The Center for Development Programs in the Cordillera (CDPC), together with the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and Ibon Foundation, organized the Cordillera People’s Development Conference last November 7-9, 2013 in Baguio City.More than 200 representatives of various people’s organizations, non-government organizations, churches, universities, media organizations and local government units from different provinces of the region attended the three-day conference geared towards upholding and advancing indigenous peoples’ self-determined and sustainable development guided by indigenous values, social justice, gender equality and human rights.
According to Jane Yap-eo, CDPC’s Executive Director, recent political developments such as the pork barrel scam and the people’s growing outrage against the systemic corruption in the government had urged them to gather the people working and struggling for Cordillera’s genuine regional autonomy to “reflect on our own practice of development and to take immediate and decisive action to steer development so that it truly benefits the majority of the Filipino people”.
In a declaration, the participants of the conference asserted that “development in the Cordillera has not always served our interests. We have experienced the destruction of our mountains and forests caused by more than a century of large-scale corporate mining. We continue to suffer the long-term impacts of mining and dread the further degradation of our land, life and resources by impending mining applications. Meanwhile, environment-friendly and equitable practices of traditional small-scale mining, a long-time source of livelihood for many of our communities, are steadily losing out to destructive large-scale and medium-scale chemical-dependent mining technologies.”
During the Marcos dictatorship, mega dams were built in major rivers in the Cordillera to generate electricity for industries. These dams submerged whole villages compelling the people to fight against development aggression. “Today, we are swamped by even more “renewable” large-scale energy projects such as geothermal plants, mega dams, mini-hydro and wind farms in different parts of the region that promise little benefits and threaten more destruction for our people and the environment,” they said.
They lamented the continued militarization and the manipulation of government processes for obtaining free, prior and informed consent that have caused human rights violations in indigenous communities targeted by development aggression.
They also criticized government projects such as Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and KALAHI-CIDDS for their failure to address the root cause of poverty. Instead, these programs have become a source of corruption among those involved. They raised alarm on the government’s peace and development program called PAMANA (Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan). They said that the program gives favor to former armed rebels and now bandit groups such as the Cordillera People Liberation Army that received more than P200 million worth of projects instead of undertaking community-based programs aimed at addressing the root causes of armed conflict.“This dire situation of development in the Cordillera impels and challenges us to call for genuine people’s development. We uphold and promote genuine indigenous peoples’ self-determined and sustainable development, which is guided by the basic development principles of people’s participation, indigenous peoples’ rights, gender equality, social justice, self-reliance and sustainability, and integrated with the rights-based, ecosystem and integrated area development approaches. Genuine development builds upon existing indigenous values of community solidarity, labor cooperation, volunteerism, and service to the people, as opposed to dole-out projects that breed corruption, dependency and divisiveness among the people,” the declaration said.
In contrast, they presented the development works undertaken by the people’s movement in the Cordillera region which are anchored on genuine people’s development. “Trailblazing development projects in the Cordillera such as micro-hydro and irrigation projects, rice/palay cooperatives organic gardens, herbal medicine and the like have achieved concrete gains in community-based health, sustainable agriculture, village level appropriate technologies and disaster response. These community-based projects have helped advance a development consciousness and practice that is truly self-determined and sustainable.”“As we conclude this Cordillera People’s Development Conference, we express our outrage at the blatant violation of our right to development and the injustice done to us by the powers-that-be. We condemn those who have turned the national government treasury into their private coffers, spending the people’s money for luxury and patronage politics, while depriving us of the resources due to us for our own development. We call on all citizens to defend our right to development and to take an active role in defining a development course that truly serves the interest f the Cordillera and Filipino people.” By ANDREW AYTIN