By: Mia Kruger
Early in my training at the Ateneo Human Rights Center (AHRC), my internship coordinator Billie posed a question that has shaped my thinking since: “How do you know that you are serving the people if you don’t really know who you are serving?”
Before arriving in the Philippines, I understood the human rights field as being the work I have spent hours completing in previous roles: researching legal frameworks, identifying relevant court decisions, and comparing governmental policies. While those skills remain fundamental for meaningful advocacy, they also reflected a privilege I had not fully recognized: the ability to engage with injustice only as an academic exercise.
Growing up, my parents instilled in me that I “won the lottery” by being born where I was. At the time, I understood it as a necessary and welcomed reminder to be grateful for my circumstances. My internship at the Ateneo Human Rights Center has given those words a deeper meaning. One of the greatest privileges I have come to recognize is the ability not to know. Privilege can create distance from circumstances that shape and mark another person’s everyday life, circumstances that they cannot escape at the end of the work day. This distance allows us, as fortunate law students, to understand injustice in theory without encountering its human reality.
Throughout my internship, I have been challenged to close that gap, an objective achieved by the Ateneo Human Rights Center through tireless, selfless, and passionate on-site advocacy. Although situated in one of Metro Manila’s most affluent neighbourhoods, the Center is dedicated to serving marginalized communities across the Philippines by advocating for access to justice and the promotion and protection of the rights of various vulnerable populations.1 The Center’s work is grounded in an alternative lawyering model, which aims to use the law as a tool to empower entire communities, starting with community members themselves. This goal is aptly described by the mission statement “learn the law, serve the people,” and while it has a way of sounding illusory and overly ambitious, it is through witnessing such engagement firsthand and becoming involved in this advocacy myself that I know the Center’s mission to be true.
The Ateneo Human Rights Center, located in Makati, Manila.
Whether supporting land claim applications by living alongside the affected Indigenous communities themselves, or closely working with individuals whose lives have been profoundly shaped by state-led violence in the Philippines, I have come to appreciate that no legal framework or court decision can substitute for listening to the people whose lives laws ultimately affect. The legal and political issues I had previously encountered on paper became inseparable from the people living them.
That lesson extended beyond my formal work. In visiting communities and islands across the Philippines, I found that the most meaningful moments rarely came from the landmarks that each location is known for. They came through conversations and stories shared over meals, moments of genuine human connection made possible by the generosity and vulnerability of people willing to open their lives to a stranger. These instances reminded me that to be understood, communities must be experienced with curiosity, humility, and a willingness to listen.
A homestay on the island of Bohol. The family shared local greetings, taught us about their farming practices, and prepared a local meal with fresh ingredients.
One conversation stuck with me in particular. It took place in Tondo, the most densely populated district in Manila, one heavily impacted by former President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs. While there, my tour guide revealed that he was a police officer during the War on Drugs period, and he had personally shot 68 suspected drug users. He spoke candidly about his stance, stating “Duterte was the best thing to happen to this country”. His perspective challenged everything I thought I understood about a period that I had previously viewed through a singular lens. I did not leave the conversation agreeing with him, nor did I stop believing in the importance of accountability for the human rights violations committed during that time. However, what changed was my acknowledgement that we must ask why people understand justice differently before considering how justice should be pursued. Before advocating for people, you must seek to truly understand them, which necessarily begins with listening.
The streets of Tondo, Manila.
Therefore, the most important lesson I will take from the Ateneo Human Rights Center is largely unrelated to legal doctrines or research methodologies. Rather, it is that advocacy begins with proximity and a willingness to listen.
Billie’s question now feels less like a challenge, and more like a choice. If privilege involves the ability not to know, then it also encompasses the choice to fight and to advocate for those who need it, to listen before speaking, and to allow the people we hope to serve to shape our understanding of our work and of the world.
- These vulnerable groups include children, women and people of diverse SOGIESC, and Indigenous Peoples, among others.
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