The mistreatment of indigenous populations throughout the world is intolerable and not spoken of often enough. This article will specifically focus on the treatment of indigenous Filipinos by their own government and countrymen. While this essay is focusing on the mistreatment of the indigenous population, this issue is difficult to solve as a singular problem. To bypass this, the solution will instead target three major root causes of the problem. The first major issue is the lack of awareness about indigenous Filipinos and their plights; the next is the Philippine government’s use of excuses such as “red-tagging” to target and even assassinate dissenters and those who speak out against them; the third and final of the big three, which is the primary reason that the government can get away with their crimes, is the indigenous population’s lack of birth certificates.
Before the root causes and their solutions are covered, it is important to ask the question of why the Philippine government would do this. There are several explanations for their actions and it is likely some combination of these explanations that have caused this oppression. The first and most obvious is the desire for the Philippine government to claim the land and territory that the indigenous tribes live on so that they can develop and gentrify it. Another potential reason is the push to create national unity and culture throughout the county by undermining the already existing cultures, similarly to how the US treated their own indigenous cultures. The third major reason for this oppression is simply prejudice and discrimination against the indigenous peoples, once again drawing parallels to the US and their treatment of Native American tribes throughout history.
As was discussed in the introductory paragraph, the first major issue that allows for the mistreatment of the indigenous population is the lack of awareness about their situation. The truth is that most Filipinos don’t know or are apathetic about the oppression of their countrymen. This is because of several reasons: the lack of news publication about this, the many cultural clashes between groups and religions, and the Philippine government actively covering up and using excuses such as “red-tagging” to get away with the unlawful actions that they commit. The main way that the government prevents the spread of knowledge about this phenomenon is control over the media. The majority of Filipino media is controlled by large conglomerates and influential families who often, if not always, have a hand in the government. The Philippine government also uses laws with many loopholes that give them the excuse to target independent and dissenting journalists. An example of this is the Human Security Act of 2007, an anti-terror law, which, according to Women in Action, is a law that allows the government to treat any individual or group who causes “widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace” as a terrorist. The influential groups, as stated in the blog and news site Robbie Antonio, such as the Elizalde, Belmonte, Lopez, and Campos families, have almost full control over most media corporations, governmental agencies, and other major markets. One of these major and highly profitable industries that influential groups build around just so happens to be real-estate and land.
A major example of this was reported by the Global Witness, a private organization dedicated to targeting companies that endanger the environment or harm other humans. It was a series of attacks on indigenous workers by growers of the Del Monte Philippines, which is a major exporter to Del Monte Foods Inc. Del Monte Foods Inc. is a US-based company, so how is it relevant? Simple, Del Monte Foods Inc. is itself a subsidiary of NutriAsia, a Philippines-based company. NutriAsia was founded by Joselito D. Campos Jr. who was the eldest son and heir to Jose Yao Campos, the founder of the largest drug-producing corporation of the Philippines and a crony of former Philippine President and Dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The Marcos Family is still one of the most influential families in the Philippines, with the current Philippine President is Bongbong Marcos, Ferdinand Marcos’s son. The attackers of the Indigenous farmers were never implicated.
A more direct form of attack on the indigenous population that the Philippine government employs is red-tagging. According to Human Rights Watch, red-tagging is a process by which people, typically dissenters or someone the state wants gone, are marked as a member of the Filipino Communist terrorist organization, the New People’s Army. This allows for the detainment and harassment of these individuals who spoke out about the Philippine government. As the New People’s Army often hide out in indigenous land, the government sends military forces to suppress them which also target the red-tagged individuals in the area to the point where there are even extrajudicial murders of innocents. Once again, the Human Security Act of 2007 plays a part. This law enables the practice of red-tagging and is one of the main legal defences that is used by the government to protect those that have murdered indigenous people on their behalf. This law was then replaced by a newer terror law in 2020 by President Rodrigo Duterte, which was actually worse as it took away even more civil liberties and made it harder for people who were falsely prosecuted to get compensation.
This is a long running issue, an example of this a letter from 2003 addressed to the then President that was archived by the World Organisation Against Torture or OMCT. It addresses the extrajudicial murder of the indigenous Blanco family by the 16th Infantry Battalion. The Blanco family consisted of Roger Blanco; Olivia Blanco, who was eight months pregnant; Kevin John Blanco, who was three years old; and Dexter Blanco, who was one and a half. The soldiers involved in the case claimed that the Blanco family was caught in a confrontation between them and the New People’s Army. According to witness testimony and evidence gathered at the scene, the Blanco killings were completely unprovoked and there was no such confrontation. Neither court records or an investigation of this case by the government could be located on the internet. The only record published was the letter that was recorded in several non-Philippine-based human rights organizations. There was no media coverage.
