to justice. (9) Philippine State actors have targeted lawyers, judges, and politicians for repression. According to the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, 133 Filipino lawyers have been murdered over the past 40 years, with 59 being murdered during Duterte’s 6-year term as President. (10) Since February 2017, Senator Leila de Lima, vocal critic of the Government of the Philippines’ human rights violations, has been jailed on spurious charges. Amnesty International, other leading human rights organizations, and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have documented the fabricated charges, coerced testimonies, and other violations of Senator de Lima's rights that have occurred. This case reflects a broader pattern, with authorities in the Philippines consistently targeting political opposition leaders through politically motivated, spurious charges. (11) It is widely recognized that the Government of the Philippines silences dissent and the press. In May 2020, ABS-CBN, one of the Philippines’ two major sources of news, and an occasional critic of Duterte’s policies, was forced off air due to the denial of a franchise license by the Congress of the Philippines, at the behest of the Duterte administration. Similarly, Maria Ressa, a vocal critic of the repressive practices of State security forces, recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, and founder of the digital news site Rappler was convicted of cyber libel in June 2020. Multiple journalists critical of the Government, including Percy Lapid—a radio broadcaster and critic of the Marcos administration who was killed in October 2022—have been murdered since the beginning of the Marcos administration. And according to Freedom House’s 2022 report on the Philippines, impunity remains the norm for violent crimes against activists and journalists . (12) On March 7, 2021, nine activists were killed in a joint operation conducted by the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the