Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

Chapter 2.2: Challenges at the National Policy Level
145
other options are removed. The most effective campaigning
against this is via universal international condemnation, as
attempts to denounce such legislation within a country risks
further anti-patriotic labelling.
Overall, it is clear that maintaining peaceful, unified
protest against government oppression is, by its very nature,
not easy. Communities can appeal to indigenous methods of
conflict resolution, seeking reconciliation. They can also look
to national and international allies, although in the case any
appeal to the “outside,” the risks are that it may only increase
the claims of treason and therefore increased repression.
Indigenous Women Organize
Corporate Mining and the Indigenous Women
of Benguet, Philippines
By Abigail Anongos, Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA)
Indigenous Women in the Struggle against Corporate Mining in
Benguet
The box in Chapter 1.1 set out the adverse impacts faced by indigenous
women in relations to mining in the Cordillera region of the Philippines
(see Impacts of Extractive Industries to Indigenous Women: Corporate
Mining and the Indigenous Women of Benguet, Philippines, p. 22). In
the face of these challenges, indigenous women set out to organize
themselves. Cordillera Peoples Alliance, through its regional federation of
indigenous women, Innabuyog, and its NGO partner CWEARC (Cordillera
Women’s Education, Action and Research Center), have been assisting
in this. Jointly they have been empowering indigenous women through
education and information campaigns, mobilizations and direct actions,
including the introduction of alternative livelihood opportunities and
projects.
Organizing of women in the mines started in the 1980s, among the wives
of miners of Benguet Corporation, in response to the problems they faced
in the mining camps. Among their issues were poor living conditions in
bunkhouses, health and safety concerns and violence against women.
The women’s organizations also supported the labor union during the
workers’ strike for just wages and benefits.