We, the 210 participants of the Cordillera People’s Development Conference held on November 7-9, 2013 in Baguio City, Philippines, representing indigenous peoples’ and community organizations, genuine non-government organizations, professionals, business, academe, church, women, youth, peasants, workers, urban poor and government personnel from different provinces and cities of the Cordillera and other regions, are deeply concerned at the state of development in the Cordillera, the Philippines and the world.

We continue to face underdevelopment as government has not departed from the neoliberal paradigm in its national economic development plan. This paradigm continues to regard our land and resources as resource base, forcing us to sacrifice for corporate greed and plunder in the name of national development.

The situation calls on all of us, civil society as well as government, to seriously 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 Filipino people.

The Cordillera Development Situation is one of Underdevelopment

We have coined the term development aggression to describe the plunder of our natural resources which has caused underdevelopment instead of development.  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 and energy projects. Meanwhile, environment–friendly and equitable practices of traditional small-scale mining, a long-time source of livelihood for many of our communities, have been overtaken by destructive and chemical-dependent mining technologies.

Our major rivers were dammed and our communities displaced to generate electricity for industries and consumers tied to the Luzon Grid. Despite having given up their homes, rivers and lands for the construction of these dams, affected communities and remote Cordillera villages belatedly received the benefits of electrification. Today, we are swamped by destructive corporate energy projects such as geothermal plants, megadams, mini-hydro and windfarms in different parts of the region that promise huge profits for corporations but threaten more destruction for our people and the environment.

Meanwhile, the manipulation of government processes by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) for obtaining free, prior and informed consent has caused human rights violations and divisions in indigenous communities targeted by mining and energy corporations. Community consent for destructive projects is forcibly secured by the government and private corporations, rather than freely given by the people. Concrete experiences of communities and recent studies show that the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) and the NCIP have been used as instruments for development aggression by large corporations, rather than for the protection of indigenous people’s rights.

Agriculture, the major livelihood of our people, remains at a subsistence level notwithstanding the inroads of the cash economy and agriculture liberalization. Agrochemicals, hybrid and genetically modified seeds, and invasive species, are aggressively promoted and marketed by transnational corporations for profit; to the detriment of sustainable agriculture with food crops that should address basic food sufficiency. These expensive agrochemical inputs and genetically modified organisms not only cause debt and bankruptcy of farmers and damage our environment and health; they also cause the extinction of superior indigenous varieties of rice and other food crops, upon which people depend for their food security. Meanwhile, local agricultural products face unfair competition due to inadequate government subsidies and the importation of agricultural crops from developed countries, imposed by the government’sinternational obligations under the Agreement on Agriculture of the World Trade Organization.

Agriculture services, like irrigation, as well as other basic social services like health, education, water, electricity, communication and transportation are direly inadequate in the Cordillera region due to a long history of government neglect. These basic needs receive a minuscule share of the government budget compared to the allocations for defense and debt servicing. Strikingly, or as perpetuation of government neglect and institutionalized discrimination, the Cordillera region has the smallest share of the budget among all the regions in the country despite its resources having been long exploited for the benefit of those in power and foreign interests.

Meanwhile, dole-out projects that are supposed to contribute to the realization of the Millennium Development Goals such as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), and KALAHI-CIDSS have proven ineffective and have failed to alleviate widespread poverty and underdevelopment in the region.

And worse, the culture of corruption entrenched in government allows those in power and in position to siphon off much of budgets or funds for their own personal gain. Institutionalized bureaucrat corruption has further deprived the masses of the people of much-needed resources for immediate welfare and for long term development.

Our continuing opposition to development aggression has become a national internal security issue under Oplan Bayanihan. Our territories have become virtual encampments of the military. Their operations and bombings have caused numerous human rights violations and have terrified the civilian population. AFP troops have even militarized the delivery of development and humanitarian services as these are utilized for counter insurgency under the pretext of “peace and development.” Development workers have been terrorized and vilified and the delivery of people’s projects threatened.

PAMANA (Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan) is supposed to be the national government’s peace and development program in areas of armed conflict in the country. PAMANA is a deceptive program as well as being totally bunkrupt and misdirected as it persists in giving exclusive favor to an armed paramilitary force such as the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA). The CPLA was rewarded by government with more than P200 million worth of projects, while arbitrarily discontinuing the peace negotiations with the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army –National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).  Obviously, PAMANA is meant to prop up the counter-insurgency strategy of Oplan Bayanihan, rather than to seriously address the roots of the armed conflict in the Philippines.

Instead of addressing these burning issues, the government has embarked on its third attempt to set up the Cordillera Autonomous Region through another Organic Act that is fundamentally no different from the two earlier organic acts which were both rejected by the people because these did not substantially address the particular problem of national oppression of Cordillera indigenous peoples.

