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At immigration, Julie Jamora was told she had been blacklisted and denied entry into the Philippines and told to return to the United States.
While these communities grapple with the fallout of extraction, Southeast Asia is racing to an electric?vehicle future.
Workers said that they were required to work extremely long hours and were housed to cramped, undignified conditions, often sharing beds while fearing reprisals if they complained or left their jobs.
Wala na akong aasamin
walang kahapong lilipas, walang darating na bukas
at ang ngayon ko’y hindi sumisikad o umaatras
walang nagaganap sa akin!
Kung ako’y mamamatay
Kailangan kang mabuhay
Upang ikwento ang kwento ko
Ipagbili ang mga gamit ko
Upang makabili ng kapirasong tela
At mga tali
(y’ung puti na may mahabang buntot)
“One hundred thousand tons of explosives – equivalent to nine nuclear bombs – were dropped on Gaza. Every environmental sector was shattered.”
Like many young workers, she has been unable to access government aid, citing strict qualifications she and others do not meet.
Because ancestral lands are rich in natural resources, the extreme militarization is driven by corporate greed.
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Those whose livelihood were affected received meager aid or none at all.
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.”
For years, residents of Barangay Paguludan-Salindeg in Currimao town have endured the impacts of solar energy projects in their community, including extreme heat and worsening flooding. These issues began with the construction of solar power plants by Mirae Asia Energy Corp. in 2016 and intensified when Nuevo Solar Energy Corp. started operating in 2023. Both power plants have a combined capacity of 85 megawatt.
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Their message is clear: environmental protection and biodiversity conservation are not optional: these are human and environmental rights that demand concrete commitment from the government to safeguard nature and the people who defend it.
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