[Ed. Note: This article is reproduced with permission from
the "Multinational Monitor", Vol XIII, No. 9, September 1992]
INDIGENOUS VOICES
T H E C O R D I L L E R A U N D E R S I E G E
An Interview with Victoria Tauli Corpuz
Victoria Tauli Corpuz works with the Cordillera Women's Education
and Resource Center on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. The
Center works to empower indigenous women in the face of militarization,
development, aggression and ethnocide. Corpuz also works with the
Cordillera People's Alliance, a coalition of approximately 120
indigenous people's organizations.
MULTINATIONAL MONITOR: Why was the Cordillera People's
Alliance formed?
VICTORIA TAULI CORPUZ: The Cordillera People's Alliance came
together and formed into an alliance in 1984. Prior to that,
there had been a series of struggles with the Cordillera
peoples over the dam issue ant mining and logging
concessions in the region. These are very localized
struggles, but eventually they became more integrated. As a
result, an indigenous people's movement for self-
determination started developing. The many emerging
organizations decided to come together so that they could
have more impact on the government.
The Cordillera area is largely forest. These are areas
where people have been living for ages. Communities have
residential areas with rice fields, and then they have the
forest, which is communally owned by the tribe. Those are
their hunting grounds, those are where their sacred trees
are, those are the areas where the water comes from. These
forests are very much protected by the people. They know the
forest is where their life comes from, where their water
comes from, where the fertility of the soil comes from and
where their wood and wild food comes from. So it's a very
integral part of the daily life of the people.
MM: What were some of those early struggles?
CORPUZ: The Chico dam project, which was funded by the World
Bank, was one. It involved the construction of dams along
the Chico River, which runs within the Cordillera region.
These dams would have displaced about 300 families in one
particular community, and several villages would have been
eroded and flattened. Of course, the people resisted; they
resisted the whole project. [The builders] didn't get to the
first step. They were able to do the survey; in one area
they were able to set up some foundations in the river; but
the people fought against all these things. It took such a
long time before anything could be done that the World Bank
decided to cancel the whole project in the mid-1970s.
The project had become a big embarrassment for the World
Bank. The early reports said that no people were going to be
affected by the dams. That was entirely wrong, many people
were living just beside the river, because that is where the
rice fields and the burial grounds are. It is their ancestral
land. So the people were willing to die for it. They armed
themselves. They are warrior societies and engage in tribal
wars with each other, but this time they united among
themselves and really put up a united position against the
whole project. The government sent in a lot of military men,
but the people persisted in their opposition. After two to
three years, they decided to cancel the whole project. Now
they want to revive the project. But the opposition has
already been forged.
The fight against the Chico dam was really something
which strengthened the people's will to unite themselves.
They saw that with unity they were able to stop a project
which had been designed and promoted by a big multilateral
bank. In fact, there was one article that said that it was
the first time that pre-industrial, "uncivilized," as they
always say, peoples were able to stop a World Bank project.
Immediately after that, President Marcos gave a big
logging concession -- something like 200,000 hectares of pine
forest -- to one of his cronies, a corporation which makes
cellophane and related products. The project was opposed by
the people of Abra, one of the Cordillera provinces. The
company was able to set up a mill and begin logging on some
mountains, but because of the consistent opposition, the
whole project stopped.
So these two particular projects were stopped by the
people's opposition. These successes spurred the development
of a lot of organizations among the people. By 1984, members
of these organizations decided to form themselves into a
federation -- the Cordillera People's Alliance.
MM: What are the main concerns of indigenous people in the
Cordillera today?
CORPUZ: The main concerns are still basically the same. Our
region has been always considered a resource base area by
the government. It has rich natural resources, a lot of
gold, a lot of minerals, intricate river systems which can
be a source of hydro-power and tropical rain forests and
pine forests. Ever since the colonial period, governments
have been trying to exploit these natural resources.
Right now, we have problems with open-pit mining
operations. The biggest and oldest mining company in the
Philippines, the Benguet Corporation, has been operating in
our region since 1905. Suddenly Benguet decided that it is
not going to do underground tunneling anymore but will
convert its operations into open-pit mining. This is
devastating the whole area. Mountains are being bulldozed. So
now the people in those villages which are affected are
opposing the whole project. They have been setting up
barricades to stop the operations of the open-pit mines.
