People to oppose imperialist logging and mining
"Prepare to wage fetad to oppose rapacious imperialist mining companies!� declared the Cordillera Peoples� Democratic Front (CPDF) to the people of the region. According to CPDF spokesperson Simon �Ka Filiw� Naogsan, fetad or armed actions by national minorities of the Cordillera against their tribal enemies will serve as the Cordillerans� contribution to the national campaign against the imperialist plunder of the country�s natural wealth.
There is need to unify the pangat or tribal leaders and all the people to defend ancestral lands, said Ka Filiw. Towards this end, armed fighters of the tribe may be organized as community defense units.
In a statement, Ka Filiw recounted the bitter experience of Benguet and Abra provinces with the plunder and destruction wrought by Benguet Corporation, Lepanto Mines and Philex Mines, which continue to inflict suffering on the people in the area.
These companies siphoned off superprofits even as the people lost their farm lands and livelihood, and suffer various ailments due to the toxic substances spewed by the mines. Even the local governments have not received the meager but much-vaunted revenues they were supposed to have gotten since 1992.
It is but right to hold Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the justices of the Supreme Court accountable for the large-scale entry of plundering imperialist mining companies, Ka Filiw added.
Meanwhile, the NDF-Southern Mindanao Region (NDF-SMR) condemned the Arroyo regime for allowing continued large-scale logging in Mindanao and the withdrawal of the total log ban in the Caraga mountains of eastern Mindanao. According to NDF-SMR spokesperson Ka Rubi del Mundo, the Arroyo regime granted permission to large logging companies like PICOP and Alcantara & Sons to plunder the island�s remaining forests. She assailed as sheer deception the regime�s posturing that it would put a stop to logging because of the tragedy that struck Quezon last December.
This only shows, Ka Rubi said, that Arroyo would rather allow the destruction of the forests to allow comprador-bourgeois companies to amass superprofits than safeguard the country�s remaining patrimony and the interests of the greater number of people.
On the other hand, says Ka Rubi, the people�s democratic government oversees an active program of protecting and revitalizing the environment for the people�s benefit.
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