CIVICUS discusses Gen Z-led protests within the Philippines with Charles Zander, a 17-year-old local weather justice activist from Bohol and youth campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines.
The Philippines is especially uncovered to local weather change, hit by more and more damaging annual typhoons. In 2025, a serious scandal over corruption in flood management funds introduced younger individuals onto the streets alongside local weather and social justice activists who had lengthy been organising. The protests led to some accountability, however activists argue that structural issues stay unresolved.
What introduced you to activism?
I grew up in Bohol, an island province within the Philippines the place the local weather disaster knocks on our doorways each week. Once I was youthful, politics felt distant, however that modified in 2021, when Hurricane Odette hit our province. My residence was severely broken, however others suffered much more. I knew individuals who misplaced the whole lot. Coastal communities have been flattened and a few villages have been so minimize off that it took weeks for provides to succeed in them. In my case, it took two years earlier than we had electrical energy once more, and a 12 months earlier than we had water or I may entry schooling.
My two childhood greatest buddies died within the aftermath, and dropping them modified me. At first, I didn’t assume I used to be doing activism. It began with reduction work: distributing meals, organising group assist, listening to individuals who had misplaced the whole lot. I realised individuals wanted to be heard. However the extra you pay attention, the extra questions seem. Why have been some communities nonetheless ready for support?
Finally, I realised for those who develop up in a spot the place disasters are routine, silence seems like complicity. I joined native teams engaged on local weather justice, group schooling and catastrophe response. And I noticed protest because the second when persistence runs out.
What are younger Filipinos demanding?
For a lot of younger Filipinos, the local weather disaster is just not a coverage problem; it’s the story of our lives. Local weather injustice is due to this fact on the core of our wrestle, but it surely connects to many different struggles. We reside in a rustic hit by stronger typhoons yearly, but coal crops nonetheless get accredited. We have now coastal communities dropping their properties to storm surges, but improvement choices not often contain them. We have now extreme flooding in every single place within the nation, and our authorities is pocketing local weather adaptation funds.
When catastrophe hits, rich neighbourhoods rebuild rapidly and typically will not be broken in any respect, whereas distant island communities watch for help for months, if not years. Disasters expose inequality, so local weather protests are about equity, about whose lives are thought of price defending.
How have been current protests organised, and what function did social media play?
There are various energetic organisations, youth teams and group leaders, and when a serious occasion akin to a hurricane or a scandal creates urgency, conversations unfold by way of networks and messaging teams. Sooner or later somebody proposes a date, which we regularly tie to a symbolic second, such because the day of a nationwide hero. The latest one, in February, was on the fortieth anniversary of the 1986 Folks Energy Revolution. This has sensible implications: on holidays, individuals don’t have college or work, to allow them to take part with out worrying about their livelihoods. And since they’re residence, individuals are paying extra consideration to social media, which will increase our attain.
On this sense, no person owns the protests. Actions develop as a result of many individuals resolve the second has come. However organising entails logistics, together with permits, security planning, communication, outreach and coordination amongst teams with completely different priorities and techniques. That course of may be messy, but it surely additionally displays the democratic nature of grassroots actions. Finally all of us come collectively and get onto the streets.
Social media platforms, notably Fb and Instagram, permit younger individuals to organise rapidly throughout islands, cities and actions. Requires protests can attain individuals inside hours. Organisers can doc occasions, share reside updates and counter disinformation.
We use memes loads. Older generations may reply to extra technical explanations, however Gen Z and Gen Alpha are extra reachable by way of humour and jokes. We additionally hyperlink points to individuals’s precise lives so that they really feel compelled to behave. However there must be extra work on ensuring individuals actually know what they’re combating for once they be part of, not becoming a member of as a result of it seems to be cool on social media.
Finally, know-how is only a software. A hashtag can not substitute a group. The underlying work is slower and occurs when nobody is watching. Protests are the seen tip of the iceberg, however beneath the floor there are group workshops, coverage analysis conferences with native leaders, coaching of younger volunteers and network-building throughout the nation. A protest is simply at some point, however organising is the 1000’s of conversations that make that day potential. With out that groundwork, protests would fade rapidly.
