Economic inequality is the unequal distribution of income and opportunity between different groups in society. In the Philippines, our indigenous people (IP) have been unjustifiably trapped in the web of economic injustice for the longest time. Despite their territories having an estimated forest ecosystem value of P1.1 trillion annually, three in every four indigenous persons remain among the poorest 40 percent of Filipinos, according to the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC).
LRC is the chapter of Friends of the Earth in the Philippines. It works for the recognition and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and upland rural poor communities to land and environment. The Center seeks to bridge the gap between the informal articulations of the aspirations of these marginalized communities on the one hand, and the formal, technical, bureaucratic and legal language used by the state, on the other.
In its 2022 State of the Indigenous Peoples Address Report, LRC said that half of all Certificate of Ancestral Domain titles (CADTs) in the Philippines are embroiled in environmentally destructive projects. The threats were found to cover at least 1.25 million hectares or equivalent to 21 percent of the total area of all CADTs (Read, “Report shows vast tracts of PHL ancestral domain lands tied to destructive projects,” in the BusinessMirror, November 4, 2022).
“We found that half of all approved large-scale mining contracts and a whopping 87 percent of all large-scale logging projects are within or close to registered ancestral domains. Protecting ancestral domains and their natural defenses to extreme climate impacts is urgently needed if we are to rise above the climate emergency we are already experiencing now,” said Atty. Mai Taqueban, LRC executive director.
The report said the indigenous people are facing significant socioeconomic gaps in accessing education, public health, water and electricity, and other public services. “The exploitation and commoditization of nature is sadly an enduring framework to managing our natural resources. This is contrary to indigenous peoples’ conception of development. Not only has this marginalized them; it has also worsened their human-rights situation, for many of them naturally oppose these projects. What they have been clamoring for is support for their own development plans, anchored in their right to self-determination,” Taqueban said.
The report highlighted the ongoing struggles of IP communities against extractive projects, such as the water woes experienced by the Tuwali people during the operations of the OceanaGold copper-gold project in Barangay Didipio, Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya. Protesting the depletion and pollution of water and its impacts on their farmlands, they have been repeatedly met with a history of violence and human-rights violations.
Taqueban said: “Indigenous peoples have declared they will pursue an IP agenda under the new government. They called for a harmonization of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act with natural resources and other laws affecting IPs. They also enjoined the government to fast track the issuance of CADTs. Indigenous peoples’ enjoyment of their rights is premised on their right to land.”
The LRC report, which was launched in time for the opening of the UN COP27 climate negotiations, highlights the need for both local and world leaders to support indigenous actions to address the climate crisis.
The country’s indigenous lands are the last remaining intact ecosystems that can protect us against the negative effects of climate change. For example, the Sierra Madre Mountain, which is home to indigenous Dumagat-Remontado communities that have ancestral domain claims covering parts of the mountain range, acts as a resilience backbone that weakens the impact of typhoons. Apart from being a natural barrier to typhoons, the Sierra Madre Mountain range absorbs large amounts of rainfall, thanks to the diversity of ecosystems found in the area.
It’s about time that interest groups are stopped from treating our ancestral lands as a rich resource base of raw materials. Let’s find out how we can do our share to protect these ecosystems, which are nature-based solutions that shield us from the devastating effects of climate change.