars of aggression against its rivals, namely China, and exploit the labor and natural resources of the country.

Right now, the military blockade continues in the area. We urgently demand that a humanitarian corridor be opened, allow a fact finding mission in to investigate and expose the extent of the bombing and strafing, and that Chantal Anicoche be released from AFP custody!

Release Chantal! Palayain si Chantal!
Stop the bombings!
Defend Mindoro!
Justice for the Mangyan 5!
Justice for Jerlyn Doydora!
Justice for the 188 families displaced by the bombings!