Kalikasan People’s Network for Environment said that the Marcos Jr administration still allows massive projects like Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban Dam, Wawa Dam, Ahunan Hydropower project, Jalaur Mega-Dam, Saltan Dam, and the Pasig River Expressway, all of which endanger the affected communities.
If put together as bits and parts of a large puzzle, all the repressions, oppressions, marginalizations and directed violations of Tumandok rights as indigenous people the picture amount to ethnocide. There exists a deliberate and systematic destruction of their life and culture as vulnerable people.
Contrary to military claims that they were members of militia of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the slain indigenous peoples in Panay had long been asserting their right to land and life in the face of so-called development projects. In return, they had been tagged as enemies of the state and subjected to intense militarization over the years.
“I asked why they killed him, and they denied it. But I saw it with my own two eyes, they shot my husband.”