Filipino climate warriors staged a protest in front of the US Embassy on September 18, 2026, as part of the Global Week of Action for a Fossil-Free Future.
Yet, this wasn’t a climate march led by slogans alone. While world leaders flew into New York for the 81st UN General Assembly, some 300 marched from Liwasang Bonifacio to Roxas Boulevard: urban poor who lost homes to storm surges, workers whose wages are eaten by coal-powered electricity bills, fishers whose catch vanished with the warming seas. They didn’t come to plead for climate action. They came to reclaim power.
Colored smoke rose not as theater, but as signal that the era of polite lobbying is over. Above them stood two giant fists: one holding the Earth, because if the people don’t hold it, corporations will sell it; the second crushing the flags of rich, polluting governments, with a promise scrawled across it: “Take Them To Court.”
It is no longer enough to protest polluters, the message said. We must prosecute them.
“We have no choice but to dismantle the fossil fuel dependence that has chained Asia,” said Lidy Nacpil of APMDD, “There can be no path towards global peace, stability, and climate justice without this rapid, equitable, and just transition.”
And who stood under those fists proves what transition looks like: the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice side-by-side with labor leader Luke Espiritu of Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino and Ka Leody de Guzman of Partido Lakas ng Masa, linking the picket line to the climate line. This is the real just transition, not a green swap of owners, but energy owned by the people, not empire. From import-dependent, costly and volatile fossil fuels to democratic renewable energy.
Photos by Thomas Brecio and Riz Ornada
