Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP)

The UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review is a mechanism that fundamentally aims to convince states to adhere to international humanitarian laws and other covenants. The Philippines, who have signed almost all UN Human Rights instruments and optional protocols, will be under international scrutiny in its human rights performance. In the second cycle of the reviews, Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP, or the National Alliance of Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations in the Philippines) submitted a report to the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, a shadow report with an objective to expose human rights violations against indigenous peoples and belie the government and military claims of respect for human rights. The Philippine indigenous peoples, the national minority and the most marginalized portion of the Philippine society, could probably best depict the worse of the state of human rights in the country.

The scope of review on the Philippines is caught at an interesting time--from 2008-2011, it straddles between the tail end of the almost ten-year administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the start of the Benigno Simeon Aquino III government, providing a distinct view into the human rights situation in the Philippines as it shifts from one administration to the next. The Arroyo rule is deeply marred by human rights issues, and the direness of the human rights situation, injustice, and impunity has caught attention of human rights organizations internationally. The Arroyo reign is then followed by head of State who heavily invested and profited in a campaign that promised change and a ‘straight path’ of governance, but has retained economic and security policies that violates the people’s rights.

Indigenous peoples’ human rights at a glance
Operations of large-scale mining by local and transnational corporations is the biggest threat to the right to ancestral land and self-determination of indigenous peoples. Compounding the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights to land is the use of military, paramilitary, police force, and other state-sanctioned armed groups to quell resistance to these projects. At least 184 mining applications covering 559,058.11 hectares of ancestral lands has mining applications has been given the nod by the national government.

Alongside these, counter-insurgency schemes Oplan Bantay Laya (Freedom Watch) and Oplan Bayanihan (Cooperation) were in implementation on the last four years, and are blamed for the countless human rights violations against the Filipino people, and the impunity that followed these violations. Both counter-insurgency strategies actively targeted activists, human rights defenders, workers, peasants, and other marginalized peoples, including the indigenous peoples, especially in areas affected by development projects, especially mining. In the resulting human rights atrocities that followed, it seemed apparent that the violation of the people’s rights is a national internal security policy, in the context and in implementation of these counter-insurgency programs.

Oplan Bayanihan, the counter-insurgency program of the incumbent Aquino administration, is potentially more treacherous than its predecessor Oplan Bantay Laya. It purports to work in a human rights framework referring to militarization as “peace and development teams,” but are bared as vicious by its full-scale combat operations. Since its implementation in January 2011, 12 indigenous peoples have been slain by state forces and state-backed armed groups.

The spate of extra-judicial killings among indigenous peoples is proportionate to the resolve of the government to peddle the country’s natural resources to local and transnational enterprises, most of these resources found in ancestral territories. In KAMP’s UPR submission, it accounts for 33 extra-judicial killings of indigenous peoples documented from 2008 to November 2012. Two more indigenous peoples were slain since then. In March 2012, Datu (chieftain) Jimmy Liguyon, a Manobo-Lumad, and Rodilyn Aguirre, a six-year-old Tumanduk child were killed by a paramilitary and military agents, respectively, in separate incidents. The toll of extra-judicial slays among indigenous peoples since 2008 is now 35.

The continuing military operations under the Oplan Bayanihan in indigenous communities result to forced evacuation, a prominent feature in human rights violations against indigenous peoples. KAMP has previously reported 41 instances of forced evacuations in the last four years, which resulted in the death of forty-three evacuees and three children. Another case of evacuation happened in March 2012 in Agusan del Norte aftr members of the 30th Infantry Battalion and 3rd Special Forces of the 402nd Infantry Brigade launched air strikes, bombed and shelled the Lumad-Mamanwa communities.

A call to the international community
The Philippine government has failed to decisively address human rights violations against indigenous peoples. Worse, the Philippine government blatantly denies that these violations exist, ascertaining that there will be no justice for these abuses. However, human rights and peoples’ organizations have utilized several means of exposing these violations locally and internationally including UN human rights bodies, in demanding justice for these human rights atrocities.

In its country review on the Philippines, we urge the UPR mechanism to heed the reports made by the people, to get a good picture of the human rights situation in the Philippines. In particular, KAMP wishes to draw the attention of the UPR mechanism on the serious human rights issues faced by Philippine indigenous peoples, and draw up fitting recommendations in the obligation of the Philippine government to the rights of the indigenous peoples.