Even if these calls of climate activists and CSO members’ reverberated at the venue of the COP, their voices were not heard at the negotiations of world leaders. Some of the CSOs were allowed to sit in as observers but not to participate in the negotiations.
The warning declared by various groups in 2020 – that the ATA would be used by the government to intimidate and harass human rights defenders, activists and dissenters – has become a reality.
“We knew from the start that this law would only be weaponized in silencing dissent. They try to make us falter; we, indigenous peoples and human rights defenders. But we will never deter.”
His appearance came a day after Police Regional Office Cordillera Regional Director R’win Pagkalinawan issued a shoot-to-kill order should he resist arrest.
“It is clearly a handiwork of the military.”
“Despite its claim of world-class mining operation, Benguet Corporation left permanent destruction and scars on the surface and beneath the earth.”
“We need hundreds of Heneral Lunas.”
William Claver was among those who attended the July 28 memorial mass that honored the late Alyce Omengan-Claver, a victim of extra-judicial killing in an ambush that originally intended to kill her husband, Dr. Constancio “Chandu” Claver, last year. He is esteemed throughout the Cordillera as a champion of indigenous peoples’ rights. BY LYN V.…