KATRIBU Partylist

KATRIBU Partylist, is progressive indigenous people partylist aims to bring representatives to Congress that will uphold and protect the rights and welfare of indigenous peoples. * KATRIBU Agenda * Nominees of KATRIBU KATRIBU Partylist is a member of Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan (Makabayan), a political coalition presently comprised of eight Philippine progressive parties.

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KATRIBU Partylist Position Paper on the Philex Mine Disaster

KATRIBU Partylist is the progressive party of indigenous peoples, and represents the aspirations of the indigenous peoples for the genuine recognition of their rights to ancestral lands and to self-determination. The Philex mine disaster is a serious concern for KATRIBU as it affects many indigenous communities in Benguet and Pangasinan.

Philex Mining Corporation's Padcal Mines has operated at the heart of the Cordilleras for the past fifty-eight years. It hosts a mining community of 14,000 people composed primarily of indigenous peoples. The mines, covering an aggregate of 95 hectares of lands in Benguet, were the ancestral territories of a number of Igorot tribes. Before the mines commenced operations more than five decades ago, the land, mountains, and rivers were the sources of livelihood, culture, and way of life of the Igorot tribes.

The tribes gave up their traditional way of life and ancestral territories in the promise of development for their communities and for the 'national interest.' Their traditional livelihoods of swidden farming, hunting and gathering, and fishing ware slowly eased out as the mines inevitably crept and damaged the land and rivers.

However, progress and development is lopsided in favor of the mining company. In the billions of pesos gained by the mining company in its five-decade run, improvement in the quality of life of the indigenous people is slight. In addition, the mine did not provide adequate alternate sources of income for the affected communities, as Philex employs only a small percentage of community members since it started in 1958. However, despite its marginal benefit to the people, the mine operations had destroyed traditional livelihoods, creating for Philex a favorable atmosphere of dependence on the mines.

It is in this context that the indigenous peoples view the operations of Philex in Padcal. The mine disaster that released 20 million metric tons of mine waste into the Balog and Agno Rivers, aside from being a grave violation to the integrity of the environment and people's welfare, is yet another act of transgression to the rights of indigenous peoples.

An independent Environmental Investigation Mission (EIM) was spearheaded by KATRIBU and the Cordillera People's Alliance last year, to investigate and substantiate the effects of the Philex mine disaster. The EIM mission findings strengthened KATRIBU's position to demand the immediate decommission of the TP3, and has proven the long-term and widespread effect of the mine operations and the tailings spill to affected communities.

The 20-year-old TP3 poses a very grave risk to the environment and the people. Philex exhibits disinterest to ensure the safety of its workers and environmental protection in its insistence to somehow further extend the lifespan of the TP3. The 20 million metric tons of mine waste spilled into the Agno River is enough evidence that the TP3 could no longer withstand the rigors of full mine operations and natural disasters. The four-month temporary license given by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau to recommence the operations of the Padcal mines is wrought with danger to residents, mineworkers, and to the environment. In light of the massive environmental destruction that the disaster caused, the government should have imposed more stringency to Philex, and disallow the reuse of its broken tailings dam.

Philex should also take responsibility and compensate for the adverse effects of its operations to the communities downstream of the Agno. The communities of San Manuel, San Felipe East, and San Felipe West were severely affected by the mine spill, in addition to the protracted effects of the five-decade mine operations. Community members report the long-drawn-out effects of the Philex's Padcal Mines on the quality of the soil and water in the area, which had grave effects on the people’s livelihood since the Padcal Mines commenced in the 1950s.

KATRIBU also expresses its concern over the situation of mineworkers in the Padcal Mines. Laborers shouldered the brunt of the aftermath of the mine disaster. Philex reportedly temporarily suspended all probationary, contractual, and casual employees. Regulars, on the other hand, were compelled to work more hours on more strenuous jobs on multiple shifts, some even working for 48 hours straight. Workers were also exposed to hazardous work conditions that caused the deaths of two of its employees, while others were seriously injured or maimed.

