Filipino bishops, laity fighting for justice and human rights, 2

BY FR. SHAY CULLEN

MORE than 270 Filipinos, most of them indigenous citizens, were murdered between 2012 and 2020 alone as they protested or tried to defend land rights and thwart the destruction of the Philippine environment by mining corporations backed by a few powerful politicians and their cronies. They cut down forests, polluted rivers, and drove indigenous people from their ancestral lands. The lands are considered sacred to their way of life and have always provided their food and assured their survival.

Some government officials tell them to go to the cities and find jobs. This is an impossibility for indigenous people. It is similar in other countries when ingenious citizens are driven from ancestral lands and not recognized as the true owners. When they organize and campaign for justice, they are slandered, falsely branded enemies of the state, unjustly accused of being criminals and rebels, and wrongfully jailed or killed. Some brave bishops have spoken out to condemn killings and the “systematic abductions” of defenders of the ecology and lands. Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos said last 24 September, in a courageous statement about the abductions, that the indicators “point to state forces as the culprits”. …. “Perpetrators, including military and police officers, as well as officials of state institutions… involved in abductions and kidnappings, must be held accountable,” Bishop Alminaza said.

In Brazil, the Supreme Court ruled on 22 September 2023 by a majority to recognize the land rights of hundreds of thousands of indigenous people who have campaigned for justice since the 1980s, when they were driven off their ancestral lands by the military and the powerful politically connected agribusiness, logging, and mining cartels, backed by corrupt politicians and military force since 1988. The Supreme Court has now established the inalienable rights of thousands of indigenous citizens to millions of hectares of their ancestral lands, much of it rain forest. There is great rejoicing among the 1.7 million Brazilian indigenous citizens.

It gives hope that one day there will be justice for the brave Filipino hero-activists helping the people campaign to defend the environment, the waterways, beaches, forests, and lands of the people. Instead of being admired and praised, they are wrongly “tagged as subversives” and arrested, their human rights violated, and their voices silenced. The protests are silenced, and the exploitation and land grabbing continue without protest. This  is an insidious injustice that is going on in the once beautiful Philippines.

More of the 72 bishops should speak out and not leave it to Bishop Alminaza and a few other bishops to speak out. He is the vice chairman of the Bishops’ Commission on Social Action, Justice, and Peace. Under the past administration of President Rodrigo Duterte, four Philippine bishops and several outspoken priests defending human rights spoke against the “war on drugs and rallied their communities to protest the killing of thousands of Filipinos by the state-sanctioned “death squads”. They were falsely and maliciously charged with ‘sedition (as was Jesus of Nazareth) and ludicrously and falsely accused of planning to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.

The very few courageous bishops and priests that have the courage to stand against tyranny are: Archbishop Socrates Villegas, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, Bishop Honesto Ongtioco, and (retired) Bishop Teodoro Bacani; Father Robert Reyes; La Salle Brother Armin Luistro; Jesuit priest Albert Alejo; Divine Word priest Flaviano Villanueva; and nine others. They were falsely accused, and the manufactured case was a travesty of justice. Eventually, the ridiculous allegations were dropped when it failed to produce evidence and failed to silence the church leaders in defending human rights.

There is no greater shame for a nation than for its government’s agencies to persecute its human rights defenders and deprive indigenous people and poor farmers of their land rights. May all people of conscience and good heart work for social justice, human rights, and dignity. (preda.org)/PN

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