FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - October 28th, 2026
Contact: Recca Peralta | bayandmv@proton.me | 202-838-6772
Press kit found here.
More interviews, photos, and videos available upon request.
BALTIMORE, MD – Family members, activists, and community members impacted by FBI harassment were joined by 250 supporters across the country to launch the Defend Peoples Right to Resist campaign at St. Marks Lutheran Church.
"Earlier this year, we were getting constant calls from the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines and the FBI. They continued to escalate their attempts. The FBI would visit our homes, our workplaces, causing my mom and I constant fear of being surveilled and harassed in public." Gabe Pasion, Christina Pasion's brother, said.
His sister went back home to the Philippines earlier this year to work alongside indigenous and peasant communities, and has been detained for almost 3 months after her unlawful arrest on July 30th by the Philippine military and police. Since then, she has been subject to interrogation without legal counsel, has had crucial documents and information about her detention withheld, and has had no charges brought against her.
"The FBI is also escalating past my family and to those that have spoken out against the injustice my sister is facing and those that stand in solidarity with the Filipino people and the liberation movement. The state's collusion between the US and Philippines in harassing my family have been in response to my sisters service to the Filipino people," said Gabe.
ICHRP-US leader and solidarity activist Gordon Mutch, who was previously barred from entry to the Philippines, also came forward about how U.S. CBP has restricted his ability to travel. In September, while trying to cross from the U.S. into Canada for a human rights conference in Toronto, he testified "They [CBP] detained me for almost 4 hours, denying me a phone call or a lawyer,'" Mutch said. CBP also confiscated his electronic devices with no clear timeline on when he will be getting them back.
Julie Jamora, a leader of Malaya USA, who was also barred from entering the Philippines, shared that "Christina and Gordon’s experiences are not isolated events or singular attacks on a few individuals, but a coordinated and strategic plan by both the Marcos Jr. and Trump administrations to suppress peoples' movements and the peoples' democratic rights to resist. We know the fascist crackdown on organizing and dissent is rooted in the struggle over political power, land, labor, and resources, and repression is meant to chill dissent, isolate activists and people’s organizations, and sow fear to prevent collective action."
"We have seen throughout history that these attacks from the state will become meaningless when we mobilize tens of thousands of people for this campaign," said Nieves Delgado of BAYAN USA.
After the press conference, advocates arranged a car caravan to the Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C., where they mounted a protest action as part of a countrywide day of action. Other actions were also held in Washington state and Northern California.
This press conference to launch the Defend People's Right to Resist Campaign was convened by the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines U.S. (ICHRP-US), BAYAN USA, Malaya USA and the International League of Peoples’ Struggles U.S. (ILPS-US).
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