KATRIBU maintains its position that Philex should immediately decommission Tailings Pond 3 (TP3), and demand the rehabilitation and just compensation be urgently carried out to affected communities in Padcal, Itogon and Tuba in Benguet and to communities downstream of the Agno River in Pangasinan. Philex must also prioritize the safety of its workers in the face of such disasters, and ensure just wages and benefits for its rank-and-file employees.

The Philippine government's thrust to sell-out our mineral resources to private corporations renders deadly blows to the environment, indigenous peoples, and to our national patrimony. The Mining Act of 1995 that warrants mining corporations to lays waste to thousands of hectares of Philippine soil is being further bolstered up by Executive Order 79. This lethal combination puts at risk many other indigenous communities to mine disasters, aside from the wanton sell-out of our national patrimony. Indemnity and rehabilitation of communities affected by Padcal mine disaster now! Protect worker's rights! Scrap the Mining Act of 1995! Junk EO 79!

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KATRIBU slams mining moratorium lifting: Aquino has dropped the act

Indigenous peoples' partylist KATRIBU lambasted the lifting of the moratorium on new mining applications, announced by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau Chief Leo Jasareno, tlast Friday. The partylist group scoffed the MGB moratorium, claiming that communities was “pretentious and a populist maneuvering.”

“In one sense, this declaration of a moratorium lifting is a waste of energy for the MGB,” Kakay Tolentino, KATRIBU Partylist Secretary General claimed. “Yet this action remains deeply deplorable.”

"Indigenous peoples are embattled by the incursion of mining corporations in their ancestral territories as it is. The moratorium did not ease off the threat to dislocate communities, nor did it stop the violations of our rights. But this lifting will further embolden mining corporations to force their way in our communities,” Kakay Tolentino, KATRIBU Partylist Secretary General said. “Amid the killings and other atrocities committed against our people, this action of the MGB is like a warrant that violations of our rights is endorsed by the government.”

The MGB issued a ban on new mining applications on January 2011, after the industry garnered flak from environmental groups and human rights organizations.

“Mining corporation have been reeling in the good favor of this administration. It has awarded SMI-Xstrata an ECC, and allowed the reopening of Philex Mining Corporation. These corporations are human rights abusers and environmental violators yet are favored by the administration--Aquino has finally dropped the act. No more pretending that its is protecting the environment, patrimony, and people,” declared Tolentino.

The partylist group formerly condemned the the issuing of an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) to Xstrata earlier this year. The mining giant and military personnel at their payroll is held responsible by human rights organizations for the massacre of an indigenous Blaan family. Philex, on the other hand, was allowed to temporarily operate after it spilled 20 million metric tons of mine waste to tributaries in Benguet and Pangasinan.

The partylist group finds the timing of these ‘favors’ to mining corporations as suspicious. “It’s no secret that mining corporations are backdoor financiers of candidates. The Aquino administration must be desperate to rake in cash with their recent dealings in the mining sector. Of course, their candidates might be piling up cash to pay up for those campaign TV ads,” Tolentino chided.

KATRIBU Partylist called for the scrapping of the Mining Act of 1995, and the revocation of EO 79 enacted last year.

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Indigenous peoples condole with UP student’s family

“We condole with the family of the student victimized by the crisis of education in our country. Her demise is a blow to the future of the country, who is in dire need of bright, young minds,” said Kakay Tolentino, KATRIBU Partylist Secretary General said.

The party-list group expressed its sadness and anger over the reported suicide of a University of the Philippines student last Friday after she was forced to file a leave of absence because of unpaid tuition. “This is death delivered to us by a system that values money more than the life and future of our youth. UP is a State university. It should not morph into a corporation that discriminates its poor students and parents, and keeping quality education away if you cannot pay,” Tolentino said.

