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 dwelling was severely broken, however others suffered much more. I knew individuals who misplaced every little thing. Coastal communities had been flattened and a few villages had been so minimize off that it took weeks for provides to achieve them. In my case, it took two years earlier than we had electrical energy once more, and a yr earlier than we had water or I might entry schooling.
My two childhood finest pals died within the aftermath, and shedding them modified me. At first, I didn’t assume I used to be doing activism. It began with aid work: distributing meals, organising neighborhood assist, listening to individuals who had misplaced every little thing. I realised individuals wanted to be heard. However the extra you hear, the extra questions seem. Why had been some communities nonetheless ready for support?
Ultimately, I realised for those who develop up in a spot the place disasters are routine, silence looks like complicity. I joined native teams engaged on local weather justice, neighborhood schooling and catastrophe response. And I noticed protest because the second when endurance runs out.
What are younger Filipinos demanding?
For a lot of younger Filipinos, the local weather disaster will not be a coverage subject; it’s the story of our lives. Local weather injustice is subsequently 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 authorized. We now have coastal communities shedding their properties to storm surges, but growth selections not often contain them. We now have extreme flooding in every single place within the nation, and our authorities is pocketing local weather adaptation funds.
When catastrophe hits, rich neighbourhoods rebuild shortly and generally should not broken in any respect, whereas distant island communities look ahead to help for months, if not years. Disasters expose inequality, so local weather protests are about equity, about whose lives are thought-about value defending.
How had been latest protests organised, and what position did social media play?
There are a lot of lively organisations, youth teams and neighborhood leaders, and when a serious occasion comparable 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 newest one, in February, was on the fortieth anniversary of the 1986 Individuals Energy Revolution. This has sensible implications: on holidays, individuals don’t have faculty or work, to allow them to take part with out worrying about their livelihoods. And since they’re dwelling, persons are paying extra consideration to social media, which will increase our attain.
On this sense, no one owns the protests. Actions develop as a result of many individuals determine the second has come. However organising entails logistics, together with permits, security planning, communication, outreach and coordination amongst teams with completely different priorities and methods. That course of could be messy, but it surely additionally displays the democratic nature of grassroots actions. Ultimately all of us come collectively and get onto the streets.
Social media platforms, significantly Fb and Instagram, enable younger individuals to organise shortly 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 rather a lot. Older generations would possibly 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 appears cool on social media.
Finally, know-how is only a instrument. A hashtag can not exchange a neighborhood. The underlying work is slower and occurs when nobody is watching. Protests are the seen tip of the iceberg, however under the floor there are neighborhood workshops, coverage analysis conferences with native leaders, coaching of younger volunteers and network-building throughout the nation. A protest is simply someday, however organising is the 1000’s of conversations that make that day doable. With out that groundwork, protests would fade shortly.
What dangers have you ever confronted?
For me personally, probably the most 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 carefully. It’s a delicate form of strain, but it surely makes you assume twice about who you belief, the way you talk, what you publish.
There’s additionally intimidation. At one protest, for example, native authorities questioned volunteers about their involvement, contacts and affiliations. That is meant to create concern.
This has emotional and sensible impacts. It may be exhausting and generally isolating. Nevertheless it additionally shapes the way you organise. You develop into 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 wanting ambition?
Change not often arrives all of sudden. Generally protests produce coverage progress, stronger commitments and higher consideration to points. Generally the influence is cultural. A protest can shift what individuals consider is feasible, what individuals consider is true.
Within the Philippines, probably the most seen achievement involved the corruption round flood management initiatives. Though change is sluggish, we now have seen some politicians arrested. A sitting senator is in hiding proper now due to an arrest warrant. If we hadn’t spoken up, we might have misplaced a lot more cash from local weather adaptation initiatives whereas our communities continued to endure.
However actions additionally face setbacks. Governments delay motion, hiding behind procedural points, and public consideration strikes on shortly. That is discouraging. What failure teaches, although, is that we should always talk extra successfully, construct stronger alliances and maintain momentum past a single protest. A motion will not be outlined by the second it wins, however by whether or not it continues after shedding.
Is it proper to name these Gen Z protests?
I’ve combined emotions about it. I perceive why the label seems. Lots of the seen faces in latest actions are younger individuals. The label captures one thing actual: many younger individuals really feel the long run they’re inheriting was formed by selections made lengthy earlier than that they had any political voice. The local weather disaster is the clearest instance. Insurance policies that created the disaster had been carried out a long time 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 lively and unwilling to stay passive.
However actions are not often that easy. In virtually each motion, individuals from many generations stand collectively, college students marching alongside staff, neighborhood elders becoming a member of demonstrations, mother and father bringing their kids, veteran organisers who’ve been combating for many years displaying 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 persons are coming into and pushing ahead.
Probably the most highly effective actions are intergenerational. Older organisers carry expertise, historic reminiscence and institutional information. 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 mistaken to name us leaderless. We’re not leaderless; we’re leaderful. We simply refuse to undertake a number of the hierarchical methods of organising of earlier generations, as a result of generally main collectively works significantly better than having somebody dictate every little thing.
What retains you going?
Individuals, significantly younger individuals, maintain going as a result of the issues are quick and inconceivable to disregard. Protesting means refusing to simply accept the long run we’re being handed and making our voices matter.
Hope will not be 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 power, and the potential of a world that values dignity, justice and sustainability turns into actual. We maintain 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 all the time managed to push the boundaries of what’s doable.
CIVICUS interviews a variety of civil society activists, consultants and leaders to assemble various 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 suggest endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they characterize.
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