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By Vernie Yocogan-Diano, Special To The
Manila Times
Editor’s note: Ms. Yocogan-Diano is acting
chairman of Innabuyog, an organization of indigenous women in the
Cordilleras.
Indigenous women, like other women in the
Cordilleras and in the rest of Asia, suffer from different forms of
violence, in the homes, farms, shops and public places. These may be
physical, emotional and psychological violence. The violence can
also be economic and political.
Innabuyog’s long experience in pursuing
women’s rights and welfare affirms that violence happens to women
because of existing power structures led by the state, corporations,
and other forces of globalization, which create injustices and
biases against women and the various oppressed classes they belong
to.
It is also these structures that perpetuate
worldviews about women as private property of their husbands or
partners, as subordinate to men, as confined to the home and care of
the children, and as a mere extension to men’s work. These
worldviews make them vulnerable to abuse and violence. Indigenous
women are turned into commodities, making them an attraction for
tourists and as dollar earners when they work overseas for their
families to survive.
Land is life
What makes violence against women distinct for
indigenous women is the violation of our ancestral land rights, for
these land rights are the central basis for asserting our right to
self-determination as distinct peoples. Our ancestral land rights
determine our economic, political and sociocultural survival. Our
ways of life are very much interconnected with the land; hence our
survival motto, “Land is Life.”
Right to self-determination for us indigenous
peoples is having control over our ancestral territories and all
resources found in them. It encompasses our rights and welfare in
the social, economic, political and cultural fields of life.
Our indigenous systems continue to exist because
we have asserted our rights to ancestral land and
self-determination. On the other hand, disintegration is happening
because of impositions made by states and of imperialist structures
wanting to grab our land and resources and integrate us to the whole
system of imperialist globalization.
In the Philippines, the legal concept used by
the state to alienate us from our ancestral land is the Regalian
Doctrine, which was first imposed by Spanish colonizers. This
doctrine gave the state ownership and control of land and natural
resources. National laws and policies were crafted based on this
concept, and deviated and contradicted indigenous concepts that
forbid monopolistic and ordain communal land ownership, control, use
and development for the common good.
We Kankanaeys of Mountain Province say, “Adi
tako bukudan di gawis.” Don’t monopolize the good. Concepts of
sharing the common good are also seen in the practice of innabuyog,
ub-ubbo, alluyon and binnadang. These are practices among Cordillera
indigenous peoples of cooperation, labor exchange and mutual support
especially in times of crisis. These practices are even stronger
among indigenous women. Such practices and concepts are common not
just among Cordillera peoples but also among other indigenous
peoples in Asia.
Indigenous women in the Cordillera and all over
the Philippines face two attacks on our rights to ancestral land and
to self-determination. One is the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, and
the other is the Human Security Act or anti-terror law. The
government is aggressively implementing both laws.
The Mining Act is a product of the World
Bank’s call in the early 1990s for mining liberalization. Some 72
countries—almost all mineral rich-countries from the Third World,
including the Philippines—responded immediately by enacting
national mining laws and policies, and harmonized their national
laws and policies to get rid of legal hindrances to enable full
implementation of mining laws and policies.
The mining liberalization program is one arena
of development aggression that is leading the country’s indigenous
communities to ethnocide. Of the country’s land area, 66 percent
is covered by existing mining operations and new applications,
mostly located in indigenous peoples’ territories. Of the 24
mining priority projects of the Arroyo government, 16 are located in
territories of indigenous peoples.
This mode of development aggression definitely
brings different levels and forms of violence to bear against
indigenous women. Foremost affected are the indigenous peasant women
who face displacement from their lands and communities that are
covered by mining operations and applications. Our farm production
is destroyed by toxic chemicals from mines. Destruction caused by
mining is far-reaching; it does not only affect immediate
surrounding communities, but pollution is immense especially if
mining firms dump their toxic mine wastes on the rivers or water
systems.
Our experience with the Lepanto Consolidated
Mining Corp., located in Mankayan, Benguet, tells of wide-ranging
impacts from physical, psychological to economic—from the villages
of Mankayan to the communities along the Abra River until its exit
to the South China Sea. The Abra River has long been Lepanto’s
dump area of its mine tailings.
The violence against indigenous and peasant
women along the Abra River and Mankayan, including the mining
expansion areas in Mountain Province and Ilocos, is indeed enormous.
In terms of farm production, the pollution of Lepanto Mining has
caused a 30-percent reduction in rice production in Cervantes and
Quirino areas, which are rice-growing communities.
Mine pollution is indeed a big threat on the
communities’ food security, and hunger is expected to intensify.
Its impact is also seen in public health. Some pregnant women
suffered unwanted abortions. There were also suspected cases of
birth defects like cerebral palsy, dwarfism and development delay.
Since women commonly spend longer time in rice fields irrigated by
polluted water from the mines, they suffer more from skin diseases
and irritations.
Children are prevented from taking their baths
in the river. Respiratory diseases are common because of the
inhalation of fumes from the polluted Abra River and from the
tailings pond. Animal lives are endangered when they drink from the
river. Aquatic life and resources have dwindled a lot. For the local
people, these are additional food resources that support their food
security and sustenance.
These difficult conditions also force women to
migrate even overseas for economic reasons, a condition that makes
them vulnerable to different forms of abuse and exploitation.
In a wider sense, mining as a concrete form of
development aggression imposes greater violence against indigenous
women. We are displaced from our major role in sustainable
agricultural production, conservation of resources and subsistence
food production. We are displaced from our role as holders of
traditional or indigenous knowledge including medicine and passers
of that knowledge to the future generation. We are displaced from
our role of selecting the best seeds for the next crop to ensure
that traditional crop varieties will not perish. Mining as
development aggression disintegrates our indigenous sociopolitical
systems that enable mutual support and pursue community integrity,
which includes the protection of women and children from various
forms of violence.
Other forms of violence against Innabuyog women
come from the Philippine military, especially now that the Human
Security Act is being enforced. That deserves another story.
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