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Six years after the Ahunan Pumped-Storage Hydropower Project began in Pakil, the promised renewable energy has brought environmental degradation, displacement, dwindling water sources, and threats to the residents’ livelihood.
The Marcos Jr. administration's push to expand mining for critical minerals, alongside partnerships with foreign governments through initiatives such as Pax Silica, could further open biodiversity hotspots and Indigenous territories to extraction in response to foreign demand.
“For decades, land ownership on Negros Island has remained concentrated in the hands of a small number of elite families."
“When decent work disappears in one country, exploitation appears in another. That is why international solidarity matters..."
Throughout the program, speakers argued that the country's worsening economic conditions, corruption, attacks on human rights, environmental degradation, and controversial development projects stem from policies that prioritize foreign and corporate interests over the welfare of Filipinos.
“It sets a bad, dangerous precedent. They conducted the arrest in the middle of the protest. Even police protocols and the law prohibits it."
“We expect reforms in education that will address classroom shortages, increase teaching and education support personnel, and improve teachers’ salaries."
Marcos Jr. will likely boast in his next SONA about the administration’s campaign against corruption.
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A review of publicly available government records for this story did not find documentation confirming whether the approved financial assistance was eventually released or the final amount, if any, that reached Eala.
"We hope there will be no more mining projects and that these mining companies will leave, because I know that mining is not the only way a community can achieve progress."
"Marcos is at the top, and those at the lower levels cannot be the only ones held accountable."
From the island and mountains of Rizal to the watershed of Samar Island, wind energy projects are being built on the forests that protect communities from floods and landslides.
“As researchers and members of alternative media groups, we do not confine ourselves to social media, secondhand, thirdhand information. We do not confine ourselves to desks."
“This success in Dupax del Norte is a success against mining all over the Philippines."
“The more we speak, the more they target us,” Sheerah Escudero, sister of drug war victim Ephraim Escudero, told Bulatlat in Filipino. “Even the dead were not spared. They tell me, ‘How about the victims of drug addicts like your brother?’”
Cordillera’s rich natural resources have attracted local and international companies eager to profit from them. But for the Indigenous Peoples of the region, everything is interconnected. The destruction of their land means the destruction of their life, culture, and identity. Their resistance to so-called development projects has spanned many decades.
After over 70 years of cultivating the land and staying in the community, the members of the Portico Banasi Household Farmers Association (PORBAHFA) and other residents are facing threats of eviction and worries about their livelihood.
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Balikan natin kung bakit tinawag na ‘perfect failure’ ang pag-atake ng United States sa Bay of Pigs sa Cuba.
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