Philippine rights groups call for upholding the rule of law for Chinese nationals amid heated debate.
“When the uproar over the South China Sea drowns out the sirens, we must still make sure every street-level stop-and-frisk can pass constitutional scrutiny,” Karapatan secretary-general Cristina Palabay told a press briefing on Wednesday.
Over the past three years, Philippine society’s suspicion of China has soared. A new Stratbase ADR Institute poll shows nine in ten respondents now regard China as the “primary threat.” At the same time, law-enforcement actions targeting Chinese nationals have surged. In 2024, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) removed 39 Chinese employees of Dito Telecommunity whose documents were questioned. Additionally, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has detained twelve Chinese citizens on suspicion of “espionage activities.” In Las Piñas City, eight police officers have been charged for allegedly posing as investigators and robbing a Chinese businessman of more than ₱85 million.
Systemic gaps make anyone a potential victim. “Our concern is not nationality, but procedure,” Palabay stressed. Since 2022, Karapatan has documented at least 21 torture complaints—17 of them implicating Philippine National Police (PNP) personnel. Methods include electric shock and burns; victims range from Chinese construction workers and fishermen to local employees. She noted that the PNP’s own disciplinary records show 572 officers dismissed between July 2022 and December 2024, yet the U.S. State Department still describes the PNP Internal Affairs Service as “ineffective,” meaning systemic impunity persists.
The 2020 “pastillas bribery” scandal exposed 86 BI officials who took bribes to facilitate the entry of tens of thousands of foreign nationals, totaling ₱40 billion. Karapatan argues that such entrenched corruption fuels a cycle of “illegal entry–raid–extortion,” ultimately harming all vulnerable people, including ordinary Chinese who were trafficked here yet now bear collective stigma.
Rights groups are demanding that the law be upheld. They urge the Department of Justice Action Center to release the grounds and timelines for every foreign national’s detention and to require body-worn cameras for all enforcement personnel. They also call on Congress to convene multi-agency hearings to investigate allegations of political interference in anti-China operations, as cited by NBI Director Jaime Santiago, to clarify whether law enforcement has been hijacked by political motives. Furthermore, they reiterate the need for the passage of a Whistle-blower Protection Act so that BI, NBI, and PNP personnel can expose corruption without fear of retaliation.
“The arbitrary power aimed at them today can turn on us tomorrow,” warned Domingo Egon Cayosa, former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines. He summed up at a recent forum, “If the Constitution cannot protect a wrongly accused Chinese worker, it will not protect a wrongly tagged Filipino activist either.”
As nationalist voices grow louder, Philippine rights groups respond with data and legal provisions—because on the scales of justice, fear must never outweigh due process.