Our Vision of 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, respect for indigenous peoples’ rights, gender equality, social justice, self-reliance and sustainability. We also subscribe to the rights-based, ecosystem and integrated area development approaches.

Genuine development builds upon the existing indigenous values of community solidarity, collective over individual interest, labor cooperation, volunteerism, and service to the people as opposed to dole-out projects that breed corruption, dependency and divisiveness among the people. The indigenous values of community over individual interest, and of nurture and management of resources for present and future generations are further nourished, as opposed to profit and the exploitative regard of resources.

Our vision of self-determined sustainable development incorporates development justice, that of redistributing the fruits of development to the most impoverished sections of our society, comprehensively addressing inequality, and using resources for the people’s welfare.

Our self-determined sustainable development aims for villages with viable agriculture for food sufficiency, livelihood in commerce and industries, and basic social services; all consistent with the village’s sustainable natural resource management and environmental quality. Such self-determined and sustainable development is built starting at the village level, and is envisioned at the regional Cordillera level within the political framework of Genuine Regional Autonomy, under a truly sovereign and democratic Philippine state which is no longer of the pyramid social structure, and that truly addresses the Filipino people’s welfare.

The Cordillera People’s Movement for Genuine Development and Self Determination

Through the years, committed development work by the people’s movement has advanced and accumulated experience 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. 

These local and need-based initiatives of indigenous peoples’ organizations and non-government organizations in the Cordillera have contributed to the wider effort of attaining genuine development in our country. At the national and international levels, we support broad-based people’s development campaigns aimed at challenging the dominant neo-liberal underdevelopment paradigm of imperialist globalization, and promoting genuine people’s development alternatives. System change is necessary to reverse the pyramid social structure of Philippine society where genuine democracy, peoples’ development and self-determination will be possible.

We have learned valuable lessons from the decades of development work accomplished by the Cordillera mass movement and genuine development NGOs. Our forebears, as well as the martyrs and heroes of our struggle, commit us to participate in the Cordillera people’s movement for national democracy and genuine regional autonomy. We must defend our ancestral domain and right to self-determination towards achieving a just, self-reliant and sustainable development in the region and in the country.

At the international level, we uphold the principle of international solidarity with other indigenous peoples around the world, as expressed through the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement for Self Determination and Liberation; as well as solidarity with other democratic sectors and peoples. We support and participate in the Campaign for People’s Goals and Sustainable Development as a means to voice out our demands in the international processes that define global development targets and goals that impact on our lives. We push for greater indigenous peoples’ participation in the debates and discourses on development effectiveness, so that our perspectives and interests may be heeded in the allocation and implementation of international development aid that truly empowers our people.

As we conclude this Cordillera People’s Development Conference, we are outraged at the blatant violation of our right to development by government and corporations and the injustice that they continue to perpetrate within the unchanged pyramid social structure of Philippine society. 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 urgent needs and self-reliant development. We call on the people to defend our right to development and to take an active role in defining a development course that truly serves the interests of the Cordillera and Filipino people.

Our calls and demands:

1. Stop destructive mining and energy projects. Respect the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, including the exercise of free, prior and informed consent.

2. Support and promote sustainable agriculture and appropriate technology. Uphold village and need-based initiatives and alternatives that respond to the socio-economic welfare of the people while challenging the framework and content of the government’s national development plan.  Resist the use of genetically modified seeds and agrochemical inputs.

3. Expose the deception, dole-out nature and corruption attendant to government’s development programs like the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program – Conditional Cash Transfer, KALAHI-CIDSS and PAMANA. Monitor and call for a review of these programs, while demanding higher allocations for health and education.

3. Stop the militarization of government development work and services. Withdraw Oplan Bayanihan, pull out military troops from the Cordillera and punish the perpetrators of human rights violations. Totally disband the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army.

4. Scrap the pork barrel in all its forms. Hold the culprits accountable for the plunder of peoples’ funds.  Rechannel pork barrel to ensure sufficient budget allocations for basic social services and agricultural development in the Cordillera.

5. Provide long-term employment opportunities, job security and just and humane working conditions for the labor force.

6. Ensure disaster risk reduction and preparedness, climate change adaptation and proper waste management programs in Cordillera communities.

7. Review the Indigenous People’s Rights Act, revamp the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples and hold its officials and personnel accountable for their crimes and violation of indigenous peoples’ rights.

8. Pursue Genuine Regional Autonomy within a democratic and independent Philippines. Ensure a democratic, transparent, participatory process and ample time for peoples’ discourse on the organic act that upholds all of the peoples’ demands.  Otherwise, it is bogus and must be rejected.

Agreed upon on this 9th day of November 2013, in Baguio City

By the Participants to the Cordillera People’s Development Conference.