Global Witness, an international non-government organization that seeks to break links between natural resource exploitation, conflict, poverty, corruption, and human rights abuses, released a report this month saying 17 of the 196 land and environmental defenders across the globe who had been killed or forcibly disappeared were from the Philippines.
Eighty-five percent of the cases were in Latin America: Colombia (79), Brazil (25), Honduras (18), and Mexico (18) top the list.
For the Philippines, which has had 298 documented cases between 2012 and 2023, representing 64% of the total 468 cases in Asia in the 11-year period, this is another distinction which is a source not of pride, but notoriety.
According to Global Witness, 10 of the Filipino victims in 2023 were killed while the remaining seven were disappeared.
A report by Human Rights Watch said the enforced disappearance of land and environmental defenders and indigenous activists is common across the Philippines.
Most of these are called “invisible cases” because little is publicly known about the victims, Indigenous Peoples Rights International executive director Joan Carling told HRW’s Carlos Conde.
“Apart from abductions, arbitrary detention, politically motivated prosecution, and murder, environmental defenders and indigenous leaders in the Philippines are also subjected to harassment and intimidation through “red tagging” where authorities accuse them of being sympathizers or supporters of the communist insurgency,” according to HRW.
The Philippines has carried the distinction for 11 years, not because this is a relatively new phenomenon but because the documentation and data consolidation only began fairly recently. Imagine countless others in the past who have died or disappeared without having made it to the count, or without having been reported in the first place. These happen, after all, far away from our imperial center.
This administration has to work harder at establishing its sincerity and resolution to address such grievances moving forward. It could begin by heeding the recommendations of Global Witness to create a safe environment for defenders, to systematically identify, document, and analyze attacks against them, and facilitate access to justice.
Addressing environmental concerns has become a popular course of action, but it should never be done for the sake of riding on a trend or of creating a better brand name. There are real people with real high stakes in the environment. They are found in places we do not know exist and which are far removed from the comfortable surroundings we call home.
These defenders are truly valiant for going against all odds, even at the risk of fighting in vain and remaining in obscurity. The least that the government can do is to acknowledge their sacrifices and take the first steps to ensure not just sustainability for the environment, but the safety of those who defend them without counting the costs.
