(We yield this space to the statement of Indigenous Peoples network KATRIBU due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
IN 2016, the Permanent Arbitration Court ruled in favor of the Philippines’ maritime entitlements over the West Philippine Sea. And yet recently, the President stated that the ruling is mere paper that can be thrown away. He keeps on echoing that standing up against China will lead to war. Meanwhile neighbor countries Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam are using the arbitral ruling to reject Chinese claims in the disputed waters. President Duterte’s outright passivity in China’s encroachment of the West Philippine Sea is a clear manifestation of whose interest he is advancing.
It is obvious that the President will not defend the country’s territories and sovereignty against China, or any other imperialist country, due to billions of dollars of promised loans to him. This will be used to fund his Build Build Build (BBB) projects, which is essentially a milking cow. In 2016, five years ago, Duterte signed $24-billion worth of Chinese investments for his grand infrastructure programs. But up until now, where is there to show?
Instead, the Filipino people are already being heavily burdened by the consequences of such loan investments. The passage of the TRAIN Law, which has skyrocketed prices of commodities, is the means of the government to raise funds for infrastructure projects. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are experiencing being run over by the TRAIN Law, on top of state neglect and non-prioritization of social services.
For indigenous peoples (IPs), it is a matter of life and identity as several of these BBB projects are in our ancestral lands. This will only mean displacement of IP communities and will be another case of IPs being sacrificial lambs for bogus national development.
Duterte has been giving off land and resources to a rich and powerful nation yet can’t guarantee our rights as indigenous peoples to our ancestral land, which we have been defending for decades. Worse, Duterte is using Chinese loans for projects that will further dispossess indigenous peoples of their ancestral lands. Projects such as the Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban Dam in Rizal, The New Clark City in Tarlac, the Pulangi Hydropower Corp in Central Mindanao, and the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project in Kalinga are all Chinese investments within the program of the Chinese government to expand its control and influence in the global economy. The ancestral lands of the Dumagat, Aeta, Manobo, and Igorot are all under threat aside from long standing hazards caused by other development aggression projects.
Duterte’s lack of courage in defending our territories and sovereignty is inversely manifested in the obsession to suppress dissent. Groups and individuals calling to defend what is rightfully ours are being red-tagged, apprehended, filed with trumped-up charges and killed. We hold Duterte and his military accountable for the brutal killings of nine Tumandok in Central Panay and two Dumagat in Rizal; the harassment, intimidation, illegal detention of Lumad Bakwit School teachers and students; the recent illegal arrest of three Dumagat in Tanay, Rizal; and the arrest on trumped-up multiple criminal charges against the son of one the slain in the Tumandok Massacre.
Indigenous peoples will never fully understand the cowardice being shown by the Duterte administration. For IPs, to defend the land, our territory, is to defend life itself. We know that we are mere stewards of the land. We nurture and protect the land for future generations.
