The government is betting on private investments to help curb the Philippines’ greenhouse gas emissions. To help, it has removed caps on how much foreigners can own of solar, wind and ocean projects.
But while the government rolls out the red carpet for businesses in the energy sector, its treatment of environmental defenders contrast starkly. Government task forces have accused individuals and groups involved in community projects, such as disaster relief and delivering solar-powered water pumps, of having links with communism or terrorism. The practice is known as “red-tagging”.
In the Philippines, some of the accused activists have subsequently been charged, their organisational and personal bank accounts frozen. Some have even been abducted. The Philippine Supreme Court described the practice in a July 2023 decision as threatening to its victims’ “right to life, liberty or security”.
Red-tagging occurred intensively under the administration of Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022) and has continued under current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The practice impacts not just climate activists and their civil society organisations, but the communities they serve, experts say.
From disaster response heroine to ‘terrorist’
Jazmin “Minet” Aguisanda-Jerusalem is executive director of the Leyte Center for Development (LCDe), a disaster preparedness and mitigation NGO. The organisation is based in Tacloban city, Eastern Visayas – a region that often bears the brunt of the Philippines’ typhoons.
One of these was the devastating Typhoon Haiyan, which destroyed Aguisanda-Jerusalem’s hometown in November 2013, killing at least 6,300 people. LCDe reportedly assisted 23,000 families who were struggling without government-led disaster relief.
In 2018, Aguisanda-Jerusalem was named an International Climate Heroine by Germany’s CARE Climate Justice Centre for her role in improving disaster-preparedness.
In July 2025, she pleaded not guilty to three counts of terrorism financing, specifically of using her organisation to raise, collect and provide funds for the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
Aguisanda-Jerusalem had previously faced accusations of violating the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act. In April 2024, LCDe had its bank accounts, which included donations from foreign donors, frozen under government orders. She was accused of terrorism financing based on testimonies from four alleged former rebels. They claimed she had diverted the NGO’s funds to the CPP and NPA and instructed them to doctor documents to hide proof. Aguisanda-Jerusalem denies having met these individuals.
She says her organisation is “constantly” red-tagged by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). She mentioned “death threats through our phones, posters with our faces and names accusing us of being terrorists around the region, and on social media these past 15 years”.
Aguisanda-Jerusalem points out the irony of such harassment, highlighting that various government agencies, including the Department of National Defense (the supervising agency of the AFP), have given awards to the LCDe for its projects across the Eastern Visayas.
“Red-tagging prevents us from [providing] our many services to our people,” she says. “The climate crisis is worsening and our people’s poverty exacerbates its effects.”
LCDe’s projects and services are currently suspended because of its inability to receive and dispense funds, preventing the community from receiving crucial emergency relief as the region continues to be battered by typhoons.
Denying people services
Sibat, a non-profit that brings clean tech to communities, has been assisting rural villages with installing agricultural and other tech for over four decades.
In June 2025, the NGO installed a solar-powered water pump system to provide potable water to victims of Typhoon Rai in Ubay, Central Visayas. The typhoon, which struck in late-2021, was the second deadliest natural disaster worldwide that year, and destroyed traditional water sources on the island province.
Sibat’s executive director Estrella “Tata” Catarata says the organisation has been red-tagged. The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), which was established in 2018 by the Duterte administration and continues to run under President Marcos, has accused the organisation of being a front of the NPA, Catarata claims. Dialogue Earth reached out to NTF-ELCAC for comment but did not get a response.
In May 2023, Catarata faced terror financing charges due to her ties with the Community Empowerment Resources Network (Cernet). She is a former executive director for the Central Visayas-based NGO Farmers’ Development Center (Fardec), a member organisation of Cernet. Fardec and Cernet have been accused of supporting the communist insurgency.
Multiple reports say that in April 2024, AFP brigadier general Joey Escanillas linked Catarata to the NPA during a press conference, with Catarata filing a defamation lawsuit against him a year later.
Catarata says that to set up and maintain their projects around the country, Sibat staff often need to painstakingly convince local government officials to let them conduct their activities. They do so by attending government meetings they are summoned to, sometimes inviting EU diplomats to demonstrate their legitimacy to Philippine government officials and communities. A 2025 report from the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law noted that continued harassment from NTF-ELCAC led two engineers to resign from Sibat.
UN experts decry red-tagging
In 2022, Jesus Crispin Remulla, then secretary of justice, told the UN Human Rights Council that there was no state policy to attack activists or human rights defenders.
However, just a month earlier, he had defended the practice of red-tagging during a UN human rights committee meeting. Remulla, who is now the nation’s ombudsman, added: “If you can dish out [criticism], you should be able to take it.”
Ian Fry, then UN special rapporteur on human rights under climate change, visited the Philippines in 2023. He stated that the government, through the AFP and the NTF-ELCAC, has systematically red-tagged environmental and human rights defenders, Indigenous peoples, members of the clergy and humanitarian workers.
Environmental advocacy is vital because the environment is our protector, not structuresJonila Castro, youth activist and community organiser
“It appears that the NTF-ELCAC is using its powers to protect powerful economic interests in the country,” Fry stated. “This has nothing to do with anti-terrorism or anti-communism. The gross overreaction to people trying to defend their right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is totally unacceptable.”
On a visit to the country in 2024, Irene Khan, UN special rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion, said red-tagging is a serious threat to civil society. She reported in June 2025 that the NTF-ELCAC “appears to be a major instigator of the practice”, along with the military, state security officials, senior government officials and some media outlets.
“As documented in many cases, red-tagging is often followed or accompanied by unlawful surveillance, criminal prosecution, including the filing of trumped-up charges, threats and even killings,” she said.
From red-tagging to state abduction
Jonila Castro is a youth activist and community organiser who has been campaigning against land reclamation in Manila Bay. The activity has already displaced local communities along the bay’s shoreline and disrupted its complex coastal ecosystem, according to a 2023 report from Global Witness.
Castro told Dialogue Earth she had been red-tagged as a student campaigner in the early 2020s. In September 2023, she and fellow environmental activist Jhed Tamano were abducted in Bataan province by the Philippine Army. They had been doing volunteer work with local communities affected by Manila Bay land reclamation.
The two reappeared 17 days later at a press conference in the town of Plaridel in Bulacan province, across the bay from Bataan. The government planned to present them as rebel returnees but they abandoned the script, accusing the state of abduction.
The two activists were subsequently freed. Their abductors filed retaliatory charges of defamation against the two, which were dismissed by a Plaridel court in June 2025.
Castro and Tamano have been unable to return to their community-organising activities in Bulacan and Bataan provinces due to security concerns, but continue to campaign against the Manila Bay reclamation projects. Several of the projects have reportedly resumed after Marcos ordered their suspension in 2023 to assess legal compliance and environmental impact.
“Environmental advocacy is vital because the environment is our protector, not structures. We must protect the environment to protect ourselves,” Castro told Dialogue Earth. She added that red-tagging “prevents us from our mission of defending the environment, mitigating the effects of climate change on the people”.
This article was co-published in English by Kodao Productions and Dialogue Earth. Versions may differ slightly due to translation and editorial adaptation.
