Small farmers and agricultural workers accounted for the majority of the deaths recorded by Kalikasan PNE this year with 29, or 63%. This was followed by forest rangers or other government officials involved in environmental oversight, with 16 deaths, or 35%. Next were members of the Philippines’ indigenous peoples at 20%, and finally lawyers and church workers at four percent.

Philippine enviornmentalists are calling for immediate passage of the pending Human Rights Defenders Bill, which will accord defenders, including those fighting for their lands and environment, freedom from intimidation and reprisal, establish sanctuary for victims and their families, and provide for effective remedy and reparation. (Mongabay, Dec. 10)

Image of man from the Manobo tribe of Mindanao via Mongabay

This concerns the ongoing battle at the town of Marawi on the southern island of Mindanao, which has been under siege by ISIS-inspired militants since May. Pentagon military advisors are on the scene and may already be fighting in Marawi as part of Joint Special Operations Task Force Trident.

The news has been met with outrage by the Philippines' popular movements. The mass organization Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance, BAYAN) issued a statement through its secretary general Renato Reyes, saying: "BAYAN opposes in the strongest terms US plans to conduct air-strikes in the Philippines against ISIS-linked groups. There can be no justification for allowing a foreign superpower with the world’s worst rights record to be conducting airstrikes on Philippine soil." (Inquirer, Aug. 8)

The news comes days after a statement from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) protesting of Duterte's alarming threat to bomb the tribal schools of Mindanao's Lumad indigenous people in his counterinsurgency campaign against communist guerillas of the New People's Army (NPA).

Duterte made the threat in a televised press conference July 24. Accusing the Lumads of supporting the NPA, he warned: "Get out of there, I'm telling the Lumads now. I'll have those bombed, including your structures. I will use the armed forces, the Philippine air force. I'll really have those bombed…because you are operating illegally and you are teaching the children to rebel against government."

Human Rights Watch responded that international  law "prohibits attacks on schools and other civilian structures unless they are being used for military purposes." HRW's Carlos Conde charged: "By calling for an attack on schools Duterte is directing the military to commit war crimes."

Philippine lawmaker Emmi de Jesus of the Gabriela Women's Party called on Duterte to retract the threat, saying government troops may take it as approval to attack indigenous communities that are already being menaced by right-wing militias. (The Guardian)

The direct action was called to demand a government response to a severe drought in the region. Activist and senatorial candidate Walden Bello condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms," and warned of a "looming famine" in Mindanao due to this year's severe El Niño phenomenon. "This tragedy is a reflection not just of the failure of government to respond to the urgent needs of its people but a manifestation of the sad and declining state of agriculture in this country, particularly in Mindanao, brought about by years of government neglect." (InterAksyon, April 2; InterAksyon.com, April 1)

North Cotabato province Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza came under criticism for defending the repression. The protesters were demanding government subsidies, and 15,000 sacks of rice Mendoza had pledged as relief. Said Mendoza: "The local government units have already started initiating relief operations for drought-stricken communities before this happened. There was no need for them to gather in Kidapawan City for a rally. Well, maybe because many of them are not from the province." (Philippine Star, April 1)

The day after the violence, Mendoza added: "There was no dispersal, only clearing operations… We were not telling them to stop the rally. We just want to reclaim the national highway. There was a warning shot because if you can see the video, we have three PNP personnel hit by the rallyists and that was a warning shot for them. While it's true that there were two casualties from the rallyists, the medico legal [medical examiner] for sure will tell you that it came from the stoning that was initiated by the rallyists." (ANC, April 2)

Edre Olalia, secretary-general National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL), responded: "In stubbornly justifying the pre-meditated attack on unarmed starving protesting farmers as a 'clearing operation' purportedly due to a lack of a permit to peaceably assemble which she is empowered to issue in the first place, North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza exhibits unparalleled remorselessness, arrogance, and self-righteousness. By saying that the issue 'is not about rice,' she betrays herself as an aristocratic mata pobre [killer of the poor]." (Inquirer, April 2)

The Peasant Movement of the Philippines (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, KMP) named President Benigno Simeon Aquino as complicit in the repression. "This violence against farmers and Lumad people will be the mark of BS Aquino administration. Farmers are demanding for food and land but the haciendero government responded with bullets," said KMP chair Rafael Mariano. (KMP, April 1)

indigenous people

Rights advocates in the region also see a corporate hand in the violence. "The [tribal people] who firmly stand against mining activities were the ones being intimidated by paramilitary forces," Fr. Bong Galela, social action director of the Diocese of Tandag, told reporters in Manila, where he testified before a Senate panel Oct. 1. In his testimony to lawmakers, Galela said: "We call for the disarming and arrest of the members of the Magahat-Bagani group. We also demand the government to ensure that there will be no cover-up in the investigation of these gruesome murders."

