The International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination & Liberation (IMPSDL) has urged the Marcos Jr. administration to halt all military operations in Mindoro Island, let the indigenous Mangyan stay in their ancestral land and allow humanitarian teams to carry out their work in the island without harassment and intimidation.
IMPDSL’s call came amid intensified military operations in Pola, Oriental Mindoro following a clash between New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas on Feb. 19, 2025, with soldiers of the 76th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA) launching helicopter gunships to pepper mountainous areas with machinegun and rocket fire. Mindoro is the homeland of the Indigenous Mangyan. Two days later, the military forcibly evacuated villagers and mounted artillery attacks, with Mangyan leaders complaining about being kicked out of their farms and their houses, a violation of international humanitarian law (IHL.)
Worse, IMPDSL argued, the military has also imposed an economic lockdown and food blockade, and checkpoints were set up. Mangyan leaders fear that hundreds of soldiers will be deployed to their ancestral land the military to prevent their movement, stop them from working on their farms and confiscate food and other provisions badly needed in their remote communities. Military operations also prevent children from attending school, restrict residents to their homes and disrupt normal community activities.
“These reckless operations are clear violations of IHL. Earlier incidents in the island showed that the army has no regard for the lives of indigenous peoples as these air strikes have no clear targets. They are basically carpet-bombing large portions of the island, endangering civilians far from the areas where clashed have happened,” IMPDSL argued. The Philippine Army (PA) has been notorious for scorched-earth operations during the Marcos Sr. martial law regime and the situation has not changed under the government of his son and namesake. Moreover, Mindoro island has been targeted for mining operations, particularly after Russian geologists claimed that there are uranium deposits on the island. Similarly, foreign geologists prospecting in the Visayas claimed that the interior of Samar island also hosts a sizable uranium deposit.
“There is reason to believe that these counterinsurgency operations are, indeed, clearing operations to pave the way for more plunder, exploitation and land grabs. As part of the government’s push to implement the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), energy projects, extractive ventures and eco-tourism are being described as beneficial for the economy and welfare of indigenous peoples. In reality, these projects are being lined up and implemented without the free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of the Mangyan. These projects are now showing their true colors through the violent repression and forced displacement of the Mangyan,” IMPDSL added.
FPIC has become a much-abused process, with power generating companies, mining and quarrying firms as well as agribusiness and palm oil ventures resorting to shortcuts and deception to secure the consent of some IP communities. This has been the case in the Cordillera, where hydropower projects are set to be operate, in the Remontado and Dumagat communities in the Rizal-Quezon area, where Chinese companies dubiously acquired FPIC and environmental compliance certificates (ECCs) in contravention of existing procedures. Even in Negros Island, a former logging concession is being transformed into a palm oil plantation while indigenous people protest the venture, which will snatch their farms.
When Indigenous Peoples organize themselves, voice out, and oppose efforts to displace them, they are met with more violence, tagged as terrorists, and worse killed, the group maintained, citing the fact that just last year church youth leader and indigenous Mangyan Jay-El Maligday was brutally murdered by soldiers and wrongly passed off as an NPA guerrilla. Recently, a Mangyan guerrilla was martyred and it took a long time for her relatives to claim her remains, locals said, with the military delaying the retrieval of the body.
IPMSDL calls on indigenous peoples organizations, leaders, activists, and advocates to voice out a collective demand for justice, accountability, and peace. “Call for the immediate pullout of state troops in Mindoro, affirm support for activists and human rights workers conducting a fact-finding mission in the island and demand that the state refrain from subjecting them to harassment, intimidation and violence, and support the call to defend the Mangyan people’s right to their ancestral lands and to live free from dispossession, landgrabbing and violence,” it concluded. (DIEGO MORRA)
