“It is crucial to recognize the challenges faced by indigenous peoples. These include land rights issues, displacements from their ancestral domains due to mining activities, and militarization leading to armed conflicts and human rights violations,” the project rationale said.
Over 600 indigenous Mangyan families have been forced to evacuate from their homes in Victoria and Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro due to military operations including low-altitude strafing and bombing.
“The systematic series of human rights violations in Oriental Mindoro, Quezon, and the rest of Southern Tagalog all have the same pattern – they are all caused by development aggression carried out by large companies and backed by the Duterte regime.”