(The following message was developed by Land is Life Asia Program Director and Secretary General of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance Bestang Dekdeken).
Indigenous leaders from various parts of the Philippines called on the government of President Rodrigo Duterte to stop the worsening attacks against indigenous peoples during a press conference which culminated the national consultation of indigenous human rights defenders held on November 6-7, 2019 in Quezon City, Philippines. They expressed strong condemnation to the attacks and the continuing reign of a culture of impunity, which are demonstrative of an undeclared nationwide martial rule.
This year, Global Witness has named the Philippines as the most murderous country in the world for environmental and land rights defenders. To date, 63 indigenous peoples have been extrajudicially killed since Duterte assumed the presidency in July 2016, while 130 indigenous peoples have fallen victim to extrajudicial killings.
The attacks against indigenous peoples arise from the government’s “indigenous people-centered” and “whole of nation” approach to end local insurgency (Executive Order 70 issued by Duterte in December 2018). This approach specifically targets legitimate organizations, activists and communities that are asserting their rights to their ancestral lands and self determination from plunder and destruction by State and corporate mining, energy and other so-called development projects.
These attacks also come in the form of development aggression or the government’s continuing treatment of indigenous territories as a resource-base for plunder and profit through large-scale mining as in the Pantaron Range in Mindanao and the Cordillera region, mega dams and other energy projects such as the China-funded Kaliwa dam project, agri-businesses in Mindanao, and commercial infrastructures such as the New Clark City project.
Indigenous peoples’ resistance to development aggression, however, is not only met with State violence such as extrajudicial killings but is also treated by the government these days as “terrorism”. Various indigenous peoples’ organizations and leaders have already been labeled by the State as “communist terrorist” groups and enemies of the State. These include the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, a known organization for advancing indigenous peoples’ rights at local, national and international level.
Indigenous peoples fear that by constantly labeling indigenous leaders and organizations as communist terrorist groups, filing trumped-up charges against indigenous activists, destroying schools that were put up by the indigenous Lumad people, sowing terror in indigenous communities, and implementing numerous mining and energy projects in indigenous lands, the Duterte regime is intensifying its direct attacks not only to the lives of many indigenous peoples but to the very existence of their organizations, communities, culture and identity. If unhampered, this could lead to ethnocide.
Amidst the attacks, Philippine indigenous peoples persist in their struggle to defend their ancestral lands and resources, human rights and self determination. No amount of injustice and tyranny will stop them from protecting and nurturing their culture and especially the land and environment for future generations.
