Attacks Against Environmental Defenders Quadrupled in First Month of Election Season

PRESS RELEASE

Environmental activist group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) revealed that the number of environmental defenders suffering human rights violations quadrupled after the start of the electoral campaign season in February, raising concern that election related violence might be deliberately targeting defenders.

“There is a 483% spike in the number of environmental defenders under attack and a 350% increase in incidents after the formal electoral campaign season started. We urge the Filipino public to demand both current and future government leaders to address the plight of our heroic defenders obscured by the election’s fog of war,” said Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE. (See Table below)

Among the incidents the green group monitored was the recent arrest of community health practitioner Dr. Naty Castro, and the massacre of five indigenous Lumad advocates Chad Booc and the rest of the ‘New Bataan Five.’ They worked against large-scale mining projects in the country’s mining capital region, Caraga.

On February 18, seven forest rangers of the Masungi Georeserve were physically assaulted by illegal land grabbers intruding into the world-renowned conservation area.

On February 23, the protest camp of 236 agrarian reform beneficiaries in a 200-hectare agricultural land area in Concepcion, Tarlac was burned down in an arson attack. Standing to gain from the attack is the land cooperative disputing the area affiliated to the local Villanueva political clan.

On February 27, a gun attack seriously injured outgoing Infanta municipality mayor Filipina Grace America. America was a staunch opponent of the Kaliwa Dam, which threatened to submerge thousands of hectares of forestlands and the thousands of indigenous Dumagat families residing in them.

The latest incident was just last evening of February 28, when police illegally arrested Agnes Mesina, a church lay worker and political activist who have long been involved in anti-mining campaigns in the Cagayan Valley region.

International watchdog group Global Witness recently noted the growing trend across ‘Global South’ countries holding national elections this 2022 like the Philippines, Brazil, and Colombia where environment and climate issues are urgent electoral concerns, but where land and environmental defenders working to resolve these crises are suffering the worst human rights abuses.

“We hope the current electoral hopefuls walk their talk of environmental and climate concern by standing with our embattled defenders. We should call out the worsening violence they face and demand accountability from the outgoing public authorities,” ended Dulce.#

TABLE OF MONITORED INCIDENTS – JAN – FEB 2022