Melissa Comiso
Melissa Amado Comiso is a member of the Coordinating Body of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines – Northern Minanao Sub-Region (RMP-NMR). She works to defend indigenous rights, and led the campaign calling for a military withdrawl from their communities.
The situation of human rights defenders has improved, to an extent, since the end of the Arroyo administration in 2010, but the current government has failed to address continuing violations against HRDs. HRDs still face extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, fabricated charges, arrest, denial of bail, threats and intimidation, and restrictions on their rights of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. Heavy militarisation in some areas, Mindanao in particular, significantly affects the work of HRDs.
