Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Foreword
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tions of their rights to their lands, territories and resources
and to self-determination. It is also because of this that many
of the last remaining oil, gas and minerals are still found in
indigenous lands and waters.
Since globalization has been further facilitated with the
entrenchment of the neo-liberal ideology or what is commonly
referred to as the Washington Consensus, the liberalization of
the entry of mining, oil and gas corporations into indigenous
territories was made possible by most states, both developed
and developing. More private capital, including speculative
investments, compared to public money are put into the
extractive industries. Thus, it is more difficult to make the
extractive corporations and their investors more accountable.
The needs of so-called emerging economies, like China, India,
Brazil, for more metals and minerals, oil and gas, to feed their
rapid industrialization is also having impacts on indigenous
peoples.
Many indigenous peoples have employed everything
within their means to address this issue, but what have been
done so far can never be enough. They have and continue
to take actions ranging from barricading to stop operations,
strikes, filing temporary restraining orders (TROs) against
companies, filing civil and criminal cases, using international
complaints and grievance mechanisms, campaigning in countries
where the corporations have headquarters or where their
investors are, to taking up arms, among others. The demand
that companies should get their free, prior and informed consent
(FPIC) before they enter their communities remains as a
priority in their approaches.
I am hoping that the stories, analysis and recommendations,
which are contained in this book, will be able to help indigenous
peoples strengthen further their struggles to assert
their rights and empower themselves. I also hope it will help
enlighten extractive industry corporations, investors, insurance
companies, and state actors to understand better what
indigenous peoples are asking for. Obviously, more dialogues
and conflict resolution processes have to be done between
indigenous peoples on the one hand, and the state and the extractive
industry corporations on the other. I strongly believe