The Philippine Senate Committee on Peace, Unification and Reconciliation launched an inquiry into the Mindanao violence after the Sept. 1 killing of Emerito Samarca, director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Livelihood Development in Lianga, Surigao del Sur, along with local Lumad leaders Dionel Campos and Aurelio Sinzo. No arrests have been made in the slayings. Galela charged the killings were part of a campaign to "terrorize" Lumad communities that are organizing to oppose mining operations on their traditional lands.

Elmer Billedo, assistant director at the government's Mines and Geosciences Bureau, admitted that some mining companies use military and police personnel to secure their operations. "But when [the mining companies] are accused of militarization, they pull [the military and police] out," Billedo told the National Catholic Reporter. "Then what happens, their base camps are attacked. These reports do not reach you."

Billedo also blamed traditional indigenous leaders for conflicts in the area. "There are many self-proclaimed tribal leaders and politically-anointed chieftains who say that they represent the indigenous peoples," he said, adding that indigenous communities should come up with "proper designated officials and representatives" to negotiate with mining companies.

Rights advocates, however, point to plans by the military to form "auxiliary units" to secure mining operations. The faith-based civil society network Philippine Misereor Partnership said in a statement that an investigation should explore this link, "as more people observe the seeming connection of the killings to mining activities." Fr. Stephen Brongcano, director of a social action center in the Diocese of Butuan, cited a case in 2013 in South Cotabato province where  government and army officials admitted that a mining company was funding a military unit suspected in the killings of a B'laan tribal woman and her two sons.

San Luis municipality, where Abion was killed, was earlier this year the target of army operations, ostensibly against the NPA, in which several villages were cleared as residents fled. In February, a pregnant woman and two children of the Banwaon indigenous ethnicity died after fleeing Tabon-Tabon village to an emergency evacuation center established in nearby Balit village. Displaced residents charged the army was actually clearing the lands to make way for mining operations. Bagal Mauro Mansilyohan, datu or traditional chief of Tabon-Tabon, said paramilitary groups were pressuring the community to give up their ancestral domain to mining companies through changes to their Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT). "The forcible evacuation is the effect of the army and paramilitary groups' coercion to allow the entry of mining corporations in the ancestral domain of the Banwaons," said Datu Jomorito Goaynon of Kalumaran, an alliance of indigenous peoples in Mindanao. 

The world's 20th largest gold producer, the Philippines last year put out some 18 tons of gold, with a combined market value of more than $700 million. (NCR, Oct. 2; Bulatlat, Feb. 3)

Throughout April, the Philippine army's 10th Infantry Division carried out operations in Talaingod municipality, including aerial bombardment, supposedly against guerillas of the New People's Army (NPA). But leaders of the Manobo and other Lumads, as the indigenous peoples of Mindanao are collectively known, say the military operation was actually aimed at intimidating the local populace to allow resource exploitation in the territory. At least 1,300 fled their homes during the offensive, to shelters that were established in Davao City and elsewhere. At the end of April, the army agreed to withdraw its forces to allow the displaced families to return. "We will go home if there will be no more military personnel in our farmland,” said Manobo leader Datu Doloman Dawsay from Davao City. (InterAksyon, May 17; Pinoy Weekly, UCA News, May 16; PIA, May 2; Davao Today, April 30)

Indigenous peoples are facing similar pressures in the Cordillera region of the northern island of Luzon. Under pressure from the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA), police in Abra province have pledged a thorough investigation on the massacre of a local family of the Binongan people's Ligiw clan. Licuben Ligiw and his two sons were reported missing by their family on March 6. Their remains were found the following day, bound and gagged in a shallow grave near their hut at Baay-Licuan village. The CHRA insists the investigation must extend to the military, as the army's 41st Infantry Battalion was conducting operations in the area when the Ligiws were last sighted. The operations were part of the "Oplan Bayanihan" counterinsurgency program against local NPA forces. (Sun Star, March 11)

An investigation is also underway in the Cordillera province of Ifugao into the March 25 slaying of human rights worker William Bugatti. Ifugao Gov. Dennis Habawel has condemned Bugatti's murder as a "dastardly and cowardly act," but rights groups protest that no suspects have yet been identified in the case. Ina Dolores Pacliw, chair of the Ifugao Peasant Movement, for which Bugatti worked, said: "We demand justice for Bugatti. We urge an impartial and competent investigation of the case. We will not stop in our call until we see the perpetrators brought to the bar of justice."

Bugatti, a member of the Tuwali indigenous people, was shot three times in a road ambush while on his way home to his village of Bolog in Kiangan municipality. According to the Regional Council of the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance-KARAPATAN, Bugatti had been on a list of 28 "target personalities" apparently drawn up by the army's 86th Infantry Battalion. In the list, he was described as "utak ng NPA," or "brains" of the local guerillas. (InterAksyon, May 3; Asian Human Rights Commission, April 23; UNPO, March 27)