Mobilizing Resources but Still Mining for Opportunities?: Indigenous Peoples, their Land and the Philippine State (original) (raw)
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The Struggle of Philippine Indigenous Peoples
International Journal of Advanced Research, 2020
Indigenous people across the globe have engaged in a constant struggle to take control of natural resources and land against intrusion by external developers, state interest and commercial pressures brought up by practices such as mining and agribusiness (Meilasari-Sugiana, 2018). The main purpose of this research paper is to discuss how Thomas Pogge's argument on the Global Justice applies to the case of indigenous people from the Philippines and their struggle to protect their natural resources. The paper will use a designed case study to demonstrate the enactment gap between the indigenous peoples’ rights in practice and law and the role of stakeholders in safeguarding the land belonging to the indigenous group. A case study of Higaonon indigenous tribe was selected for the study due to various mining and palm oil agribusiness activities in the region and the struggle to retain the land. The research methodology involved gathering information from tribal leaders' representatives and members of the focus groups and researching previous informant interviews with governmental bodies and non-governmental organizations on the matter in question. The study results show conflicting interests among different government bodies; laws and mandate of various government bodies are contradicting resulting in poor coordination between them. It is also noted that there is a lack of political will and resources to implement the provisions in the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act. The indigenous peoples’ land tenure insecurity is also found to be a disunity factor.
Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Benefit Sharing: Lessons from the San-Hoodia Case, 2009
Increased mining activities in indigenous peoples’ lands in the Philippines have brought to the fore questionable free and prior informed consent processes despite the legal protection of indigenous peoples’ right to autonomous decision-making regarding the use of their lands and resources. Inadequacies in the implementation of the law, as well as the complicity of state agencies in circumventing its requirements, are among the major causes of this problem. This reflects the distribution of resources and power in a country where indigenous peoples are among the most marginalized in terms of influencing policy decisions and implementation. Given this situation, Philippine indigenous peoples and advocates have resorted to direct political action to assert their right to autonomous decision-making over their lands. The ways in which indigenous peoples wage their struggle for respect of their rights are often influenced by contextual specificities. This explains the differences in the methods of political action between the San’s assertion of their right to a fair distribution of benefits from the use of their plant genetic resources on the one hand, and the Philippine indigenous peoples’ struggle with the mining industry on the other. Nonetheless, similar insights can be drawn from both cases, such as the importance of collective, participatory action and the delicate roles that civil society advocates can play. In the ultimate analysis, advocates for indigenous peoples’ rights should learn to take a supportive role enabling indigenous peoples to speak with their own voice and actualize their autonomy.
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Yearly, development-induced displacement affects some 20 million people, a disproportionate share of whom are indigenous. Within the diverse category of indigenous peoples, hunter-gatherers are especially vulnerable to displacement as they form the least powerful sectors of society. While displacement poses a major threat to the few remaining hunter-gatherer peoples, case studies of how this process unfolds are scarce. This ethnographic study details how two decades of indigenous land rights legislation have been ineffective in preventing displacement of indigenous communities in the Philippines, through the case of Agta hunter-gatherers of Dimasalansan. The paper demonstrates how procedural inconsistencies, institutional competition and a development paradigm focused on commodification of land have undermined the legal titling process. We argue that the ensuing land-rush that currently displaces Agta is symptomatic for how the implementation of indigenous land rights legislation is undermined by business interests, thereby creating more uncertainty than certainty for the least powerful.
Asian Social Science, 2017
Indigenous peoples worldwide struggle for control over land and natural resources against encroachment of state interests, external development and commercial pressures such as agribusiness, dams, logging and mining. Their battle to protect land and natural resources is at the same time the struggle to preserve indigenous culture and traditions often inextricably linked to the land itself. The Philippine Indigenous Peoples Rights Act recognizes the indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral lands and domains and offers a way of improving their land tenure security. The article employs case study design to illustrate the implementation gap between the rights of indigenous peoples in law and practice and the role different stakeholders play in securing indigenous peoples’ land tenure and dealing with palm oil agribusiness and mining industries’ interests in ancestral domains on the case of Higaonon tribe in Misamis Oriental province, Mindanao. The methodology for data collection wa...
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2013
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Journal de la société des océanistes, 2014
his paper looks at the extent to which the Mining Act of 1995 responds to the aspirations of citizen constituencies such as local governments. he law provides the regulatory and institutional framework for the operation of large-scale mining in the hope that substantial foreign capital is brought into government cofers. he law also provides for mechanisms to ensure community consultation, local government empowerment, concern for the indigenous communities, and equitable beneits sharing. However, the national government-with the country's minerals industry-has focused on foreign investments at the expense of equity and beneit allocations for local communities. Several local governments have blocked the entry of large-scale mining or forbidden open pit mining. Such action, including new local legislations, manifests sub-national resource nationalism that is founded on locality and ainity to homeland, and confronts the national government in matters of resource governance.