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“The more we speak, the more they target us,” Sheerah Escudero, sister of drug war victim Ephraim Escudero, told Bulatlat in Filipino. “Even the dead were not spared. They tell me, ‘How about the victims of drug addicts like your brother?’”
Cordillera’s rich natural resources have attracted local and international companies eager to profit from them. But for the Indigenous Peoples of the region, everything is interconnected. The destruction of their land means the destruction of their life, culture, and identity. Their resistance to so-called development projects has spanned many decades.
After over 70 years of cultivating the land and staying in the community, the members of the Portico Banasi Household Farmers Association (PORBAHFA) and other residents are facing threats of eviction and worries about their livelihood.
On January 4, 2026, Ana Brizuela, 64, was forced to return home in Sitio Portico, Barangay Fabrica, Bula, Camarines Sur from Manila after receiving phone calls that she was among the residents ordered to evacuate their residence by virtue of a local court ruling.
Of the 210 cases, eight media workers were killed under the Marcos Jr. administration as of October this year.
Karapatan stated that these legal victories not only granted freedom and protection to activists, but also emphasized the resistance against abuses and weaponization of counter-terror laws.
The Presidential Communications Office claims that the scandal is nearing its ‘endgame’. However, Bulatlat’s timeline of related activities suggest that the investigation has yet to reach its climax, much less a resolution.
In the view of many affected, the barricades on Nov. 30 were more than concrete and shields, they symbolized a system that protects those who loot public funds, while brutalizing those who demand transparency.
“The political prisoners were the ones who stood in the line of fire against the struggle against corruption and the struggle for justice, freedom and national democracy."
“The recent exposé of the unfinished Mega Health Center Building at Sitio Macanhan, amounting to P65 million worth of public funds, has left us in question: where did our taxes go?”
"We host dams, geothermal plants, and windmills, but we don’t even get electricity. The power is used for industries and businesses, not for our communities."
“These soldiers accused, forced into silence and attempted to detail at will through fabricated evidence and rehearsed witnesses packaged as rebel returnees. And now, they can walk away unaccountable because the state calls it ‘procedure.’”
For Migrante International, the human trafficking cases surfacing in recent months—particularly those involving “scam hubs” in Southeast Asia—are not isolated incidents. They are symptoms of a deeper crisis forcing Filipinos to leave the country in search of work.
The resettlement site is commonly referred to as 722 Relocation because of the number of housing units that were supposed to be built here. This resettlement site is just one of several for Sendong survivors.
"They told us that there is already a law in place. But we have repeatedly told them: it does not work,” said Edith Burgos, mother of disappeared activist Jonas Burgos and the chairperson of International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED).
“Another challenge arises from the kind of climate where full cooperation from state forces cannot be expected. Even the safety and security of the search missions themselves are often at risk.”
"The Marcos Jr. administration is clinging to a failed and anti-farmer policy of rice importation. It is time to repeal the Rice Liberalization Law, break up the rice trading monopoly, and implement a genuine program for food self-sufficiency."
Under the SPLIT project funded by the World Bank, no actual new land distribution takes place. Former Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano said that there are still more than 500,000 hectares of agricultural land undistributed.
Across the Philippines, many communities are losing their livelihoods and homes in the name of so-called development projects causing environmental destruction. With Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s presidency already at the halfway mark, the state of the Philippine environment is caught between lofty climate pledges and worsening ecological destruction.
"If the ‘iron-clad’ alliance comes with selling out the [Philippine] economy in exchange for ‘military aid’, then that’s not really an ‘alliance’ and that’s not really ‘aid’. That’s neocolonialism.”
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