cpa@cpaphils.org | Post Office Box 975 Baguio City 2600 Philippines
Cordillera history is replete with our people’s noble defense of land and life. The successful struggle against the Chico dams and Cellophil as landmark events are a testament to this, including countless other successful and inspiring struggles in the region from plunder, development aggression and militarization. The gains and lessons from these experiences must be continually learnt from to sustain the legacy of our ancestors for land, life and honor.
Cordillera history is replete with our people’s noble defense of land and life. The successful struggle against the Chico dams and Cellophil as landmark events are a testament to this, including countless other successful and inspiring struggles in the region from plunder, development aggression and militarization. The gains and lessons from these experiences must be continually learnt from to sustain the legacy of our ancestors for land, life and honor.
Let us therefore commemorate the 34th Cordillera Day with renewed courage, strength and commitment to fight tyranny and fascism anew.
Tyranny of the US-Duterte regime
The domestic ruling system’s crisis further deepened and worsened along with the crisis of the world capitalist system with intensified neoliberal policies and attacks against people’s rights. Imperialist powers led by the US, including China, tightened their grip on Philippine economy at the expense of national sovereignty. As imperialist masters of this puppet regime, they support the tyranny and State terrorism of the Duterte regime against the Filipino people.
The Duterte regime maintained oppressive and unequal treaties with the imperialist US in the likes of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade-World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO) that dictate our country’s military, political and economic affairs. With the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), inflation has risen to 4.5% making the poorest sectors of Philippine society face higher prices for basic consumer goods; an all-time low for their buying power, without any concrete provision to access basic social services. Anti-poor policies like labor contractualization and the bogus jeepney modernization program worsens the widespread and entrenched poverty of the people.
Just like the foreign loans of past regimes, the Build, Build, Build (BBB) strategy is yet another mechanism for imperialist powers to dictate conditionalities upon our economy with the debt servicing to be ultimately imposed upon the people. Among the recent BBB projects is the PhP 3.135-billion Chinese loan to fund the Chico River Irrigation Project in the Cordillera region.
The so-called “war on drugs” is a war against the poor—it never addressed the systemic drug problem in the country. The State’s Oplan Kapayapaan outrightly attacks legitimate political dissent and violates people’s rights, resulting in over 700 extrajudicial killings of indigenous peoples and peasants, and nearly half a million victims of bombings, threats, forced evacuations, intimidation and political persecution of activists.
The Duterte regime aims to surpass the bloody legacy of the US-Marcos dictatorship. Its Oplan Tokhang alone claimed more than 20,000 lives in just two years. Duterte is consolidating political power by attacking and eliminating checks and balances in government, his critics like the Supreme Court Chief Justice Sereno and independent constitutional bodies like the Office of the Ombudsman. The Duterte regime, with all its might, is using all instrumentalities at its disposal towards installing a fascist dictatorship and a reign of terror.
Tyranny and Fascism in the Cordillera
The situation in the Cordillera is no different from other regions in the country. De facto martial law is upon the Cordillera with intensified militarisation and systematic attacks to dissent: bombings and ground operations, AFP encampement inside communities that violates international humanitarian law, political vilification, filing of trumped-up charges against human rights defenders such as the case of the 5 women activists in the region, extrajudicial killings such as the case of Ricardo Mayumi of Ifugao; harassment and surveillance.
The intensified military operations and offensives of the 81st Infantry Battalion (IB), 24th IB, 54th IB, 77th Cadre Infantry Battalion under the Philippine Army’s 5th and 7th Infantry Divisions (ID) in the region continue to sow fear and terror in communities. The 81st IB is in fact actively filing trumped-up charges against local human rights defenders. Of recent, former and current leaders of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) are maliciously implicated as “terrorists” in a Department of Justice (DOJ) petition to proscribe the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army.
In addition, the notorious paramilitary Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA)’s continuing recruitment only shows the US-Duterte regime’s hand in using this mercenary group for its anti-people agenda including terrorism and protection of imperialist and corporate interests in our homeland.
The Cordillera remains a resource-base for plunder and exploitation by both local and foreign capitalists, in the form of big mining and energy projects. There are presently 102 pending mining applications covering 649,230 hectares, the largest of which is from the Cordillera Exploration Company, Inc. (CEXCI), a subsidiary of multi-national company Nickel Asia which has already plundered ancestral lands in Palawan and Mindanao. These are on top of the existing mining operations of Lepanto, Philex and Benguet Corporation.
In the energy front, local and multinational companies Hedcor, SN Aboitiz, First Gen, Chevron, Pan Pacific Renewable Power Philippines, San Lorenzo, Asia Pacific and Quadriver threaten our rivers and mountains with destructive hydropower and geothermal projects. The Chinese loan to build the Chico River Irrigation Project is reminiscent to the threat of the World Bank-funded Chico Dams during the Marcos dictatorship.
The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) remains instrumental in facilitating the entry of these destructive projects. It manipulated and corrupted the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of communities and has done nothing on the extrajudicial killings, forced displacement of militarized indigenous communities, and attacks against indigenous activitists and human rights defenders. NCIP is an instrument of plunder and national oppression, hence, must be abolished.
In addition to the above are continuing efforts of the State at bogus regional autonomy, now with House Bill 5343 compounded by the regime’s push for federalism. The Cordillera people’s movement remains firm in its position on Genuine Regional Autonomy (GRA) predicated on the genuine respect of our collective right to ancestral lands and self determination within a truly democratic and sovereign Philippines. We can continue to work from our achieved status as a Cordillera region and continue asserting self-determination by continually building empowerment at the grassroots, as what the Cordillera people’s movement has done for the past four decades. More than form of government, what needs to be reversed is the social pyramid structure with the few ruling elite on top that is entrenched in Philippine society.
The real score behind the push for federalism is Charter Change to further consolidate the regime’s tyrannical rule. The proposed Charter Change will worsen national oppression of indigenous peoples and the overall violation of people’s rights, national freedom and democracy. The proposed Charter Change will intensify the plunder and exploitation of our ancestral lands. False promises of wealth and pro-people governance are being harped by the proponents of federalism while in truth giving way for political dynasties and big local bureaucrats to further entrench and consolidate their power.
Mabtad! Resist tyranny and assert self-determination
Confronted by these conditions in his time, we remember Ama Macliing Dulag’s words: “What is the most precious thing to man? Life! If life is threatened, what ought a man do? Resist! This he must do otherwise he is dishonored and that is worse than death.”
More than just a quote to remember, let us make this our rallying call in the 34th Cordillera Day. Let us make the 34th Cordillera Day meaningful and inspirational by collectively acting upon the crises that beset our people and further asserting our right to self-determination from national oppression and imperialism. Let us celebrate Cordillera Day 2018 by intensifying our struggle against the fascist and dictatorial US-Duterte regime and sealing our unity with covenants for human rights and just peace. Nothing is impossible in our unity and strength.
Agbiag ti umili ti Kordilyera! ***