The alleged suicide of the UP student is reflective of the government’s attitude towards education, Tolentino added. “This happened to the country’s best and brightest. The State’s abandonment on education is blaring.”

“UP is being run like a business, prioritizing tuition over educating our youth. As a State university, UP must be compassionate to the poor and marginalized. To educate the poor but deserving students must be its priority,” Tolentino added. “This is the result of the meager subsidy that State-run universities are given. Our schools are constrained to wring out money from its students just to keep it running.”

The indigenous peoples could relate to the denial of education, Tolentino said. “The education crisis is robbing the Filipino youth of a future. If this is being done to university students, one could just fathom the state of education in our far-flung mountain villages. This is a wake-up call to the Aquino administration. The education policy in our country took her future even before she has taken her life,” Tolentino said.

KATRIBU urged the University of the Philippines administration to review its policies on tuition. “The UP administration is condemnable for such a repressive policy. The least the University could do is to reassess this policy and scrap it altogether. This tragedy should not be repeated,” Tolentino stated.

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KATRIBU condemns human rights abuses in Sabah

KATRIBU Partylist strongly condemns the human rights violations inflicted by the Malaysian armed forces on Filipinos in Lahad Datu, Sabah. The violent attacks and the indiscriminate crackdown of the followers of the Sultanate of Sulu has cost the lives of at least 70 people, including civilians. Human rights violations committed against Filipinos in Sabah is also on the rise. The Philippine government headed by President Aquino is likewise responsible and condemnable for the eruption of violence in Lahad Datu. President Aquino tacitly spurred and condoned the Malaysian armed forces to violently suppress the assertion of Filipino citizens claim on Sabah.

Aquino has fully practically acceded the Philippines’ rightful and legitimate claim to Sabah. And the repression and violence carried out by Malaysian forces against Filipinos stand unencumbered by the Philippine government. These actions are tantamount to betrayal of the interests and welfare of the Filipino people, from whom the government derives its mandate. The Philippine government and its agencies are slow and weak to condemn the atrocities committed against its people. Aquino’s belated condemnation of the human rights violations done against its constituents is rendered hollow and hypocritical, following his implicit pronouncements of abandon of the fate of Sultanate and of other Filipinos living in Sabah.

KATRIBU Partylist holds President Aquino responsible for the grave human rights violations committed by the Malaysian forces against Filipinos. At the onset, Aquino did not call for a peaceful resolution of the standoff in Sabah. He brushed off the broad public clamor for the Philippine government to engage in talks with the Malaysian government. He also shunned the call to urge the United Nations to intervene in the conflict. Aquino displayed vain arrogance in not addressing the conflict head on and effectively paved the way for the all-out attacks of the Malaysian armed forces against the miniscule armed followers of the Sultanate.

Aquino fully exhibited his disinterest and disregard of the struggle of the Moro people for their rights to ancestral territories and to self-determination in this crisis. This is the same attitude he has for the indigenous peoples’ assertion for their rights. Instead of recognizing the legitimate assertion for ancestral land and to self-determination, Aquino dismissed the issue trivially as a “conspiracy” instigated by his political enemies. Aquino’s refusal to support the Tausug peoples’ rightful claim to Sabah perpetuates the non-recognition and denial of the national minorities’ struggle for their ancestral land rights.

But the Sabah question is not only a struggle of the Moro people for their rights to ancestral land, it is also an issue of upholding our national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Aquino government government portrayed an apparent inability to protect and assert our sovereignty in this crisis, and has also proved itself unreliable in the protection of its constituents. At the face of these ineptitudes, the Filipino people is challenged to defend and fight for the integrity of our territories and the welfare of our people.

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Datu Jimmy: One year later, Justice still elusive

One year ago, Alde Salusad shot Datu Jimmy Liguyon three times in the chest, point blank. The Matigsalog-Manobo leader died on the spot. His killer, the notorious leader of paramilitary group Nipar, barged into Datu Jimmy's home, backed up by fifteen of his troop of heavily armed henchmen. The tribal leader offered to shake his killer's hand in greeting, but fires from an armalite rifle met his polite gesture.

