The legal harassment of anti-mining residents in Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya continues. Today, September 24, the Municipal Trial Court of Kasibu and the Regional Trial Court of Bayombong issued separate warrants of arrest against Indigenous People anti-mining leaders Donny Dugay and Municipal Councilor Glenn Guingayan in cases involving cyberlibel and grave coercion.
Fifty-four years after the declaration of Martial Law under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the Philippines remains locked in a harrowing cycle of state fascism, ecological devastation, and subservience to foreign powers. Today, under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the Filipino people still struggle against the same tyrannical framework that plundered our natural resources and suppressed fundamental rights decades ago. The Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines (CEC) firmly stands with the Filipino people in condemning the persistent human rights violations, environmental plunder, and the betrayal of national sovereignty perpetuated from one Marcos regime to the next.
As we mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, the Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines (CEC) joins Indigenous communities, environmental defenders, and civil society in reiterating the urgent demand to defend ancestral lands, reject Pax Silica and similar foreign-driven extractive agendas, and uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples (IPs) who stand at the frontlines of environmental protection.
The Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines (CEC), in solidarity with the barricading communities of Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya, strongly condemns the continued presence of the Philippine National Police (PNP) at the people’s anti-mining barricade in Barangay Paquet and calls for the immediate withdrawal of all police personnel from the area.
The Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines (CEC) joins environmental advocates and local communities in calling for an immediate end to the escalating attacks against residents of Nueva Vizcaya who are defending their lands and homes from destructive mining.
“Mayaman ang kalikasan ng Pilipinas, ngunit naghihirap ang mamamayang Pilipino dahil sa lokal at dayuhang kapitalistang pandarambong ng mga korporasyon na pinapahintulutan at hinihikayat ng pamahalaan.” (The Philippine environment is rich, but the Filipino people are suffering due to local and foreign capitalist plunder of corporations enabled and encouraged by the government.)
