Indigenous people join calls for PNoy to quit

By: Arthur L. Allad-iw, Northern Dispatch (special to InterAksyon.com)
February 28, 2015 10:03 AM

Rice farming in an indigenous people's community in the Cordillera (photo by Arthur L. Allad-iw)

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- A national federation of indigenous people’s groups has joined calls for the resignation of President Benigno Aquino III, citing a “dangerous incompetence” they said can be clearly seen in an economic program that revolves around the plunder of resources in IP communities.

Large-scale mining and energy projects -- coupled with militarization – have enveloped and threatened to destroy IP communities, the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP) said in a statement.

The group singled out Aquino’s centerpiece Public-Private Partnership program, which KAMP spokesperson Piya Macliing Malayao said, “sold out our lands to private business.”

Malayao blasted Aquino’s Executive Order 79, which she said propped up the Mining Act of 1995 that is causing the most turmoil in indigenous communities nationwide.

While EO 79 ostensibly sets a the moratorium on all mining applications, KAMP said it excluded 712 mine applications approved prior to its issuance.

These applications cover 967,531 hectares, 532,368 hectares of which lie in indigenous communities.
An estimated 100,000 people from 39 tribal groups nationwide will be dislocated or stand to lose their livelihood due to liberalization of mining, KAMP documents said.

Igorots from the provinces of the Cordillera expressed their opposition to the large-scale mining as they heightened their call for repeal of RA 7942 or the Mining Act of 1995. Photo by Arthur Allad-iw

Indigenous people are estimated to make up 12-15 percent of the country’s population of 100 million.
Aside from mines, KAMP said 149 hydropower projects and 16 geothermal projects have been built, are under construction, or are in the pipeline to being built in IP lands.

And wherever mining, energy and other corporate projects are located, KAMP said government forces are also deployed to contain any opposition and paving the way for human rights violations.

“He (Aquino) does not recognize and respect the IPs rights over their lands and self-determination,” Malayao said.

Since 2010, KAMP said that 50 indigenous peoples, 6 of them were women and six were children, had been victims of extrajudicial killings.

The human rights situation of IPs has also worsened under the administration’s counterinsurgency campaign Oplan Bayanihan.

“There is no let-up in human rights violations as BS Aquino revels in impunity … We have every reason to call for his removal in Malacanang,” Malayao ended.

Photo by Arthur Allad-iw