What dangers have you ever confronted?
For me personally, one of the vital tangible risks has been surveillance, on-line and offline. After taking part in a serious local weather and social justice march, I seen my on-line exercise and messages being monitored extra intently. It’s a refined sort of strain, but it surely makes you assume twice about who you belief, the way you talk, what you put up.
There’s additionally intimidation. At one protest, as an illustration, native authorities questioned volunteers about their involvement, contacts and affiliations. That is meant to create worry.
This has emotional and sensible impacts. It may be exhausting and typically isolating. However it additionally shapes the way you organise. You grow to be strategic, deliberate, extra protecting of your friends. The truth that there are dangers reveals that these in energy recognise the potential of youth actions to problem the established order. It’s a reminder that our wrestle issues.
What have the protests achieved, and the place have they fallen in need of ambition?
Change not often arrives unexpectedly. Typically protests produce coverage progress, stronger commitments and higher consideration to points. Typically the influence is cultural. A protest can shift what individuals consider is feasible, what individuals consider is correct.
Within the Philippines, essentially the most seen achievement involved the corruption round flood management initiatives. Though change is sluggish, we’ve seen some politicians arrested. A sitting senator is in hiding proper now due to an arrest warrant. If we hadn’t spoken up, we’d have misplaced a lot more cash from local weather adaptation initiatives whereas our communities continued to undergo.
However actions additionally face setbacks. Governments delay motion, hiding behind procedural points, and public consideration strikes on rapidly. That is discouraging. What failure teaches, although, is that we must always talk extra successfully, construct stronger alliances and maintain momentum past a single protest. A motion is just not outlined by the second it wins, however by whether or not it continues after dropping.
Is it proper to name these Gen Z protests?
I’ve blended emotions about it. I perceive why the label seems. Most of the seen faces in current actions are younger individuals. The label captures one thing actual: many younger individuals really feel the long run they’re inheriting was formed by choices made lengthy earlier than that they had any political voice. The local weather disaster is the clearest instance. Insurance policies that created the disaster have been applied many years in the past, but the results will unfold throughout the lifetimes of at the moment’s younger individuals. That creates a way of urgency, and calling these protests Gen Z protests indicators {that a} new era is politically energetic and unwilling to stay passive.
However actions are not often that straightforward. In nearly each motion, individuals from many generations stand collectively, college students marching alongside staff, group elders becoming a member of demonstrations, mother and father bringing their kids, veteran organisers who’ve been combating for many years exhibiting up alongside individuals attending their first protest.
When protests are framed solely as Gen Z actions, one thing necessary will get misplaced. It may well unintentionally erase the contributions of older generations who constructed the muse for these struggles. Each motion stands on floor that another person cleared. Civil rights campaigns, local weather actions and labour struggles didn’t begin with Gen Z. These are lengthy historic arcs that younger individuals are getting into and pushing ahead.
Essentially the most highly effective actions are intergenerational. Older organisers carry expertise, historic reminiscence and institutional data. Youthful generations carry new power, new instruments and new methods of speaking. One era can ignite a motion, however lasting change requires many generations transferring collectively.
It’s also improper to name us leaderless. We aren’t leaderless; we’re leaderful. We simply refuse to undertake a few of the hierarchical methods of organising of earlier generations, as a result of typically main collectively works significantly better than having somebody dictate the whole lot.
What retains you going?
Folks, notably younger individuals, preserve going as a result of the issues are speedy and not possible to disregard. Protesting means refusing to just accept the long run we’re being handed and making our voices matter.
Hope is just not a passive feeling. It’s present in motion, not in ready. I see hope within the motion, as a result of when younger individuals, elders, college students and communities stand collectively, there’s a shared energy, and the potential of a world that values dignity, justice and sustainability turns into actual. We preserve transferring as a result of we aren’t alone. I additionally discover hope in historical past, as a result of it reveals that whereas change is messy, individuals have at all times managed to push the boundaries of what’s potential.
CIVICUS interviews a variety of civil society activists, consultants and leaders to assemble numerous views on civil society motion and present points for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and don’t essentially replicate these of CIVICUS. Publication doesn’t indicate endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they symbolize.
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