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.

On 3 August 2026, Florentino Daynos II of the Dupax del Norte Environmental Defenders (DDNED) was arrested at a police checkpoint in Dupax del Norte on charges of grave threats and grave coercion. According to his legal counsel, he was arrested without first receiving a subpoena. Daynos been part of community opposition to the gold and copper exploration activities of Woggle Corporation in Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya, whose project has been widely opposed by residents because of threats to agricultural livelihoods, watersheds, biodiversity, and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, as well as the lack of genuine public consultation and free, prior and informed consent.

Woggle is directly tied to foreign mining interests. UK-listed Metals Exploration Plc owns 40% of the corporation, while the remaining 60% is held by FCF Minerals Corporation, a wholly owned Philippine subsidiary of Metals Exploration. These arrangements expose how Philippine corporations and ownership structures can be used to secure access to the country’s mineral wealth for the benefit of foreign mining capital.

This is not merely a local environmental dispute. It raises the broader issue of the plunder of national patrimony, in which foreign corporations gain access to Philippine lands and mineral resources while local communities bear the risks of ecological destruction, livelihood displacement, social conflict, and repression.

We condemn the continuing pattern of judicial harassment against environmental advocates in Nueva Vizcaya. This includes Kasibu resident Lei Jin Dugay and people’s lawyers Atty. Edgardo Balgos and Atty. Fidel Santos, who are facing cyberlibel complaints filed by North Luzon Mineral Resources Corporation (NLMRC), as well as Bishop Jose Elmer Mangalinao and Fr. Christian Dumangeng, who were previously charged with forcible entry, together with other church workers and residents, after standing in solidarity with a peaceful community barricade.

These complaints bear the hallmarks of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) which are legal actions that seek to silence legitimate criticism, intimidate affected communities, isolate their leaders and lawyers, and drain the limited time and resources available for environmental advocacy.

With the growing global demand for critical and transition minerals for strategic industries and renewable-energy technologies, communities in mineral-rich areas face heightened risks of land dispossession, environmental degradation, corporate coercion, criminalization, and other reprisals. The shift toward renewable energy must not reproduce the same patterns of foreign control, resource exploitation and community repression that have characterized the fossil-fuel and large-scale mining industries.

Government agencies must protect national patrimony and ensure that the country’s mineral resources serve the development of national industrialization and are not sold out to foreign interests. Human rights, environmental protection, and free, prior and informed consent must not be sacrificed to secure profits for local elites and foreign corporations.

CEC calls for the immediate release of Florentino Daynos II, the dismissal of all retaliatory and politically motivated charges against environmental defenders, and an end to the criminalization of communities resisting destructive mining. We call on fellow Filipinos to urge the Philippine government to uphold the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and to respect and protect the right of all people to a clean, healthy, safe, and sustainable environment.

Defending the environment, the people’s livelihoods, and the nation’s patrimony is not a crime. Environmental defenders must be supported and not persecuted.