KARAPATAN: After five years, no justice for Southern Tagalog Bloody Sunday killings
KARAPATAN Public Information
PRESS RELEASE
7 March 2026
Reference: Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general, 09173162831
KARAPATAN Public Information Desk, 09189790580
KARAPATAN: After five years, no justice for Southern Tagalog Bloody Sunday killings
Five years after the Southern Tagalog Bloody Sunday Massacre on March 7, 2021, families of the victims and human rights defenders continue to demand justice for the nine activists killed in coordinated police and military operations across Southern Tagalog.
During simultaneous raids by the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines, nine activists were killed and several others arrested under controversial Manila-issued search warrants. Those slain included labor leader Emmanuel “Manny” Asuncion; fisherfolk and peasant leaders Ariel Evangelista and Ana Mariz “Chai” Lemita-Evangelista; urban poor organizers Mark Lee Bacasno and Melvin Dasigao; indigenous leaders Abner and Edward Esto; and Dumagat leaders Randy and Puroy dela Cruz.
Five years on, not a single perpetrator has been held accountable. Murder complaints filed by the victims’ families were dismissed by the Department of Justice, while other cases remain unresolved. The killings occurred amid the counterinsurgency campaign under Executive Order No. 70, which created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict during the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte.
“Five years have passed since the Bloody Sunday massacre, yet justice remains out of reach,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan. “Instead of accountability, victims’ families face harassment and intimidation. These are the same agencies that should bring justice, but these have become the instruments of obstruction of justice.”
Karapatan decried how relatives of victims continue to face harassment. Last year, the families of Melvin Dasigao, Mark Lee Bacasno, and Dumagat leaders Randy and Puroy dela Cruz reported visits and calls from state agents, including the National Bureau of Investigation, pressuring them to drop legal actions. Also in 2025, the DOJ filed charges against Alaiza Lemita, sister of Ana Mariz Lemita-Evangelista, under the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012. The case has recently been dismissed.
Palabay added that the injustice and blood-stained Duterte regime is not a thing of the past, as it remains embodied by the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration because extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests, and widespread red-tagging persist, reinforcing a culture of impunity.
As of the end of 2025, Karapatan has documented 135 victims of extrajudicial killing as well as 85 others who survived attempts on their lives; 17 victims of enforced disappearance; 45 victims of torture; 826 illegal arrests; 908 illegal searches and seizures; and 10,825,864 victims of threats, harassment and intimidation, most of them red- and terror-tagged.
“Remembering the victims is inseparable from the call for justice. We support and reiterate their families’ demand to hold those responsible—from the operatives to the officials who enabled the operations—and to end the cycle of violence and impunity. As we pursue justice for victims of Duterte’s drug war, we also continue the fight for Bloody Sunday victims. This struggle will continue until justice is served,” Palabay concluded.
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KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign. It was established in 1995.