A 27-year-old Baltimore community advocate has been detained in the Philippines since being taken into custody during an early-morning raid in Cabuyao on July 30, and her family says they are increasingly worried about her health and the conditions of her confinement. Christina Pasion had traveled to the Philippines as part of an exposure trip to work alongside rural Indigenous communities protecting their ancestral land, according to loved ones cited in reporting from her family. Dozens of supporters gathered near McKeldin Plaza on Thursday to protest her arrest and call for her release.
Pasion grew up in Maryland as the daughter of Filipino migrant healthcare workers, attended Carver Center for Arts and Technology — where she met her spouse Vivian — and later studied pre-law at the Community College of Baltimore County, according to Bulatlat. She lived in Baltimore's Waverly neighborhood and had worked as a paralegal specializing in workers' compensation claims, organizing advocacy campaigns for J-1 visa teachers and Filipino cruise ship workers facing CBP detention at the Port of Baltimore, the outlet reports. Christina and Vivian Pasion have been together more than a decade and married in 2024, according to The Baltimore Banner. Vivian, who works as a lab technician, told the paper that the trip was integral to who Christina was as a person.
A Pre-Dawn Raid and a Murder Charge
Human rights alliance Karapatan Laguna reported that joint military and police forces broke down the door of an apartment in Barangay San Isidro, Cabuyao City, around 6 a.m. on July 30, apprehending Pasion and fellow organizer Binay Serrano while both were undergoing medical treatment, according to the same account carried by Bulatlat. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines has also reported that the two women were seeking medical treatment when they were detained — a version advocacy groups maintain shows they were civilians, not combatants. The Philippine government has said Pasion and Serrano were arrested for alleged involvement with the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and Pasion's loved ones, along with Migrante International, have denied any such involvement.
Serrano, an Indigenous Mangyan-Buhid community organizer, was held without public disclosure of her location for nearly three days until a human rights team located her at the San Jose District Jail in Occidental Mindoro, where she faces a court-issued murder charge under Criminal Case No. R25-12586, the same case number cited in reporting from Inquirer.net. Pasion, meanwhile, was transferred to the custody of the Bureau of Immigration for alleged immigration violations, with police intelligence saying she had been staying in Cabuyao City since April 30, according to Tempo. The Philippine Army's 2nd Infantry Division has said investigators recovered a handwritten notebook at a separate conflict site containing entries it alleges were authored by Pasion, detailing insurgent operations, per the Philippine News Agency; the military has claimed Pasion remained with NPA combatants during encounters in Occidental Mindoro in March.
Family Turns to Washington for Help
Sen. Chris Van Hollen said his office is in touch with Pasion's family, and his staff has reached out to the State Department on their behalf, according to the Banner's reporting. The State Department has not responded to the Banner's request for comment, and it has separately reported that the Philippines has a history of enforced disappearances and red-tagging of activists. Frankie Jackson, an organizer with the Baltimore Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines and a close friend of the Pasions, said the family is in contact with Christina's legal team. Pasion's loved ones have organized a letter-writing campaign and contacted public officials for help, and the committee is holding a solidarity supper Sunday to press for Pasion and Serrano's release.
Pasion is the second person from the Baltimore region detained in the Philippines within the past year. Chantal Anicoche disappeared for days in January after Philippine forces deployed bombs onto the island of Mindoro before being released in late January; Anakbayan UMBC later hosted a community event demanding her return. Human rights groups have reported that the same January bombing operation in Abra de Ilog, Occidental Mindoro — the area where Anicoche was detained — killed three Indigenous Mangyan children and college student Jerlyn Doydora, according to the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.
Broader Pattern of Red-Tagging, Advocates Say
The NTF-ELCAC, the government's counterinsurgency task force established under Executive Order No. 70, issued a statement commending the joint operation and alleging that international “exposure missions” function as deceptive recruitment tools drawing foreign nationals into illegal armed rebellion. BAYAN USA has countered that state repression and red-tagging disproportionately target organizers in regions like Mindoro and Laguna because of local resistance to mining, land conversion, and Special Economic Zones associated with union-busting and depressed wages. Migrante USA and Migrante International, which advocate for Filipino migrants and coordinated Pasion's exposure trip, say she wanted to understand the factors forcing many Filipinos to leave their country and had helped build relationships with people intimidated into self-deporting during the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
Human Rights Watch has reported that human rights violations have continued largely unabated in the Philippines since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president in 2022, and CIVICUS Monitor rates the country's civic space as “repressed,” citing a nationwide pattern in which human rights defenders are routinely red-tagged and charged with fabricated crimes such as murder or illegal firearms possession. A clash between the Philippine National Police and the New People's Army on July 29 — the day before Pasion's arrest — resulted in the deaths of three NPA fighters and the forced evacuation of residents, according to Migrante International. Two Americans also died in the Negros Occidental province region in April, though the dossier does not specify further details of that incident. For now, Pasion's disposition before Philippine immigration authorities, whether additional criminal charges will follow, and how quickly Congressional pressure might secure her release remain open questions for a family watching from Baltimore.
