Panaghiusa slams attacks vs. IP in Kalinga, Mindoro, Palawan
- Panaghiusa Philippine Network
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Panaghiusa Philippine Network to Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ Rights strongly condemns the continuing attacks against the Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines. The succession of incidents shows a deliberate campaign of militarization, harassment, abduction, torture, and criminalization designed to silence resistance and dispossess the Indigenous Peoples of their ancestral lands.
In November 2025, military operations in Pinukpuk, Kalinga disrupted civilians and intensified militarization in ancestral lands. According to the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance, these clashes created a humanitarian crisis as residents were locked down, deprived of mobility, and denied access to relief and psychosocial support. Families endured fear and food insecurity while schools were suspended, and the presence of armed troops inside ancestral lands violated their right to self‑determination and cultural integrity.
The pronouncements of military officials, openly threatening communities with “left hand for peace and right hand for violence,” underscored the normalization of repression and the disregard for International Humanitarian Law principles of distinction, proportionality, and humanity.
On November 30, Philippine National Police forces conducted a warrantless and forcible entry into the home of Elma Awingan-Tuazon, a Kalinga activist and former municipal councilor. The raid yielded nothing but left her family traumatized, particularly her daughter with a heart condition. Tuazon, a convenor of Justice and Peace Advocates of Kalinga and Sumkad Umili para iti Matagoan, Karbengan, Aglawlaw, Daga ken Dayaw, has long opposed destructive dam projects along the Saltan River.
The harassment against Tuazon underscores the targeting of Indigenous women defenders resisting corporate plunder and state‑backed development aggression, violating constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures and representing arbitrary interference with the rights of women and families.
On December 2, 2025, the brutality escalated in Southern Tagalog with the abduction and torture of Dolores Mariano-Solangon, a Mangyan‑Iraya woman from Occidental Mindoro. Members of the 76th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army tied her to a tree, interrogated her for hours, and forced her to dig her own grave while threatening to kill her.
This heinous act exemplifies the impunity by state forces and the grave risks faced by Indigenous women under militarized counterinsurgency campaigns. It constitutes a grave breach of International Humanitarian Law and human rights law, violating the absolute prohibition against torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.
On December 9, 2025, repression continued in Sitio Mariahangin, Bugsuk, Palawan, where Molbog residents resisting land grabbing faced criminalization through a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and court summons filed against 282 individuals. The case, lodged before Palawan Regional Trial Court Branch 165, accuses residents of “squatting” on their own ancestral lands.
This sweeping judicial action, tied to corporate interests including San Miguel Corporation, effectively bars communities from their ancestral lands. Residents have endured armed guard deployments and relentless legal harassment, all designed to force them off their land and silence their resistance. Such collective punishment and criminalization of entire communities contravene Indigenous Peoples’ rights under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and raise serious concerns under humanitarian law when armed enforcement is used against civilians.
The injustice deepened with the affirmation of the unjust decision against the Talaingod 13 on December 16. Despite the humanitarian nature of their mission last November 2018 and the absence of credible evidence, the unjust decision upheld fabricated charges and legitimized the criminalization of the Indigenous Peoples, advocates, and human rights defenders. This unjust decision punishes solidarity with Lumad communities, and that the justice system can be weaponized to attack Indigenous Peoples’ struggle for self-determination and ancestral lands.
These attacks against the Indigenous Peoples and advocates expose the state’s systematic use of militarization, judicial harassment, abduction, torture, and corporate‑backed land grabbing to dismantle Indigenous Peoples’ resistance and silence solidarity. Panaghiusa calls for an immediate halt to military operations in ancestral lands, the dropping of fabricated charges against defenders, justice and accountability for victims of abduction and torture, and the stoppage of the weaponization of laws.
We call on the public, civil society, and the international community to amplify these cases, hold the Philippine government and state security forces accountable, and stand in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples.
Stop the attacks! Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ rights!
Reference:
Rikki Mae Gono
National Coordinator
Panaghiusa Philippine Network to Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
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