Home | To bottom

Solidarity in heterogeneity

By ANGELICA CAMPO

Amid the political turmoil besetting the country, the Cordillera Peoples Alliance Youth Commission (CPAYC), Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network (APIYN) and local youth organizations launched the first Youth Jam cum Youth-Elders Dialogue among various indigenous youths and student organizations from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao on March 3-6, 2006 at the Benguet State University (BSU) in La Trinidad, Benguet.

The indigenous youths and student organizations collectively asserted their rights to education, land, life, and resources as camaraderie is achieved among them. The jam allowed cultural exchange from different IP youths, while the youth-elders dialogue was successful providing cultural transmission. Afterward, the youths took on the challenge to preserve their cultural heritage. Through workshops and lecture-forum, they realized the need to perform their crucial duty alongside their elders as protectors of indigenous peoples’ rights.

First things first

CPAYC and APIYN believe that the Filipino youth should actively participate in the pursuance of effective governance in the country and subsequently assert the implementation of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United Nations agreement, which the Republic of the Philippines signed. Furthermore, they reckon the best way is to firstly gather the youths and discuss the said concerns.

The four-day activity was a healthy exchange of insights and experiences. Government neglect of the MDGs, especially on education, youth and indigenous populations (IPs), shocked yet propelled the delegates to act on the issues. Some have encountered first time the agreement that asks participating nation-states to allot 6% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to education, or that one of the focuses of MDG is the achievement of Universal Primary Education. Apparently, the Philippine government allocates only 2% of its GDP to salvage the ever-deteriorating state of the country’s basic education, while the rest of the revenue goes to debt servicing and military expenses.

Implementations of problematic laws resulting to lack of school infrastructures and facilities, educators and students, especially from rural areas, are not given proper opportunities. Barrios like Apayao and Maguindanao have scarce teachers and learning resources. These teachers conduct multi-grade classes wherein five students share only one book, according to some participants.

Moreover, the mining policy of the Philippine government allows exploitation of national resources and disregard of national patrimony. The delegates denounced large-scale mining companies in their places who manipulate indigenous practices such as tribal war to divert attention from these companies’ extraction of ancestral lands. Since execution of Mining Act of 1995 and the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA), IPs were disoriented and dislocated.

Participants from Kalinga, Apayao, and Mindanao also contested developmental projects the multi-national companies claim. In fact, several communities still have no electricity or cement roads. Instead, they were beset with diseases from careless waste disposal and devastation of the existing ecosystems.

They also lamented that some government officials actually endorse logging firms, if not directly owning the firms. Military persons are also continuously pouring in the countryside to intimidate civilians who protest the mining exploration in their communities.

Out of the saltshaker

A gallery highlighting each community’s culture was arranged and organized by the participants themselves. They also went for an immersion to Antamok mining community, where an open-pit mining is situated.

Four days of trans-cultural understanding and learning have passed. They had inch-by-inch came out of the saltshaker, and went back to the communities where militarization is not just a political jargon but a fact. # Angelica Campo for NORDIS

Post your comments, reactions to this article

Home | Back to top