Accountability
In their Mangyan Declaration, the indigenous peoples of Mindoro hold the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo liable for selling out the country’s natural resources and national patrimony to foreign mining companies.
“The Aquino administration is not immune from accountability as it continues to allow foreign mining companies to plunder our natural resources and violate our national patrimony,” the Mangyan Declaration stated further.
The Mangyans called for a stop to large-scale mining and other development aggression projects. They also demanded the repeal of Mining Act of 1995, Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) and National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS). These laws, they said, pave the way for plunder of natural resources in their ancestral land.
“Mining and other projects divide us, like the fingers in our hands. It is only when we clench our fist that we would be able to win against threats to our existence,” Carculan said. (With reports from Angelica de Lara)
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The World Bank estimates that forcible “development-induced displacement and resettlement” now affects 10 million people per year. According to the World Bank an estimated 33 million people have been displaced by development projects such as dams, urban development and irrigation canals in India alone.
India is well ahead in this respect. A country with as many as over 3600 large dams within its belt can never be the exceptional case regarding displacement. The number of development induced displacement is higher than the conflict induced displacement in India. According to Bogumil Terminski an estimated more than 10 million people have been displaced by development each year.
Athough the exact number of development-induced displaced people (DIDPs) is difficult to know, estimates are that in the last decade 90–100 million people have been displaced by urban, irrigation and power projects alone, with the number of people displaced by urban development becoming greater than those displaced by large infrastructure projects (such as dams). DIDPs outnumber refugees, with the added problem that their plight is often more concealed.
This is what experts have termed “development-induced displacement.” According to Michael Cernea, a World Bank analyst, the causes of development-induced displacement include water supply (dams, reservoirs, irrigation); urban infrastructure; transportation (roads, highways, canals); energy (mining, power plants, oil exploration and extraction, pipelines); agricultural expansion; parks and forest reserves; and population redistribution schemes.
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