How the Philippines Silences Advocacy Groups

How the Philippines Silences Advocacy Groups

It was back in September 2021 when Jazmin “Minet” Aguisanda-Jerusalem received a phone call from some farmers that her NGO was helping outside the eastern Philippine city of Tacloban. “They said, ‘the Army is telling us to come and stage a rally outside your office,’” recalls Minet, the executive director of the Leyte Center for Development (LCDE), which provides humanitarian relief to the region’s poorest. “The Army even said they will provide …