Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment
Statement
June 5, 2025
Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment celebrates the dismissal of the trumped-up oral defamation case filed against environmental defenders Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano. We welcome the timely and symbolic decision by Judge Sheila Marie Geronimo-Orquillas to grant the motion to quash—issued on World Environment Day—a clear legal affirmation of what the people have long known: the case was a desperate attempt to cover up a brazen abduction and silence two courageous young women who dared to speak the truth.
Let us not forget: Jonila and Jhed were forcibly disappeared by state forces on September 2, 2023. They were held incommunicado for 17 days—denied access to family, legal counsel, and the outside world. The military tried to parade them as so-called “rebel surrenderers” in a staged press conference, but Jonila and Jhed resisted. They exposed the truth of their abduction live on national media. For this, the state punished them with harassment, surveillance, and a bogus defamation charge.
This court victory exposes the case for what it truly was: a desperate maneuver to cover up state-perpetrated abduction and to intimidate those who resist. The court found that the complaint lacked legal standing, failed to establish any of the elements of defamation, and that Jonila and Jhed’s statements—corroborated by Supreme Court and Court of Appeals findings—were truthful accounts made in good faith to seek justice for their ordeal. The judge affirmed that their words were not malicious, but necessary acts of resistance and self-defense against repression.
This is not just an isolated incident. It is part of a systematic campaign of repression against environmental and human rights defenders. Jonila and Jhed were investigating the impacts of reclamation and other destructive projects in Manila Bay—projects that threaten both communities and ecosystems. The military and its puppet agencies, like the NTF-ELCAC, are being weaponized to protect big business interests while terrorizing those who defend land, water, and life.
We demand more than the dismissal of this fabricated case—we demand full justice. The military and government officials involved in the abduction, illegal detention, and continued harassment of Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano must be held accountable. Repressive agencies like NTF-ELCAC must be abolished, and destructive reclamation, other extractive projects, and militarization must come to an end.
Justice for Jonila and Jhed means dismantling the structures of violence that endangered them in the first place. On this World Environment Day, let us turn this hard-fought legal victory into fuel for a broader movement. Let us build a future where defenders of the people and the planet can stand without fear, and where the voices of the marginalized and the poor are heard and protected.
Justice for Jonila and Jhed!
Junk all trumped-up charges against environmental defenders!
Defend Manila Bay!
Defend our defenders!
