Sumkad Para Iti Daga, Biag Ken Dayaw (Rise and Defend Land, Life and Honor)
April 20, 2023
Warm and militant greetings from Migrante Canada to the Cordillera People’s Alliance on its 39th Celebration of Cordillera Day!
Cordillera Day is a statement and commitment of the people of the Cordillera, borne out of many decades and struggles, to rise, resist, and defend their land, life, and honour. It celebrates the lives and struggles of Ama Macli-ing Dulag and Pedro Dungoc, two leaders in the fight of the Cordillera people against the Chico River Basin Hydroelectric Dam, a project of the dictator Marcos, Sr. and the World Bank. The Project failed. The Cordillera people won. The spirit of that resistance and collective struggle, now a mass movement that has spread across the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera, continues to inspire beyond the Cordillera and across the world, including overseas Filipinos.
The destructive and anti-people policies of the dictator Marcos, Sr. were continued on by succeeding governments in power, including that of the current Marcos, Jr and Sara Duterte regime. Development aggression with the Pan Pacific’s Gened Dams and the Mini-Hydro Projects in Apayao, and the JBD Water Power Inc.’s Saltan Dams in Kalinga continue to plague the people of the Cordillera.
Foreign interests, bureaucrat capitalists, corrupt local officials with the protection provided by the military, police and private security firms are bent on its plunder of the resources of the Cordillera and its crushing of any legitimate people’s opposition. The statistics are staggering. In the Cordillera alone, hydroelectric power projects were awarded to 96 foreign corporations, from which 17 hydropower projects are already in operation and 19 are in the development stage. Three (3) geothermal power projects have been awarded in the provinces of Benguet, Abra, and Kalinga. There are a hundred plus large-scale mining applications that would carve out the Cordillera and leave nothing for current and future generations.
The State response has been severe – from the red-tagging and terrorist-labelling of indigenous activists, abductions and arrests, issuance of trumped-up charges, harassment, militarization of communities, to bombings in the Cordillera. The militant Cordillera people’s movement continues to rise and to defend their land, life, and honour, their right to self-determination, and to fight for national democracy.
Migrante Canada stands with the people of the Cordillera and their just and legitimate demands for genuine development, peace, freedom, and democracy. We join you in your celebration of Cordillera Day and know that the sounds of the gongs will be heard across the Cordillera and around the globe.
Sumkad Para iti Daga, Biag ken Dayaw