We will fight for our ancestral lands

As the Philippines looks to mining its treasure trove of minerals to recover from the economic impact of COVID-19, various international organizations and human rights advocates have launched a global campaign to defend the Cordillera Region in Southeast Asian nation.

The immediate lifting of Executive Order (EO) 79, which is the moratorium on new mining projects imposed during the time of former President Benigno Aquino 3rd, can help the Philippine economy recover from the pandemic-triggered recession, a Department of Finance (DOF) official said.

DOF is the government agency leading the Duterte Administration’s push for a new fiscal regime on mining.

In 2017, President Rodrigo Duterte has warned mining companies that he will tax them “to death” and even threatened to stop them from exporting minerals amid alleged violations of environmental laws.

The discussion on a new fiscal regime in the mining sector has been going on for years. It formally started in 2012 when Aquino issued EO 79.

When the Duterte administration took over, the government wanted to make sure that the Philippines, one of the most highly mineralized countries in the world, would benefit more from the mining sector.

The country’s mineral resources have an estimated value of around $1.4 trillion, but its total contribution to gross domestic product is only 0.85 percent.

Manila asserts that a profits-based royalty is the same structure used in other mineral-rich countries such as Canada, Peru, Chile and South Africa and that by adopting this, the structure will help sustain existing mining operations.

Not so fast says the global campaign to defend the Cordillera Region in the Philippines.

Supporters from the U.S., Canada, Australia, The Netherlands, and Hong Kong, Korea among others have expressed their commitment to denounce the mounting human rights violations and plunder in the Cordillera.

A Global Pact to Defend Cordillera has been opened for signing to organizations, indigenous peoples, and advocates from all over the world. According to the pact, development aggression and violations of indigenous peoples’ rights persist in the Cordillera. Their ancestral lands continue to be treated as a resource base for profit by the State working hand in glove with multinational corporations. Large-scale mining, dams, energy, and other foreign projects are masqueraded as ‘development’ at the expense of indigenous peoples’ self-determination and human rights.

Bestang Dekdeken, Secretary-General of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), stated: “The Duterte administration has been using the COVID-19 response as a smokescreen to stifle our dissent over the intrusion of destructive projects and widespread militarization in our communities. We are being targeted, red-tagged, arrested, and killed by the State.”

The Cordillera Region in the Philippines, as emphasized in the global pact, is blanketed with more than a hundred large-scale mining applications covering 978,664 hectares of land and more than 100 hydropower and geothermal projects awarded to private corporations. A good case in point is the Chevron Geothermal Power Project which covers more than 25,000 hectares in Kalinga province.

“The Cordillera people are robbed of their life, land, culture, and worse, their future. If we don’t act now this could mean ethnocide for our Igorot brothers and sisters,” said International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) chairperson Peter Murphy.

“The Igorots as a people have a long history of resistance and struggling peoples of the world have drawn and continue to draw inspiration from them. Today, in an act of solidarity we further intensify our support for the people’s rights in the Cordillera--a solidarity that knows no borders and nations,” said journalist and human rights activist Brandon Lee who survived an assassination attempt in Ifugao, August 6 last year. Lee is still recovering from the incident and is now the spokesperson for Defend Cordillera in the US.

Last July 3, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte signed the dangerous Anti-Terror Act of 2020 (ATA) despite the massive calls to junk the bill. Under the law, anyone who conspires or provides support to ‘terrorists’ as defined under the act, could face life imprisonment without parole.

At the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous members of Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA), the biggest federation of indigenous peoples', and other sectoral organizations in the region reported the relentless red-tagging and widespread online smear campaigns.

Also stated in the pact, are cases of community leaders being pressured to “surrender” as members of the New People's Army. These attacks by the State in collusion with private corporations are endangering the people’s lives, security, and dignity while plundering the wealth of the Cordillera.

“We will continue to fight for our ancestral lands, human rights, and right to self-determination. We are calling on to human rights advocates, to our indigenous brothers and sisters, and to all peace-loving peoples of the world to stand with the Cordillera people,” Dekdeken added.

Globally-coordinated activities will be launched in response to the campaign starting September 12 in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

“We support the unified calls to condemn all forms of attacks against the land and lives of indigenous peoples in the Cordillera. We demand full accountability from the State, its agents, and the private corporations responsible,” Murphy said.