There is a stalemate now because the company decided to stop
doing the open-pit mining in the areas where the people are
setting up physical barricades. But I think they are really
bent on pushing through with their plans.
And then CRA, the Australian affiliate of the British
Rio Tinto Zinc, wants to expand its operations. The net
impact is again that the people who have been doing small-
scale mining in those areas will be displaced and their rice
fields also will be destroyed.
The more complicated problem which is affecting the
whole region is the militarization that is coming along with
the mining and logging operations. Right now the region is
targeted as one of the areas for comprehensive counter-
insurgency operations. We have a lot of areas right now which
are being subjected to aerial bombings and strafings.
We suspect that one reason that the military is doing
this is so that logging will be facilitated . A lot of
logging operations have been stopped because of the
opposition of the people. I think that, because the
Philippines has a big foreign debt, the government is doing
everything it can to facilitate the entry of multinational
corporations, so that their investments can help earn foreign
exchange for us to pay our debt.
In fact this was confirmed when we had a dialogue with
the military men who are operating in the area. One of the
generals who was heading operations, General Manlongat, said
"It's true, one of our roles is to insure that the economic
activities of these companies will be able to be pushed
through. If we don't militarize the area, then the companies
cannot pursue their economic activities."
Those are the kinds of issues that we are confronted
with right now. And it's also one reason why we want to
become part of bigger alliances internationally. They will
provide us with the opportunity to project the issue
internationally.
MM: Can you describe the Benguet situation and explain how
the company's operations are affecting people in the
Cordillera?
CORPUZ: Benguet's open-pit mining operations have already
displaced some people from their communities. Small-scale
miners' tunnels are covered and they're not allowed to
proceed with their own mining activities. Several rice
fields have already been covered. What is worse is that the
water sources have disappeared -- several of the springs are
now gone. So people will have to buy water all the way from
the city at very expensive prices. The other effect is the
pollution. The open-pit mining operations are causing
tremendous erosion. Recently Benguet's mill released some of
its waste and caused toxic poisoning among the people. The
people that live around the area started vomiting and
experiencing watery eyes and headaches. Later on it was
confirmed that these problems were caused when the mill
spilled its wastes.
MM: Who owns the land Benguet and the other companies are
mining?
CORPUZ: That's a big issue. Legally, at least underground,
the land is owned by the mines. They have patented claims to
the land which were facilitated by a law called the Mining
Act. The act says that the mines can be owned by mining
corporations and that they have rights underground -- it
doesn't really say that they have rights above ground,
however. But the people are already being displaced from
their communities. In effect, there's nothing that's going
to be left for them because of the open-pit mining
operations.
It's very difficult for the people to win legal battles
because the law is really siding with the mining
corporations. Even the government's environmental impact
study gave the companies clearance for their operations. The
people cannot win when they depend on the legal framework,
relying on the law or environmental assessments. So they have
to resort to para-legal activities like barricading and doing
mass actions, mass campaigns. These are the only things left.
MM: How has the government responded to these types of
activities?
CORPUZ: They deployed a military detachment to the community
and arrested the leaders of the opposition. There is still a
court case going on right now. That's the response of the
government. And they are also saying that as far as the
government is concerned, operations of the companies are
legal. But the people are continuing their efforts to
resist, hoping that they will be able to at least delay the
full operations of the mines.
MM: Are the organizations fighting the mining companies
independent or part of the rebel New People's Army (NPA)?
CORPUZ: They are independent community organizations. These
are organizations of small-scale miners, women's
organizations, community-based organizations and youth
organizations. Some of them were just created because of
this struggle, and others existed before the fight All of
these organizations were created by the people themselves to
be able to effectively address their issues in the
community.
The NPA is not in the particular place where the mines
are. But in the other areas, in the mountains, of course they
are there. There are also a lot of people's organizations
which were set up even before the NPA was there. Whether they
come together because of a particular issue is incidental.
Because the opposition to mining and logging operations was
there even before the NPA was there. Much of the opposition
was led by women who were not really organized. But because
they were the ones who were doing the farming, they were the
ones who were really taking care of the land. They felt that
these threats to their role as food producers were very
serious. So on their own initiative they opposed these
particular projects.
MM: Could you discuss the government's military operations
further?
