Defenders urge UN action on IP, environment woes

Currently on a 10-day official visit to the country, from Nov. 6 to 15, is the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Climate Change.

Ian Fry was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March 2022, and he began that mandate the following May. His visit here has boosted the morale of the indigenous peoples (IP) and their defenders. For decades, they have been targets of state harassment and repression.

Three major formations – Katribu (coalition of IP organizations), Sandugo (movement of Moros and IP for self-determination) and Bai (indigenous women’s network) announced on Nov. 6:

“Together with various civil society organizations… we look forward to the opportunity for dialogue and collaboration [with Ian Fry] on dams, mines and other major contributors to environmental destruction and climate change. We hope to come up with collaborative solutions advancing the human rights and aspirations of the IP.”

Katribu’s national convenor, Beverly Longid, stated, “As stewards of ancestral lands, the IP are the primary custodians of the environment. Yet, IP are being driven out of their ancestral lands, especially in the face of corporate plunder and destruction caused by large dams and mines.”

Human rights violations have been committed against those who reject such development aggression and extractive industries, she said, through red-tagging and terrorist designation, trumped-up charges and illegal arrests, killings and disappearances. Many indigenous activists have been forcibly disappeared in the recent past, and until now more than 63 IP remain as political prisoners.

Tribal communities have been bombed in Kalinga and Cagayan Valley, Moro communities in Lanao del Sur and even in the hinterlands of Negros island. Such aerial attacks have caused long-term damage to the environment, the people’s livelihood and their homes.

On Nov. 7, the three organizations attended Fry’s dialogue with civil society organizations at the UN House in Mandaluyong City. They submitted a joint report on the situation of indigenous communities. Eufemia Cullamat, Sandugo spokesperson, presented an overview of the report.

• Ancestral lands have been exploited for so long by big foreign and domestic business ventures for profit. This has undermined the communities’ rights to self-determination, their free, prior and informed consent to proposed projects and the environment. Militarization of their areas has served both the government counterinsurgency campaign and corporate plunder.

• Under the Marcos Jr. administration, abuses have escalated. Since July 2022, IP communities continue to be bombed, shelled and strafed, affecting about 30,000 people. Extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances are reported, with 11 abductions since last year.

The Philippine human rights community is hoping to see these problems spotlighted in Fry’s report to the UNHRC, especially as he is visiting certain areas to see the situation for himself.

I remember that 26 years ago, in February 2007, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Philip Alston, came to the Philippines. His mandate was to look into the situation where cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances had reached the scale of those committed under Marcos Sr.’s 14-year martial-law dictatorship. (Alston is an international law expert, Australian-born like Fry.)

Alston’s highly critical and credible report was among the factors that moved then Chief Justice Reynato Puno to convene a multisectoral summit to gather inputs for “wholistic solutions” to the crisis. The National Consultative Summit on Extrajudicial Killings and Enforced Disappearances was held at the Manila Hotel on July 15-17, 2007.

Around 400 delegates represented the three branches of the government, human rights watchdog groups, the military and the police, the religious sector and the international community. (A small group of progressive party-list representatives in the House of Representatives also attended, including this columnist.)

A complete report on the summit, titled ”A Conspiracy of Hope,” was subsequently published. In a message prefacing the report, Chief Justice Puno wrote:

“For the first time, a comprehensive look into the epidemic of summary executions and disappearances has been undertaken, viewing the different profiles of the problem from the perspective of the various stakeholders and examining its numerous dimensions from the legal and political, to the social and cultural, to the religious and moral.”

“Already the discussions we had in the summit have produced results,” Puno wrote optimistically. “Numerous bills have been filed in Congress, the various agencies of the Executive have made addressing the killings and disappearances a priority and the Supreme Court has promulgated the Rule on the writ of amparo, which took effect on Oct. 24, 2007 and has now benefited many of those whose lives have been threatened by the spate of violence directed against political activists.”

In conclusion, Puno expressed hope that, with the publication of the summit report, “the spurred efforts to eradicate torture, enforced disappearances and unexplained killings from our society will continue to bear fruit.”

Alas, the “spurred efforts” faltered long ago. Till today, under successive presidencies, the mantle of impunity has allowed these crimes to go unprosecuted and unpunished.

There’s another frustrating aftermath. In his concluding remarks at the summit, Puno cited news reports that the summit would be remembered for “bringing together the AFP led by General [Hermogenes] Esperon and the Left led by Congressman Satur Ocampo.” The summit report cover even features a colored photograph memorializing that instance.

“Indeed, when General Esperon proposed the resumption of the long suspended [GRP-NDFP] peace negotiation between the two groups,” the former chief justice observed that I – a former peace negotiator – “offered no objection.” He added: “If that were to be the only achievement of this Summit… that would have been enough success.”

Alas again! The peace talks were not resumed until Rodrigo Duterte became president in 2016. But when the two negotiating panels arrived at a consensus on social and economic reforms, Esperon (then national security adviser) and then AFP chief Carlito Galvez vehemently, publicly objected.

Bowing to their hardline stance, Duterte arbitrarily terminated the peace talks in November 2017.