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What Tulfo’s trenchant criticism failed to mention is that certain members of the government’s armed personnel are not only violent when they are performing their duty—they are as violent off of it and in dealing with hapless civilians. Sandatahang Dahas’s March 2026 data offer proof to these circumstances and to the alarming number of attacks against state agents outside of official operations.
As this is Sandatahang Dahas’s first annual report using its own method of tracking and counting state-related violence in the Philippines, it cannot yet conclude on year-on-year trends or to say with certainty that this year was more or less violent than the last. It has limited its discussion to the recognizable nexus of state violence, to the circumstances that often give rise to assaults and who resists them, and to the bodies found in the familiar geography of an unending insurgency.Monitoring of incidents in the first months of this year, however, indicates that 2026 may just be as deadly to insurgents, civilians, and state agents alike. Or even be much worse.
No single event in 2025 produced as many incidents of state-related violence as the September 21 protest. The Sandatahang Dahas monitor of the UP Third World Studies Center recorded a total of 390 killings and 520 injuries resulting from incidents of state-related violence throughout 2025. Of these, 194 injuries erupted from that protest alone, with 151 of these being police officers, and 43 being civilians.
For the first time in its one year of monthly monitoring of state-related violence, Sandatahang Dahas recorded body dumps of state agents.
State-related violence remains widespread in the last month of 2025. Certain regions, such as Eastern Visayas and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, have become consistent hotspots of state-related violence.
In its penultimate month of monitoring for 2025, Sandatahang Dahas recorded an alarming increase of state agents exercising their means for brutality beyond what can be considered justifiable scenarios. This brings into question the principle of “maximum tolerance,” and whether state forces actually abide by this like they are instructed to do. As the year comes to a close, Sandatahang Dahas will continue monitoring incidents of state-related violence, especially as we have noted an increase in violence between state agents and anti-insurgency operations for November.
Monitoring by Sandatahang Dahas for the month of July showed while state forces are the consistent top perpetrator of state-related killings, they also bear the brunt of consistently having the most injuries in such incidents.
The month of May recorded the least number of state- related cases of violence –so far in 2025- with a total of 45 reported incidents (18 killings and 27 injuries), monthly monitoring of Sandatahang Dahas showed. The biggest factor in the incidents of violence, however, was the May 12 elections with Mindanao as the most volatile area.
Since the Dahas Project started its weekly online monitoring in 2021, this is the first time that more killings were attributed to unidentified assailants than to state agents.