This brutal slay was because Datu Jimmy refused to sign a document that will hand over his tribe's ancestral land to a mining corporation. Salusad was making a statement out of the killing of the tribe's most respected member.

The confidence, arrogance, and the nerve of Salusad and his gang of armed hoodlums to kill and terrorize is bolstered on the climate of impunity that reigns in the country. They know that even this type of brutal, blatant murders, as long as it is against marginalized peoples, will go unpunished.

To this day, even after a hard-won warrant for his arrest, Salusad remains at large. Nipar, coddled by the police and military and reportedly financed by a mining corporation, continue to raze and terrorize the indigenous villages in Dao, San Fernando, Bukidnon.

Datu Jimmy Liguyon is the 20th indigenous person killed during the Aquino presidency at the time, and already, the alarms were ringing over the killings of indigenous peoples by paramilitary groups and State security forces. After Jimmy Liguyon's death, 13 more have been added to the spate of extrajudicial slays of indigenous peoples.

The latest of which is Dexter Condes, a young Ati leader killed by unidentified gunmen in Boracay, Aklan. Gunned down only last January 26, 2013, Dexter is the latest of extrajudicial killings of indigenous peoples in the last 32 months.

Datu Jimmy, Dexter, and the 31 other indigenous people killed during this administration were leaders or members of organizations resisting the entry of various development projects. Development—the beaten down excuse of the Aquino government to justify why our communities crawl with military or armed thugs—undermine the rights to ancestral lands and to-self determination, and threaten the very survival of many indigenous communities.

Datu Jimmy's case is the epitome of the state of human rights of indigenous peoples in the Philippines. The indigenous peoples are forced to fend for themselves against mammoth corporations backed up by State forces. A government, that condones human rights violations for profiteering is definitely not on track of taming the growing number of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations in the country.

The continuing campaign of terror that Alde Salusad is waging still in the mountains of Bukidnon is an insult to the memory of the staunch and valiant leader of Lumads. The Aquino government is loath to prosecute the likes of Alde Salusad, because it will expose itself as a human rights violator, that condones such acts of brutality against resisting people. The Aquino government must disband paramilitary groups and stop the conscription of civilians. In the same way must it abandon the deceptively vicious counter-insurgency scheme Oplan Bayanihan, and pursue genuine reforms to achieve long lasting peace.

Kakay Tolentino Secretary General

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Aquino inutil sa gitna ng krisis sa Sabah

Mariing Kinukondena ng mga katutubong mamamayan sa ilalim ng KATRIBU Partylist ang lantarang pagka-inutil at hungkag ng Pamahalaan ni Noynoy Aquino pagharap sa usapin ng Sabah at sa nagaganap na krisis sa Lahad Datu.

Malinaw sa mga naging pahayag ni Aquino ukol sa usaping ito na wala siyang alam dito lalo na't sa pag-unawa sa karapatan sa lupang ninuno ng ating mga kapatid na Tausug

Malinaw sa ating kasaysayan na ang Sabah ay ating pag-aari ng Sultanato ng Sulu at ng mamamayang tausug. Patunay dito ang napakaraming dokumento at sulatin kasama na rito ang patuloy na pagbabayad ng Pamahalaan ng Malaysia sa Sultanato ng Sulu. May mga nagawa ring mga hakbang ang mga nakaraang pamahalaan ukol paggiit na lehitimo ang pag-angkin ng bansa sa Sabah. Nakakahiyang isipin ng tila bagsak sa aralin ng ng Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas(Philippine History) si Aquino noong nag-aaral pa lang siya.

