“While we at CPA continue to seek legal remedies to ensure our safety, security, and human rights in this shrinking democratic space, the state also weaponizes everything at its disposal to silence us."
"We ask the Supreme Court not to wait for red-tagging and death threats to materialize into extrajudicial killings, or detention, trumped-up charges and even abductions to become enforced disappearances."
Development workers, and indigenous peoples from the Cordillera region are calling for an investigation on the intensifying human rights violations in Northern Luzon that have resulted in the displacement of indigenous peoples communities.
“Pagkalinawan’s statement is a pretext for the speedy extra-judicial killing of [Windel] Bolinget before law and evidence will prove that this is a false charge."
“It is part of the government’s acts of historical revisionism or distorting and erasing the true history of the people’s resistance and heroism which remain relevant until today.”
Cordillera People's Alliance and Bolinget’s family fear for his safety, noting that he can be subjected to a “tokhang-style execution” if he gets arrested and transported to Davao Del Norte for his case.
“Human rights make us human. With every violation of human rights, our humanity is diminished.”
“Small-scale miners actually attempted to apply for regulations via an application for a ‘Minahang Bayan.’ But Benguet Corp., as tenement holder of the area, opposed this to maintain their control over the area’s mineral resources.”
CPA sees these awards as deceptive and a cover up for the worst environmental track record of LCMC and Benguet Corporation.
Indigenous peoples answer the Aquino administration’s “deception, dispossession and destruction” with defiance.
Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) chairman Windel Bolinget pointed out that despite the Philippine government's adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and other human rights treaties, the escalating human rights violations perpetrated against indigenous peoples in the country are alarming
"The people of the region like in other parts of the country are suffering from worsening economic crisis." -- Cordillera Peoples Alliance
James Balao, a member of the Cordillera People's Alliance (CPA) has been missing since September 17, 2008, the day he was abducted by suspected state security forces in La Trinidad, Benguet. Below is the letter written by his siblings. Dear Manong James, We love...
ALDWIN QUITASOL Northern Dispatch BAGUIO CITY – Members of the Beaconsfield Initiative, an exposure mission comprised mostly of Canadian church members, visited the Cordillera Region last week. Focusing on areas where Canadian Mining Companies operate, they found...
By Alma B. Sinumlag Northern Dispatch BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera People's Alliance is preparing to de battle againt more mining applications, among them a Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) by Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company (LCMC). The...
By JOAN GARCIA
Their history of resistance against the plunder of their resources is as rich as their mountains.
Sidebar: Cordillera elders form pact against mining, militarization
As she herself admits, Joan Carling - chair of the Cordillera Peoples? Alliance - felt no pride in having been born of Cordillera?s indigenous peoples when she was younger. But she would reach a point from which there was no turning back, and now she is a prominent...
BY MARIE CONIE DUERME Northern Dispatch Posted by Bulatlat.com The commemoration of the Cordillera Day is an event that has become the biggest annual political solidarity gathering of indigenous peoples not only in the Cordillera Region but also worldwide. This day...
By DEE AYROSO Photos by DANA BATNAG and BEDETTE LIBRES Bulatlat.com BAGUIO CITY -- The beating of the gangsa for Cordillera Day 2010 – the 30th year of Macliing Dulag’s martyrdom – marked the continued fight of the indigenous peoples for land and...
By LYN V. RAMO
Cordillera Day celebrations are held during the death anniversary of Macliing Dulag who has become a symbol of struggle and hope for the Cordillera people. This year, indigenous peoples' from different regions in the country gathered to come up with a common agenda to be presented to the next government.
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