Hybrid Moral Ideologies in Human Rights Movements

Instructive Cases From Duterte's Philippines

Bibliographic Data

ID7514780
AuthorsDavid Lozada (0000-0003-3308-942X, The University of Melbourne, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume45
Issue1
Pages78-101
Publication date2026-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1868-1034 • E-ISSN: 1868-4882
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/18681034251355269
OpenAlexW4411881007
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited32

While the Duterte government in the Philippines carried out grave human rights abuses, it failed in pushing for laws that aimed to reinstate the death penalty and to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR). In these two cases, the Duterte government encountered pushback from issue-based human rights coalitions that curtailed the president's anti-human rights agenda. This article examines the underlying ideologies that influenced and informed human rights movements in these two issues. I argue that rights coalitions that successfully blocked Duterte's anti-human rights policies on the death penalty and MACR utilized hybrid moral ideologies—discourses based on dominant interpretations of religious doctrine and/ or cultural values that align with laws that protect and promote human rights. This manifested in these coalitions’ activities toward harnessing elite and public support for the movement. These findings provide strategies for rights coalitions to contest rights abuses in similar authoritarian contexts

Human rights · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration