Various indigenous people (IP) organizations staged three pickets in one on August 9, 2024, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (IDWIP), to protest continuing military operations in the Cordillera and other areas, “spearing” the gate of Camp Aguinaldo, “battering” the walls of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and hounding the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) for being an adjunct of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC.)
Leading the three-pronged pickets was Beverly Longid, national convenor of the Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (Katribu) and leaders of various IP rights groups and human rights defenders who trooped to the Department of National Defense (DND) at Camp Aguinaldo to condemn the intensified attacks by the state, with military units descending on ancestral domains and helicopter gunships and warplanes bombing IP lands and territories. Recently, communities in Balbalan, Kalinga were bombed as residents opposed the construction of the Saltan dams that would submerge six IP communities.
“These military operations, aside from being part of a counterinsurgency campaign, are also designed to clear the way for destructive projects that devastate our communities and environments,” Longid protested. IP leaders also condemned the continuing surveillance and harassment in IP communities, the targeting of IP leaders and botched attempts to kidnap and red-tag those who oppose destructive projects, explaining that wanton human rights violations are meant to intimidate IP communities, decapitate their organizations, eviscerate their resistance and pave the way for environmental destruction of ancestral domains, all in violation of universal covenants protecting IP rights.
After the picket at DND, Katribu and allied groups proceeded to the main office of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to denounce the unremitting plunder of ancestral lands and territories, which the DENR has encouraged by being blind to the ecological disaster wrought by at least 14 foreign-owned mining companies that have squatted on ancestral domains. These include the Didipio gold and copper mine in Nueva Vizcaya, the Ipilan Nickel Corp. in Palawan, and Tampakan mining in South Cotabato. Projects like the Solar UV Farm in Ilocos Norte, Gened and Saltan Dams in the Cordillera, Kaliwa Dam in Rizal and Quezon provinces, Jalaur Dam in Iloilo and the South Pulangi hydroelectric power plant in Bukidnon intruded into IP ancestral lands and displaced thousands of residents.
In his latest State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. welcomed these dams and power generating plants, saying they contribute to climate change mitigation. Longid argued that he is downright wrong, stressed that where dam projects are pursued, deforestation follows, forcible mass relocation happens and the provisions of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) are violated or simply dispensed with. IPRA, officially designated as Republic Act No. 8371, recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural communities and IP in the Philippines to their ancestral domains and bans mining, logging and big plantations in their areas without free, prior informed consent (FPIC.)
Katribu and its allies finally headed to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to demand accountability for its neglect of IP communities. Speakers condemned the NCIP for its failure to help IP rights defenders, including Dexter Capuyan and Bazoo de Jesus, both of whom were abducted by state agents, and the unjust conviction of the Talaingod 13. “The NCIP, far from protecting IP rights, is a tool of state oppression in violating Indigenous rights,” said Longid. “Such as in the case of proposing FPIC revisions without consulting their constituents, the NCIP only aids corporate plunder.”
NCIP recently proposed revisions for the FPIC processes and scrapped the ban on military meddling in the FPIC and civil as well as rendered meaningless the civil and political rights abuses committed by corporate project proponents and their paramilitary and military backers as the basis for the IP to reject those projects. Worse, the NCIP wanted a deadline for IP communities to give their consent and restricted their access to relevant environmental information. These grievances have been relayed to UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Francisco Cali Tzay during a forum on July 24 and 25 IP groups in the Philippines shared their grievances regarding the government’s neglect and attacks on them and their communities.
Katribu also condemned the NCIP’s connection with the NTF-ELCAC, with former agency chiefs Allen Capuyan and Marlon Bosantog vilifying their own constituents. They called for the abolition of NCIP and NTC-ELCAC in the event new NCIP chairperson Jennifer Sibug-Las follows the lead of the unlamented Capuyan. Longid urged the Marcos Jr. regime to stop the attacks on IP, their communities, and their defenders. They called for the immediate repeal of the Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) and the release of all political prisoners. “The celebration of IDWIP must always revolve around the defense of our ancestral lands and the assertion of our right to self-determination,” she concluded.
