Led by the Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas, groups of indigenous peoples and environmental defenders protested at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Central Office in Quezon City on March 13. The groups condemned the construction of large dams and renewable energy projects that destroy river systems and evict farmers and indigenous peoples from their communities. The protest coincided with the marking of the International Day of Action for Rivers.

Protesters symbolically “drowned” the faces of Ferdinand Marcos Jr, and officials of government agencies and corporations responsible for these destructive projects. They said Marcos and other plunderers of natural resources must be drowned in accountability.

“Destructive projects and the regime’s massive corruption are drowning the people. We rightfully demand holding Marcos Jr and his corporate cohorts accountable for permitting these,” the groups said.

The groups said that while renewable energy is presented as progressive and necessary to shift away from reliance on oil, such projects destroy peasant and indigenous communities. At least 414 hydropower projects for commercial use have been constructed nationwide since 2025.

“Green development” granted corporations permission to exploit rivers that indigenous peoples have long protected. State agencies often manipulate the process of obtaining their “consent” to seize their lands. The promise of clean energy becomes a pretext for the continued grabbing of ancestral lands and the violation of indigenous peoples’ rights.

“Renewable energy projects are not inherently bad, as they are needed to address the climate crisis. But the crucial question: who controls these projects, and whose interests do they serve?” the groups said. “It cannot be called development if it displaces indigenous communities from their homes, destroys rivers and ecosystems, and militarizes defending communities.”

Katribu called for the immediate halt to destructive dam projects and other large-scale energy projects imposed on ancestral lands without the genuine consent of indigenous peoples. Marcos Jr, state agencies, and corporations must be held accountable for their violations of indigenous peoples’ rights and their destruction of the environment, the group said.