internalized oppression in indigenous communities

8/7/2019 Internalized Oppression in Indigenous Communities

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IP Imprimaturs to Mining: Symptoms of

Internalized Oppression

By: Cheryl L. Daytec-Yangot and Mary Ann M. BayangCordillera Indigenous Peoples Legal Center

In 2006, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines denounced

the Arroyo administrations Mining Revitalization Program. Reiterating its call

for the repeal of the Mining Act, the CBCP said : The right to life of people is

inseparable from their right to sources of food and livelihood. Allowing the

interests of big mining corporations to prevail over peoples right to these

sources amounts to violating their right to life. The promised economic

benefits of mining are outweighed by the dislocation of communities

especially among our indigenous brothers and sisters, and the risks to healthand livelihood and massive environmental damage. Mining areas remain

among the poorest areas in the country The cultural fabric of indigenous

peoples is also being destroyed by the entry of mining corporations. A 2003

report of the Extractive Industries Review project commissioned by the

World Bank warned of environmental degradation, social disruption, conflict,

and uneven sharing of benefits with local communities that bear the negative

social and environmental impact.

Glossing over the warnings, the Arroyo administration which

aggressively adopted mining as the cornerstone of its economic development

paradigm recently identified 24 major mining priority areas, eighteen of

which are in indigenous territories. As if this is not alarming enough, it

boasted in its report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of

Racial Discrimination (CERD) that the National Commission on Indigenous

Peoples (NCIP) whose primary mandate is to protect indigenous peoples (IPs)

has already issued a total of 127 Certificates of Precondition, 70 of which are

for mining. A certificate of precondition removes the final obstacle to the

national governments issuance, renewal or grant of concession, lease or

license over natural resources within ancestral domains. Under the

Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA), the free, prior and informed

consent(FPIC) of affected IPs must be secured before NCIP issues thecertificate.

Citing the issuance of the 127 Certificates of Precondition as an

accomplishment is baffling for it indicates failure on the part of NCIP to fulfill

its mandate. Announcing it to the international community is very upsetting

considering the aftermath. Every certificate of precondition allowing large-

scale mining perpetuates the oppression of IPs. Every such certification


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legitimizes displacement from their ancestral domains. Every displacement

culminates in cultural genocide. It is hoped that the CERD will see the

certificates for the license to exploit that they are and not for the

accomplishments that they are not.

One may argue that NCIP would not have turned on the green lightwithout the FPIC of the affected IP communities. But communities who labor

under a state of internalized oppression are not capable of giving consent.

Internalized oppression is a construct pivotal to the understanding of

IPs psychology. It means simply that they have become co-authors of their

own abuse. But more than being a cause of the escalation of marginalization,

internalized oppression is the aftermath of lingering external oppression

committed against them by a well-entrenched political system which has

historically ignored their welfare while plundering their territories,

endangering their very existence.

People who have long been oppressed are prone to eventually see

their situation with the eyes of their oppressor. In neocolonial states, hunger

may be defined as the need for a McDonalds hamburger, thirst is the need for

Coke, illiteracy is the need for English proficiency, underdevelopment is the

need for free trade and US intervention into their domestic affairs, a childs

loneliness is the need for Barbie dolls or Mickey Mouse stuffed toys, ugliness

is the need for whitening products.

For so long, generations of IPs have been painfully excluded from

enjoyment of the bounties within their ancestral territories which became

protected areas, timberlands, national parks, government reservations,mines, or plantations of the oligarchy. Without letting up, the State has been

trampling down IP rights for the sake of national interest translated into the

interest of the ruling elite or oligarchy that dominates the political system.

Because of drawn-out experiences of marginalization and underdevelopment,

many IPs now view their abject state through the vision of their exploiters. So

underdevelopment has become the need for an extractive industry even with

its deleterious effects on their food security, culture and survival. There is

nothing to see beyond the promised jobs and livelihood opportunities which

have eluded them for long. They have come to accept that there are heavy

costs to pay and sacrifices to make to be like the dominant groups.

The giving of FPICs to mining and other destructive industries is proof

of the IPs state of unenlightenment and internalized oppression. Consent to

large-scale mining can never be free and informed. Communities especially

indigenous ones whose culture has always championed intergenerational

responsibility in resource management and who fully understand that mining

deprives the future generations of resources loaned from them, will never


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agree to it. By giving their FPIC, they become unsuspecting co-conspirators

in the bureaucratic process aimed at opening their natural wealth to limitless

pillage by capitalist interests and their eventual dislocation from their cultural

and economic base.

The recently-issued EO 726 putting the NCIP under the Department ofEnvironment and Natural Resources is, in the ultimate analysis, a

premeditated move to subordinate IP rights to the Regalian Doctrine which is

the latters raison detre. This is fairly obvious. Gloria Arroyo, principal author

of the Mining Act of 1995, has began to sound like a destroyed compact disc

with her oft-repeated declaration that mining will pave the road to national

development, given that the economy is ailing. In areas where community

opposition to mining is high, she put the military at the disposal of mining

industries in the guise of counter-insurgency. Under the Investment Defense

Force, the military has become the private army of what Romulo Neri called

the booty capitalists who used the elections to gain policy favors and

advantages from the political system. EO 726 should thus be viewed withsuspicion and with suspicion comes vigilance.

The NCIP is put in a bind and its current position in the Arroyo

administration might reduce it into a fixer to facilitate the obtainment of

IPs imprimatur to mining. But it needs to understand that its job is not to

ensure FPIC; the pith and core of its existence is to protect IPs from abuse,

and this means making sure that there is no FPIC to destructive, large-

scale industries, for such FPIC is a weapon for auto-genocide. When NCIP

issues no Certificate of Precondition to mining and other large-scale

extractive industries, it becomes a measure of its zeal to pursue its mandate.

It is a record that the Filipino nation can proudly announce to the internationalcommunity. But when it signs 127 such certificates, it leaves a legacy of

oppression by the State, by itself and by the sector whose interest it should

protect.

As the bureaucratic apparatus whose primary mandate is to protect IPs,

NCIP has to break through the miserable state of unenlightenment that afflicts

many IP communities. It should incorporate the construct of internalized

oppression in implementing its mandate of advancing IP rights. But first, it

must rise above its own internalized oppression. With that will come the

courage and competence to throw its heavy weight nourished by IPRA and

make the state rectify wrongs committed against the IPs. Otherwise it willmetamorphose into a bureau to manage oligarchic interests in ancestral

domains, if it is not so already.

Only when IPs conquer their internalized oppression can they be

capable of giving FPIC. And only when NCIP conquers its internalized

oppression can it liberate IPs from internalized oppression. The blind cannot

lead the blind.

internalized oppression in indigenous communities

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