The Phillipines

The Republic of the Philippines is a Southeast Asian archipelago state comprising eleven major islands, with population of almost 112 million people. The country is one of the founding members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), an organisation promoting strategic cooperation across the region. First colonised by Spain, and then by the United States of America from 1899 ¹ until the signing of the Treaty of Manila in 1946, the country maintains strong cooperation with the US.

Since independence, the country has grappled with military insurgencies led by Muslim and communist groups, as well as political dynasties fighting for power. ¹ The former coloniser, the United States, has maintained strong political influence. ² In 2021, the US embassy reported that the Philippines was “by far the largest recipient of U.S. military assistance in the Indo-Pacific region.”³ In 2023, plans were announced to open four new US naval bases “to better counter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific.” ⁴

The Philippines was ruled by Ferdinand Marcos from 1965 to 1986. Initially democratically-elected, Marcos imposed martial law in 1972 and, with support from the US, engaged in violent anti-insurgency campaigns against communist groups, with the regime forcibly disappearing thousands of people. Amnesty International reported: “Most of the victims were members of legally-constituted student, labour, religious, political or human right organizations,” ⁵ estimating in 1996 that since the 1970s at least 1,600 people had been “disappeared.” ⁶

In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte was elected as president. He came to power promising to fight corruption and criminality, especially drug trafficking. His “war on drugs” may have claimed the lives of as many as 30,000 civilians. ⁷ Amnesty International documented the extrajudicial and arbitrary nature of the killings, describing the situation as “if you are poor, you are killed.” ⁸

In parallel, the government repressed dissent and contestation of its policies. Philippine journalists who documented the carnage were killed[9] as well as legally and publicly harassed. ¹⁰ In March 2022, Duterte was surrendered by the Philippines government to the International Criminal Court in the Hague to be judged for crimes against humanity. ¹¹ The same month, Ferdinand Marcos Jr (the son of the former president) son was elected president.

Counter-insurgency campaigns by the Philippine state continue to this day, in particular against the Maoist-Leninist New People’s Army. These campaigns have for decades been accompanied by the practices of “red-tagging,” ¹² through which “leftist political activists, civil society leaders and perceived critics,” as well as labour activists, are labelled as combatants or supporters of armed communist insurgents.

Those who are “red-tagged” face police and legal harassment, and many have been killed. Targets have also been added to terrorist lists. In August 2020, this is what happened to Zara Alvarez and Randall Echanis, ¹³ though a court subsequently ordered that their names be removed. ¹⁴ In May 2024, the Supreme Court of the Philippines declared red-tagging “a grave threat to individuals’ life, liberty and security,”¹⁵ though the practice continues. ¹⁶

Despite the extreme human rights abuses carried out in the name of counter-terrorism in the Philippines, it is closely involved in the transnational security architecture, and enthusiastically supported by certain entities within the UN.

Travel surveillance

The Philippines has closely engaged with the UN in developing national systems for travel surveillance and passenger profiling. In July 2021, the country signed a memorandum of understanding with the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT). Through this, the UN supported the development of systems to analyse and collect passenger data, in the name of detecting terrorists and serious criminals travelling into and out of the country.

Through this partnership, UNOCT provided agencies in the Philippines with “legal advice and legislative assistance regarding the development and/or review of national normative frameworks related to the collection, use, retention, transfer, and protection of API [Advance Passenger Information] and PNR [Passenger Name Record] data.” ¹

The UN office also provided “guidance and recommendations” on setting up a Passenger Information Unit, responsible for processing travel data; and provided training on “intelligence-led targeting” using API and PNR.

The Philippines was one of the first countries to be provided with the UN Countering Terrorist Travel Programme’s goTravel software. An evaluation report from 2023 noted that the software will “facilitate the transmission and analysis of data pertaining to passengers of all inbound, outbound and transfer flights, as well as verification against up-to-date watchlists.” In March 2025, the software went “live,” a move celebrated by the UNOCT, the Philippines and the Australian government, which provided financial support to the Philippines. ²

The UN has previously said it plans to make use of “Artificial Intelligence algorithms” in goTrave, “to facilitate the targeting of ‘unknowns’,” ³ though this statement has now disappeared from its publicity materials. ⁴ There are definite plans to use the software to ingest data on maritime travel, though this will “require additional resources.” ⁵

In fact, the Philippines appears to be playing a key role in UNOCT’s move into supporting states to engage in the surveillance and profiling of passengers travelling by sea. In August 2022, the UN Countering Terrorist Travel Programme joined Philippine state agencies in a “joint three-day scoping mission,” to examine the possibilities for transmitting data from ships to the Philippines’ passenger information unit. The mission was apparently a success, with data transmitted from vessel to shore despite “very low or intermittent internet connectivity.” The UN described this as “a key milestone for CT Travel in its aim to expand the scope of its comprehensive assistance to UN Member States.” ⁶