CORPUZ: The military deployed several battalion formations
into the region in October 1990. The reason was that the
Cordillera is a rebel-infested area, so they put in all
these military men. Presently, we have something like 20,000
military men, operating within the whole region. It used to
be just company-sized operations; now they have brigade-size
deployments carrying out not just ground operations but
comprehensive air and ground military operations. There are
Tora-tora planes and helicopter gun-ships hovering around
the communities they would like to evacuate, and they're
dropping rocket bombs into the communities.
MM: Do you believe the rebel presence is the real reason for
the military deployment?
CORPUZ: Well, there really are rebels, but not that many and
they are not all over the place. We think that the
government is really using the rebels' presence as a pretext
to insure that their programs for "development" of the
region will be able to be pushed through.
That's what happened with Marag Valley, one of the
valleys in the region which is very rich with tropical
rainforests. The people have prevented logging in this area
for years. They have always protested whenever the logging
concessions would come in. They would burn bulldozers. Large-
scale military operations in the Cordillera first started in
the Marag Valley. But at the same time, I think the
government would really like to pursue [the plans they have
for the region] because of the need for additional income,
and using the military is one way of doing it. Of course the
government would like to stop the insurgency in the region.
Right now we have an energy crisis in the whole country, and
the government is planning to build hydroelectric dams,
outside of the Chico Dam, that were previously stopped. We
have the Abulog-Gened Dam which is funded by the Asian
Development Bank, and various other dam projects plotted for
the whole region. This is the time that the government will
try to pursue all of these projects.
MM: What is the military doing to the people?
CORPUZ: In several communities they are forcing them to
leave their communities, using the theory of removing the
water from the fish. They think the NPA is being coddled by
these people, so they have to remove the communities so the
NPA will become hungry.
However, these people have been living there for ages,
and you cannot just kick them out, so the military is also
imposing economic blockades and food blockades. Food which
the people would bring into the communities is being stopped
at the check points. They ask, "How many members are in your
family?" Then they try to measure the amount of food that you
can bring in, which will feed your family for a week. So
after one week, you have to hike several kilometers again to
get what is left from the military detachment.
The military operations have been going on for more than
a year. They are creating a lot of problems for the people.
They cannot harvest their rice fields anymore. Many of them
are scared to go out because of the mortar shellings. Several
of the people have been hit by stray bullets. They are also
given a curfew, and so the food production has really gone
down.
The people are also not allowed to perform the rituals
that they have been performing for years. That's why we think
that the military operations are ethnocidal -- the very
activities of the people which are important for their
continuance as distinct peoples are being destroyed. We have
rituals before we plant rice. After we harvest rice, we have
several rituals to ask blessings and also to appease the
spirits of our ancestors. But with the military operations
going on, we cannot do these things. Everything has been
disrupted.
MM: What happens to the people who are forcibly moved?
CORPUZ: The worst thing is when they ask you to evacuate.
Some people have been evacuated already. They are brought
into hamlets where they virtually cannot do anything; they
are just relying on the relief that the relief legions bring
in. Life in the hamlets is very constrained and controlled.
Several times we have undertaken fact-finding missions to
gather data about what's happening to the people, and even
then we are not allowed to go into the hamlets. So the
hamlets are really creating hell for the people in them.
MM: Aren't things better than they were under the Marcos
dictatorship?
CORPUZ: For us, it really got worse under Aquino, because
this is the first time we've been subjected to military
operations of such an extent. It's much worse now.
I don't know what's happened with a government that's
supposed to be democratic. In the end, it is catering to all
interests besides those of the people.
MULTINATIONAL MONITOR -- the monthly newsmagazine that tracks
the activities of multinational corporations. Subscriptions
are $25, $30 for non-profits, $40 for business; single copies $3.
Multinational Monitor
PO Box 19405
Washington, DC 20036
monitor@essential.org
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
To have a current Center For World Indigenous Studies Publication
Catalogue sent to you via e-mail, send a request to
<or>
FTP ftp.halcyon.com /pub/FWDP/CWIS
Center For World Indigenous Studies
P.O. Box 2574
Olympia, WA U.S.A.
98507-2574
BBS: 206-786-9629
OCR Provided by Caere Corporation's PageKeeper
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
John Burrows, Executive Director jburrows@halcyon.com <or>
Center For World Indigenous Studies The Quarto Mundista BBS
Finger for more info on CWIS & FWDP Fido Net 1:352/333 206/786-9629
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\