Warning to U.S. Filipinos: Duterte Agents evade accountability by seeking refuge in the US

**Update June 1 — an correction has been made to note that Celiz is applying for asylum in Canada, not the United States.

To Filipinos in the US, be alert of known criminal violators of human rights, Jeffrey Celiz and Royina Garma, who in this moment are trying to escape accountability in the Philippines by seeking refuge in the US. Celiz is applying for political asylum in Canada.

Garma is a former Philippine National Police officer under Rodrigo Duterte, who is undeniably culpable in the brutal killing campaign under his “War on Drugs,” which claimed 30,000 lives. She is a trusted confidante during Duterte’s mayoral term, which boasted of Duterte’s government-sanctioned mercenaries, the “Davao Death Squad.”

Being a witness in the House of Representatives’ QuadComm investigations into the drug war doesn’t mean she can just get away from accountability for implementing the drug war herself.

Celiz was employed in Duterte’s counterinsurgency campaign. Through propaganda channel Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), his function is to sow dystopian-levels of disinformation to terrorize civil society to maintain Duterte’s undemocratic rule, even as far as traveling to the United States on a propaganda tour to label Malaya Movement as a terrorist organization for its work on the Philippine Human Rights Act. Celiz has been in the US now for several months, evading contempt and detention orders from the House of Representatives.

We cannot understate the damage these two have wrought to the already flimsy fabric of democracy in the Philippines.

Among several others that enjoyed profiting off of their positions maintained through tyrannical violence, Celiz and Garma are wrongfully claiming political asylum. Political asylum is a right offered by democracy, something these two thoroughly bastardized for the Filipino people on a considerable scale.

It’s additionally sickening that these two are trying to escape accountability by taking refuge in the US, where regular Filipinos and other immigrants, who aren’t guilty of endangering and allowing the killing of thousands upon thousands, are currently wading through fear and uncertainty to be able to stay free from ICE and be able to work to feed their families.

Malaya Movement USA calls on Filipinos and concerned allies to push their legislators to sanction them and ban them from the United States, to bring them to justice in the Philippines.