Mistulang isinuko na ng pamahalaan ni Aquino ang makasaysayang pag-angkin ng ating bansa sa Sabah. Tila nabahag ang buntot ng Aquino sa harap ng bansa Malaysia , nangangayupapa at tumatayong tagapagsalita ng bansang Malaysia.

Sa halip na suportahan ni Aquino ang mga kapatid nating Moro, nanawagan ng pagpapauwi at pagsuko sa mga tauhan ni Sultan Jamalul Kiram III. Naging hidyat ito ng marahas na pagsalakay ng armadong pwersa ng Malaysia. May Inulat na sampu haggang laping apat na ang napatay sa mga kapatid nating mga tausug. Maaring mas higit pa rito.

Nagposturang Poncio Pilato si Aquino pero ngayon ay naghuhugas ng kamay si Aquino sa dugo ng mga na-martir na mga Tausug.

Nakakahiyang isipin na ang Presidente ng ating Bansa, na pangunahing inaasahang magtatanggol sa interes at kagalingan ng kanyang mamamayan ay nangunguna pa sa pananinirang puri at nagkakalat ng tsismis upang ilihis ang ubod ng paggigiit ng mga magigiting na moro sa ating karapatan sa Sabah. Sumasalalim ito sa elitistang paraan ng kanyang pamumuno na kapag hindi kayang harapin ang isyu ay maghahanap pagbabagsakan ng sisi o di kayay magpapalusot na lamang.

Hinahamon namin si Aquino, kung talagang siya'y para sa pagtatanggol ng ating pambansang soberanya at integridad ng ating bansa. Suportahan niya ang panawagan na muling buhayin ang karapatan natin na angkinin ang nararapat na sa atin

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Indigenous peoples stage an uprising against large-scale mines

MENDIOLA--In the 18th anniversary of the Mining Act of 1995 today, indigenous peoples impaled an effigy of President Aquino with pikes, “a symbol of the people’s uprising against large-scale mines.” “Mining espoused by the Mining Act of 1995 and the Aquino government is an ongoing war against the people. These attacks are being met with our determined resistance against mining plunder and environmental destruction,” Kakay Tolentino, KATRIBU Partylist Secretary General said.

This is an expression of the people’s outrage, Tolentino shared. “Aquino is unmoved by the barricades, the moratoriums, the protests, even of a tribal war against mining--he continues to sell-off our national patrimony and our ancestral lands to mining corporations. The people have exhausted all forms to express their rejection of mining promoted by the national government and the Mining Act of 1995. We are compelled to declare an uprising,” she added.

According to KATRIBU Partylist, roughly 60% of all approved mining applications in the country, which covers up to more than 1 million hectares, are all in the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples. “This is an upfront to our existence as peoples. With all our lands being holed up and our environment destroyed, we have no other option but to defend our lands and lives,” Tolentino declared.

The group denounced the mining policy of the administration. President Aquino signed EO 79 in July 2012, whipped up as a more environmentally-friendly and economically viable mining policy. “Halfway into his term as President, Aquino is fully stripped off his charade on mining. Destructive and plunderous mines get the upper hand in the EO 79. Philex and Xstrata are the shining examples,” Tolentino said. “The Filipino people are left with nothing but a degraded environment and a pillaged patrimony.”

Philex was allowed to resume operations recently, after it has been shut down due to a massive tailings spill. Philex’s tailing dam collapsed and released 20 million metric tons of mine waste into the Balog River in August last year. Xstrata, on the other hand, was given an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) after the Office of the President rebuked the environment bureau for withholding its ECC.

“After eighteen years, we are reaping the bad fruits of the Mining Act of 1995,” Tolentino said. “Its transgressions to the rights of indigenous peoples will not be forgotten. Eighteen years of plunder, environmental destruction, and human rights violations are the aftermath of the Mining Act. This could not continue.”

KATRIBU said that there have been 33 extrajudicial killings of indigenous peoples since Aquino took power. The killings, the group says, are of indigenous leaders in the frontlines of resistance against development projects, especially mining.