The third major enabler of the Philippine government is the lack of universal birth certificates in the country. According to Lanie Carillo of World Vision, if a child does not possess a birth certificate, they do not have the full right to exercise their identity. Essentially, this means that the child will either have trouble or even get completely denied from government services like receiving education, opening a bank account, getting high-level positions, and more. This limits the social mobility of indigenous people and prevents them from gaining enough influence to speak out against their condition. This lack of rights also gives the government a legal excuse to commit crimes and take advantage of the indigenous around the Philippines.
While these problems are dire, they are also solvable. As I explained in my introduction, I have broken up the mistreatment of Filipino indigenous groups by their government, into three more easily solvable issues. This allows me to cut the problem from its roots which is more effective and it would also help other non-indigenous people who were negatively affected by these issues such as independent journalists.
The first issue I put forward was the suppression of news about the mistreatment of the indigenous. This is due to both governmental and corporate interests, and it is enabled by the major news corporations being in on it. When an independent group or journalist tries to release news, they are either buried by the large companies or they are marked as a terrorist by the government and silenced. I have two solutions for this that are closely tied together. The solution would be to pass a new bill that would change the definition of a terrorist from someone who just causes fear to someone who directly commits, aids and abets, or colludes with one of the previous individuals. This would limit who the government could target with the excuse that they were a terrorist, protecting journalists. This bill would then be paired with another law that would guarantee protection of journalists who published information, both from the government and from certain legal reprisals depending on what was released. These solutions would protect independent journalists and allow them to not only report about the mistreatment of the indigenous, but also the corruption of government and major corporations.
The second major root cause is the government using terrorists in indigenous land as an excuse to send military forces there. My solution is to both remove the reason the military has for being there and to give the indigenous people a way to defend themselves. To do this, I would implement an indigenous police force similar to the tribal police that the USA employs but with more legal power and jurisdiction. This police force would be made up of indigenous people local to the area who would then be trained in law, combat, anti-terrorism techniques, and policing by the military and police. They would then be used to root out terrorist hiding spots as they know the land better than outsiders, which would remove the reason for large amounts of military personnel to base themselves in indigenous territories. It would also give the indigenous population a legal and physical way to defend themselves from outside attacks.
The final main solution that I have is the creation of universal birth certificates. This should already be mandatory as children born in the Philippines or born of at least one Filipino parent by law have all of the rights and privileges of a Filipino citizen. Unfortunately, these rights and privileges are limited by a lack of a birth certificate. While it is possible and even easy for a non-indigenous person to file for a late registration of birth, the lifestyle and access that an indigenous person has makes it almost impossible to acquire a birth certificate.
To get a birth certificate, the parents, doctor, or midwife must send the appropriate paperwork to the local civil registrar within thirty days of the birth. This is very hard for an indigenous person to accomplish as they most often do not give birth in hospitals due to the expenses required and they tend to have a hard time filling out the heavy legalese in the paperwork and delivering it on time.
According to Nicolas and De Vega Law, to acquire a late birth certificate the child would need: four certificates of live birth signed by appropriate parties, which the parents wouldn’t have; Negative Certification of Live Birth, which the parents don’t have; two official documents that state the name of the child, date and place of birth of the child, and the name of one of the child’s parents, which the parents don’t have; and more, which the parents don’t have.
All of this makes it nearly impossible for an indigenous child to acquire a birth certificate that is pretty much a requirement to make a living outside of the indigenous community. To solve this, I propose the establishment of closer, indigenous-run civil registration offices that the parents can go to after the child’s birth, making registration easier. I also suggest the creation of hospitals within or near indigenous territory allowing for both safer births and the paperwork and witnesses required to enable indigenous families to sign up for late birth certificates.
While I believe that these are the best solutions that could be reasonably implemented, it must still be noted that the government and people in power would resist these changes due to them benefiting from the current regime. That is why the people must know about this issue; they have to move for change otherwise nothing will happen. By making this mistreatment a nationwide, or even global issue, the Philippine government will have to respond to the criticism and pressure. This would force change or, at the very least, acknowledgement of the issue.
With these solutions, I hope to bring up the indigenous population to an equal playing field with the rest of the country. They should guarantee the legal rights of indigenous Filipinos as well as the creation of an actual defence force to prevent attacks. My ideas for protection of journalists should allow for both a greater amount of news to be released to the Filipino people as well as more exposure of a corrupt system which should hopefully inspire social change. This should also allow indigenous people to attain higher education and better careers, making them more represented in the Philippines as a whole, with some even potentially obtaining political office. The changes I presented would also reduce the threat of domestic terrorism in the Philippines as a byproduct.
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