Pitfalls and Pipelines - Philippine Indigenous Peoples Links

206 Pitfalls and Pipelines: Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries
• Fragmentation of FPIC process, so that limited impacts
(such as exploration) will be subject to consent,
but will then give de facto consent to much more significant
operations;
• “Transferring” a consent to a different company, even
where this could significantly alter the project (which
effectively allows companies to “buy a consent” that
provides immunity from past wrongs);
• Bribery of leaders;
• Misreporting of meetings or misinterpretation of leaders’
wishes;
• Creation or recognition of “false leaders” or tribal
organizations;
• Intimidation of leaders and/or communities (especially
in militarized areas);
• Continual repetition of successive FPIC processes
until a community is worn down into giving their consent,
a process that is referred to as being “dialogued
to death.” 5
These abuses happen despite the law categorically defining
FPIC as “the consensus of all members of [indigenous
communities] to be determined in accordance with their respective
customary laws and practices free from any external
manipulation, interference, coercion, and obtained after fully
disclosing the intent and scope or the activity, in a language and
process understandable to the community.” 6 It seems almost
superfluous to point out that none of these all too common
practices above seem to comply with the spirit of IPRA.
The following is a quote from an Indian activist which effectively
illustrates the negative feelings a “forced negotiation”
can bring to a community (although it is focused on stakeholders,
whereas the community should be viewed as more than
that, as rights holders):
The meaning of ‘stakeholder’ got ruined the day it got coined
by Rio Tinto, a major mining multinational corporation,
to give itself legitimacy and pose its demands of somebody
else’s land as reasonable. The stakeholder engagement
process is purported to be an exchange of information and