Prior to its cooperation with the UN, the Philippines already played a role in counter-terrorism policy in the region. The country chaired an ASEAN meeting in 2017 that set up a workshop series on “Aviation Security and Information Sharing.” The first of these was hosted by the US and Malaysia in 2019, and saw officials – including from the US and Germany – urge states to establish travel data schemes and comprehensive watchlisting systems. ⁷

The Philippines also hosted the 2023 launch of the “South East Asia regional Informal Working Group” on API and PNR. The event was attended by more than 100 officials from “law enforcement, counter-terrorism, security, and civil aviation agencies from ten countries in the South East Asia region, as well as experts from Australia, Latvia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and relevant agencies.” The event was financially supported by Australia, which described the Philippines’ API and PNR programme as “a key element of our partnership”. ⁸

The Informal Working Group (IWG), like others that have been set up around the world [link to travel surveillance piece], is designed to ease the establishment of travel surveillance and passenger profiling systems in the region. The UN noted that the EU’s “regional cooperation framework on passenger data” is the initiative’s “role model.” The EU is funding the regional IWG. ⁹

Watchlists

The Duterte government, in office from 2016 to 2022, “had an agenda to build a surveillance state,” argues a report published by Civic Futures in May 2023. The report explains that the administration participated in internationally-led projects to build a digital identity infrastructure for the country, which was also designed to store and exchange data for law enforcement.

One of the initial steps was the development of the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys), created in 2018. This is a national ID system built with a $600m loan from the World Bank. ¹⁰ It is based on an extensive digital infrastructure and uses biographic and multiple forms of biometric data, including a fingerprint, iris scan and facial photo.¹¹

The Civic Futures report argues that this “massive database of citizen data” will supposedly help address “a sweeping list of crimes,” but is neither necessary nor proportionate to the aims envisaged. Unsurprisingly, the Philippines police expressed interest in directly linking their own databases to the national ID system. ¹²

Digital identity and surveillance infrastructure explicitly designed for counter-terrorism was once provided to the Philippines by the USA. In the early 2000s, the country was making use of the Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PISCES) system, provided by the US Department of State. This information was unearthed by reporters looking into the Philippine authorities placing labour rights activists on a terrorist watchlist in 2007. ¹³ Those reports indicated that the Philippines had stopped using the system in 2004. A 2014 report by the Foundation for Media Alternatives suggested that this decision was going to be reversed, ¹⁴ but the current situation is unclear.

PISCES “enables immigration officials in countries at risk of terrorist activity to identify the attempted travel of known or suspected terrorists,” by carrying out searches against watchlists. It is unclear how data is shared between different countries using the system [link to watchlisting piece], though the Pakistani authorities replaced the system, claiming that they were misled by claims that US authorities could not access Pakistani data.

Whether or not the Philippines is making use of PISCES, it does appear to have received a border control system from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that will connect the country to international watchlists. A June 2023 tender posted on the IOM website indicated that the Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS) would be provided to the Philippines. ¹⁵

But the Marcos government’s change of alliance, with the outing of the daughter of former president Duterte, resulted in the surrender of Duterte to the ICC after an Interpol diffusion was issued about the former head of state. Some commentators argued that the diffusion and the following arrest could be perceived as a “serious challenge for Interpol’s commitment to political neutrality” ¹⁶because the Philippines is not a member of the international organisation. Maria Ressa, the Philippine Nobel Prize-winning journalist, soberly commented for the New York Times ¹⁷: “This was justice, regardless of how we got here.”

Privacy and data protection

The Philippines adopted in 2012 the Data Privacy Act (DPA). Amongst other things, it created the National Privacy Commission, an independent authority that is supposed to “ensure compliance of the country with international standards set for data protection.”

Under section 16 of the DPA, the data subject is entitled to the following rights:

• to be informed of the processing of personal information including the existence of automated decision-making and profiling;
• to know to whom their personal information is sold or disclosed, and contents of personal information processed;
• to access personal data about themself;
• to object to processing;
• to erasure or blocking;
• to damages;
• to file a complaint;
• to rectify and right to data portability.

A comparative study on the Act and European data protection law showed that Philippine law was inspired by European standards. However, two key differences concern exceptions to data protection rights, and limitations on access requests.

There wide exceptions to standard data protection rights under the Philippine law when data is processed in relation to criminal and even administrative matters. There are also significant limits to the types of information that can be obtained via the right of access. In the Philippines, individuals cannot obtain information when their data has been shared with an international organisation or a third country.¹⁸

There is not yet unfettered data exchange between ASEAN countries. A report published by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, a regional commission of the United Nations, noted that “Member States are working on international standardization for data protection and cooperation.” ¹⁹ The objective of the ongoing discussions is currently to promote regional data flows.²⁰

Both these exceptions raise questions over how the personal data of citizens and non-citizens alike may be processed in counter-terrorism systems, in particular when that data is designed to be shared across borders – whether in the region or more widely. In any case, the existence of rights on paper is only as useful as their implementation in practice – an empirical question that goes beyond the scope of this project.