Extrajudicial Killings and Forced Disappearances in the Philippines

Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances have been documented in the Philippines since the martial-law era of President Ferdinand Marcos. Human rights groups have placed the number of people killed extrajudicially under martial law at roughly 1,500, with more than 800 additional abductions; the group Karapatan lists 759 people who disappeared and were never found. In 1995, 10,000 Filipinos won a U.S. class-action lawsuit against the Marcos estate over claims of torture, execution, and disappearance. In Philippine English the killings are commonly called 'salvaging'; people who disappear are called desaparecidos, a term also applied to victims of state terrorism in 1970s and 1980s South America.

Killings and disappearances continued under later administrations, most often targeting left-wing activists, trade unionists, journalists, clergy, and land-rights and environmental defenders, frequently amid accusations that victims were 'red-tagged' as members or sympathizers of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People's Army (NPA). Karapatan reported more than 900 killings by May 2008, while the group Desaparecidos recorded 194 enforced disappearances under the Arroyo administration as of May 2008. In February 2007, United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston conducted an official fact-finding visit and later reported that Philippine prosecutors and the Ombudsman's office had failed to pursue accountability for the killings. A government-appointed inquiry, the Melo Commission, found no official policy of extrajudicial killing but reported evidence 'pointing the finger of suspicion' at some military figures, naming then-general Jovito Palparan among those it said had allowed, tolerated, or encouraged killings.

Chief Justice Reynato Puno convened a national summit on the killings in Manila in July 2007 and went on to create the writ of amparo, a court remedy letting judges order protective and investigative relief for victims of killings and disappearances, followed by a companion writ of habeas data. In December 2012, President Benigno Aquino III signed the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act, described as the first law in Asia to make enforced disappearance a standalone crime. Convictions have remained rare: in 2018, Palparan was convicted of the kidnapping and disappearance of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño. In the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, 57 people traveling to file an election candidacy were killed; 198 suspects, including Andal Ampatuan Sr. and Andal Ampatuan Jr., were charged with murder.

After winning the 2016 presidential election on a pledge to kill people involved in illegal drugs, Rodrigo Duterte oversaw an anti-drug campaign in which the Philippine National Police recorded roughly 2,000 deaths by August 2016 and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency recorded more than 6,200 by May 2022; human rights groups have put the total, including vigilante-style killings, at around 30,000. On March 11, 2025, Philippine police and Interpol arrested Duterte to face International Criminal Court charges of crimes against humanity connected to the drug-war killings. Disappearances of activists have continued in the years since: in April 2023, Indigenous rights activists Dexter Capuyan and Gene Roz Jamil 'Bazoo' de Jesus were abducted in Rizal province and have not been found, and Karapatan recorded at least 16 activist abductions between June 2022 and November 2023 under President Bongbong Marcos.