Extrajudicial Killings and Forced Disappearances in The Philippines

Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines are illegal liquidations, unlawful or felonious killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines. These are forms of extrajudicial punishment, and include extrajudicial executions, summary executions, arbitrary arrest and detentions, and failed prosecutions due to political activities of leading political, trade union members, dissident and/or social figures, left-wing political parties, non-governmental organizations, political journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, agricultural reform activists, members of organizations that are allied or legal fronts of the communist movement like "Bayan group" or suspected supporters of the NPA and its political wing, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) by either the state government, state authorities like the armed forces and police (as in Liberia under Charles G. Taylor), or by criminal outfits such as the Italian Mafia.

Extrajudicial killings (EJKs) is also synonymous with the term "extralegal killings" (ELKs). Extrajudicial/ extralegal killings (EJKs/ ELKs) and enforced disappearances (EDs) are unique in the Philippines in as much as it is publicly and commonly known to be committed also by non-state armed groups (NAGs) such as the New Peoples Army (NPA) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Though cases have been well documented with conservative estimates of EJKs/ ELKs and EDs committed by the NPAs numbering to about 900-1,000 victims based on the discovery of numerous mass grave sites all over country, legal mechanisms for accountability of non-state actors have been weak if not wholly non-existent.

Aside from the Philippines, extrajudicial killings, death squads and desaparecidos were common in South and Central America during the cold war. It is also currently common in in the Middle East.