Indigenous territories under siege everywhere, but nowhere in sight in Marcos’ SONA

Indigenous peoples rights advocates convened in the State of Indigenous Peoples Address 2025 (SIPA 2025) national gathering strongly condemned the continuing silence of President Bongbong Marcos in his State of the Nation Address over the plight of indigenous communities.

“Our latest research saw at least 1.7 million hectares of indigenous territories everywhere in the Philippines currently face conflicting land uses such as large-scale mines, forest tenements, and other environmentally critical projects. Despite this, the urgent concerns of indigenous peoples remain nowhere to be found in Pres. Marcos’ SONA for the fourth year running,” said Atty. E.M. Taqueban, executive director of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC), organizer of the SIPA 2025.

According to the latest research findings of LRC, it was found that currently 54% of all approved mining tenements are overlapping with Ancestral Domains, and likewise 49% of Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) and 54% of forest tenements are also conflicting with indigenous territories. These development projects featured heavily in Pres. Marcos’ SONA.

“Pres. Marcos has announced an open season for global corporations to enter into the critical minerals, agriculture, water, and renewable energy sectors of the economy. These are industries that greatly impact indigenous territories and forest watersheds, to which no safeguards have been offered,” Taqueban observed.

Leticio Datuwata, the Timuay Labi or Supreme Chieftain of the Timuay Justice and Governance (TJG) of the Teduray and Lambangian people and a member of the SIPA 2025 Council of Advisers, said “our people continue to face unabated killings over the violent contestations to our indigenous territories but not even a word of comfort is spent in Pres. Marcos’ SONA to offer peace for our lands.”

“We heard the same stories of large-scale mining, coal, fortress conservation, red-tagging, and the relentless undermining of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) from 11 different tribes from across the Philippines. Indigenous territories are clearly the frontlines of the ecological and climate crises and the Marcos government must heed the cries of indigenous peoples to walk his climate talk,” he furthered.

“We are hearing the same old climate rhetoric since Pres. Marcos’ first SONA. We want consistency in action, not mere branding, and the plight of Indigenous Peoples is the ultimate litmus test for the Philippines’ program on climate change,” ended Taqueban.# 

SIPA 2024 Report Key Findings.pdf

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