An Open Letter To President Aquino Concerning The Lumads

Dear President Benigno Aquino,

The protests and cries for justice of the Lumads and those who are sympathetic to their plight much have reached you. News about the killings of Lumads this year and for the past five years must have reached you, too. There are around 60 Lumads or indigenous peoples of Mindanao who have been killed by paramilitary groups or our very own military since 2010. They are not NPAs, Mr. President. They simply want to live their lives in peace.

Transnational mining corporations, Mr. President, are not the way to increase economic growth in the Philippines. They will just destroy our nature and environment. They destroy peoples’ lives as they poison the environment – the rivers, the watersheds, the land, the air – with their toxic wastes. They denude our forests with their open-pit mining and leave toxic tailings that will stay to pollute our lands, rivers, and seas for many generations.

Wake up, President Aquino! Sustainable development means a convergence of social, economic, and environmental goals. It means you should not prioritize profit over people and the environment. Corporate mining companies and coal power companies heavily pollute our environment and cause the displacement of thousands of our people, your bosses, both the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. These companies only take away our natural resources to feed the never-ending demand of the capitalistic market for more cars, more gadgets, more equipment and appliances. But at what cost? The destruction of our watersheds which we ought to protect to ensure our water source and food security, the hunger and starvation of poor Filipinos, and more landslides, more heavy floods, and more disaster response budget from the Philippine government coming from the taxes paid by the Filipino people.

Wake up, President Benigno Aquino! The NPAs will be more belligerent with your pro-economic globalization and pro-rich decisions and policies. Stop believing that economic growth rests only on harmful foreign investments. Instead, develop more our people by supporting agricultural production and business; provide funding and support our indigenous peoples because they are the original settlers of these islands — these islands which where once so rich with natural forests but have now only 8% of forest cover left. These islands which are so rich and blessed with natural resources that are only being enjoyed and mined away by foreign companies.

Wake up, President Benigno Aquino! The Lumads are not NPAs. Your military men are making them kill one another. They are using the tactics of deception and coercion to force the Lumads out of their ancestral lands to pave the way to these pernicious corporate mining companies and coal power companies.

We are at the losing end if you will continue to believe that these corporate mining and coal power foreign investments are what can make our nation grow economically. They just destroy our people’s lives and our natural environment, Mr. President. They destroy your bosses’ lives! Stop listening to World Bank and IMF’s demands. Repudiate our debts! Repudiate the heavy interests imposed by these international banks which keep our nation in bondage.

The Lumads’ cries have reached the heavens. Their spilled blood will not go unrevenged by God Himself. Wake up, President Aquino, before the wrath of God falls upon the oppressors of the marginalized people of this nation!