Release Youth Community Leader Chantal Anicoche from the Custody of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
Chantal Anicoche.
On January 1, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) conducted aerial bombing and strafing of the indigenous Mangyan-Iraya community in Occidental Mindoro. During the attacks, three Mangyan children and two youth researchers—one of whom was Kabataan Partylist Leader Jerlyn Rose Doydora—were killed, while 188 families were forcibly displaced from the area.
At the same time, Chantal Anicoche, a 24-year-old Filipino-American youth community leader from Baltimore, Maryland, went missing while she was integrating with the farmers and peasants in Abra de Ilog. After a week of grassroots campaigning by friends, family, allies, and the international community to demand Chantal’s surfacing – on January 8, the AFP’s 203rd Infantry Brigade finally revealed that she was in their custody.
Despite the AFP’s claims that they “rescued” Chantal, even going so far as to publish a video of the “moment she was found” – we believe that this video was staged. In it, it was evident that she was afraid and under visible duress. Her speech and body language were inconsistent with the behavior of someone who was being rescued, but were characteristic of one who was being detained involuntarily. Moreover, the brigade that took her into custody was the same one that bombed the community, further increasing our suspicion that she had been taken as a political prisoner.
Her friends at Migrante Baltimore, an advocacy group for Filipino workers and migrants, expressed admiration for Chantal’s dedication to learning about her culture, as well as the plight of Filipinos who are impacted by environmental disasters and poverty: “How can your heart not be stirred? How can you not be motivated to take up the fight when you see her?”
Chantal’s desire to serve the people was what moved her to travel home to the Philippines and work with rural farming communities in Mindoro. As a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, she had long been advocating to improve the human rights situation in the Philippines. Chantal’s friends say that she is a dynamic activist, that she is not afraid to use her voice to advocate for what is just and right.
“She is not brainwashed. She is steadfast. She is selfless. She is caring. She would do anything for anybody,” they added.
Today, Chantal continues to be held under the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ custody inside Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal. On January 10, the AFP purported that she signed “an affidavit of undertaking” to “voluntarily” remain with the military and undergo medical treatment. According to 2nd Infantry Division Spokesperson and Division Public Affairs Office Chief Colonel Michael Aquino, representatives of the U.S. Embassy have already visited Chantal. However, no official statements have been released by any U.S. Embassy officials nor by Chantal herself.
The AFP has also blocked attempts by community organizations such as Karapatan (an alliance of human rights organizations, workers, and advocates) and Migrante International (a global alliance of grassroots migrants organizations) to visit Chantal and determine her wellbeing, though representatives from the Commission on Human Rights (an independent constitutional office created under the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines) and the International Committee of the Red Cross were able to enter the camp premises after initially being barred. Meanwhile, the AFP continues to harass the communities residing in Abra de Ilog, blocking humanitarian groups from being able to reach the people who were bombed and attacked.
We believe that Chantal’s detention is just the latest among numerous attempts in a long history of AFP attempts to label as terrorists (terror-tag) people’s organizations, humanitarian workers, and community advocates who work with and defend rural peoples from state harassment and assault. Under President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.’s administration, the military and government (under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC) continue to launch “counterinsurgency operations” that result in hundreds of human rights violations as well as fabricated charges against individuals assisting rural communities.
In FY2024, the U.S. sent $720 million in foreign aid to the Philippines, of which $542 million (75%) was military aid. [1] The U.S. and Philippine militaries conduct regular joint exercises, notably the yearly Balikatan exercise, scheduled to take place again in April-May 2026. The U.S. government’s political and financial support for the Marcos Jr. regime and its security forces have enabled crimes against the Filipino people to escalate. Marcos Jr. has kept in place the authoritarian martial law practices of warrantless arrests, trumped-up charges, unjust and indefinite detentions, and the assassinations of rivals practiced by his criminal father Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. and by former President Rodrigo Duterte.
We demand that the Armed Forces of the Philippines release Chantal Anicoche immediately and unconditionally. The U.S. State Department must do its part to ensure her safety.
The International Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines has issued a full list of demands:
1) The immediate and unconditional release of Chantal Anicoche and her safe return to her family.
2) Full respect for her rights, including freedom from torture, interrogation, threats, harassment, and intimidation.
3) A swift, independent, and impartial investigation by the Commission on Human Rights and other international organizations monitoring human rights and International Humanitarian Law into the Mindoro bombings, civilian deaths, and Chantal’s detention.
4) The immediate cessation of aerial bombings and military operations in civilian communities and the withdrawal of military forces from Mindoro.
5) Unhampered access for humanitarian, medical, and fact-finding missions and support to affected communities. [2]
#releasechantal #palayainsichantal #defendmindoro
Notes.
1) https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-foreign-aid-does-the-us-provide/countries/philippines/
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