• CPA Links
  
  
• Statements and Articles
  
  
• International Support to CPA Campaigns

Unity Declaration of Cordillera Migrant Workers in Hong Kong to defend the Cordillera homeland, life and resources

We are migrant workers from the Cordillera, Philippines working here in Hong Kong. We are mostly mothers and women who are serving as our family’s main bread earner. We were forced to come to work in this foreign country to fulfill our simple dream of providing our families a decent life.

While we wish to remain in the Philippines and contribute our labor and skills in developing our communities and the country, we find no decent and secured jobs and livelihood for us in the Philippines. We are convinced that the growing poverty in the country and absence of jobs for Filipino workers and professionals are but a result of lopsided economic policies and programs of the Philippine government biased to the interest of foreign corporations and businesses and to institutions which are favoring globalization-World Trade Organization policies.

However, we are also convinced that we will not be staying forever in foreign lands like Hong Kong. As it is already happening, we are experiencing various forms of exploitation and abuses but which we are forced to tolerate for the sake of our family’s survival. We are left by the Philippine government in facing our own ordeals.

Eventually, we realized the significance of forming ourselves into Cordillera migrant workers/overseas contract worker’s organizations which have helped us in many ways in confronting the problems we face like illegal and premature termination of our contracts, high cost of fees we pay to recruitment agencies and to various government agencies, discrimination and other forms of abuses from our employers. We linked up with other progressive migrant organizations including those of other nationalities. Through unity and collective actions that we made significant gains in advancing our rights and welfare as migrant workers.

We truly believe that “there is no place like home”! One day, we will return to our ancestral homeland, the Cordillera. But we would like to return to a beautiful and rich homeland where we are able to draw our sustainance, our identity, our life. We strongly condemn the destruction of many of our villages in the Cordillera because of the greed and plunder that the Macapagal-Arroyo government is perpetuating in the name of “national interest.” We condemn and resist the implementation of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 that has given up 66% of the Cordillera homeland to mining corporations. We condemn the disenfranchisement of many of our fellow indigenous peoples in the Cordillera to our land rights because of imposed development projects by government and corporations which displace us and kill our identity and collectivity as a people. Allowing the plunder of our remaining resources in the Cordillera by the state, the landed, the rich and corporations will definitely make our lives miserable, driving us to various forms of slavery including selling our souls and labor even in foreign lands.

This is not the dream we want. This is not the future we want our children and future generations to inherit.

As concerned Cordillera migrant workers:

• We uphold, that defense of the Cordillera homeland, life and resources is our important obligation.
• We oppose and resist development aggression particularly the expansion and entry of mining corporations in the Cordillera.
• We reiterate the call of our Cordillera sisters and brothers at home that any development taking place in our villages and in our region should include genuine people’s participation and put the people’s interest on top of any decision-making and undertaking.
• We also support the call for justice to victims of militarization and human rights violations by the state, most recent victims of which are Albert Terredano of Abra and Jose “Pepe” Manegdeg of Abra and Ilocos Norte.
• In defending our land, life and resources that we necessarily demand the Philippine government’s withdrawal from the World Trade Organization, a global regime that only resulted to further poverty and hunger, forced migration and slavery.
• We join our voices to the growing voices of our Filipino compatriots calling for GMA to step down, having allowed the plunder of our resources in the Cordillera, having abandoned many of Filipino migrant workers while relying on our remittances in keeping the national economy afloat and for keeping many Filipino families apart because of economic survival.

In whatever means and capacity, we will transform this declaration into stronger unity and collective action. And so when we return to our villages in the Cordillera, we still have a productive place waiting for us.

Signed and affirmed this 11th day of December 2005 here at Boys and Girls Club, Hong Kong.