Following its 71st session this August the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has invoked its Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure imposing deadlines on the Government of the Philippines to respond to accusations regarding its failure to uphold, protect and respect the rights of the Subanon and other Indigenous Peoples in the context of mining operations on their lands. The concerns centred on complaints of serious violations of the Subanon peoples’ rights at the mining operations of the biggest primary producer of gold in the Philippines a Canadian company, TVI Pacific.

In its strongly worded letter to the Government of the Philippines, CERD called on the Government to provide information on the measures taken to protect the members of the Subanon community and to address their complaints. The committee noted with concern the allegations ‘according to which members of the Subanon community are exposed to acts of violence and attacks on their property, sacred sites and institutions, and regarding the existence of a pattern of escalating racial hatred and violence against the Subanon community’ and expressed particular concern regarding ‘information that paramilitary forces deployed by TVI Pacific, are accused of human rights violations and that mining activities on Mount Canatuan continue and are being expanded’.

The granting of the mining concession to TVI Pacific ‘without the prior consent of the Subanon community, or its duly authorized representatives, in violation of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act)’ was another serious issue identified by the committee. It requested information as to how a body alleged to have ‘no status in indigenous structure and not deemed representative by the Subanon’ was ‘granted representative status for the Subanon community’ thereby enabling it to conclude ‘an agreement with a Canadian mining company (TVI Pacific) in order to authorize mining activities on Mount Canatuan, a sacred site of the Subanon’.

Expressing its concern regarding the implementation of Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, CERD requested that the Government provide a detailed response to ‘the information according to which amendments …to the 1998 Implementing Rules and Regulations impose restrictions in relation to the time-frame and process required to obtain the free and prior informed consent …of indigenous communities which are not in conformity with the customs, laws and traditional practices of these communities’.

Subanon traditional leaders Timuay Fernando Mudai and Timuay Jose Anoy explained to the committee “Mt. Canatuan is sacred to us…but the Canadian mining company made it a dumpsite for its toxic wastes. What is our sin against the Canadians? We did not go to Canada and desecrate their place, but the Canadians came here and destroyed our sacred mountain…we are not anti-government or anti-development as some people claim. We believe in a development path determined by the Subanon themselves, one that follows our core principles of being pro-life, pro-people, pro-environment and pro-God. We have seen what has happened at Canatuan and this mining project goes against all of these principles. To defend our future we have no choice but to oppose this abusive project and its planned expansion.”

A deadline of ‘no later than 31 December 2007’ was set by the committee for the Government to provide its response to the issues raised. In the absence of a response by this deadline CERD will consider adopting a decision under its Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure. The committee also reminded the Philippines that its full country report was overdue since 1998. It requested the government to report before its 73rd session on the 30 June 2008 and instructed it that failure to do so would result in concluding observations being adopted ‘in light of information received from other sources, including NGOs’.

The committee’s demands follow a detailed submission presented by a consortium of indigenous Subanon organisations and NGOs which catalogued the government’s discriminatory policies and actions against the Subanon, and other Indigenous Peoples, in relation to its promotion of large-scale mining on ancestral lands.

The full text of the letter issued by CERD under its Early Warning and Urgent Action procedures to the Government of the Philippines is available at www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/philippines_letter.pdf.

The submission presented to CERD by Apo Manglang Glupa’ Pusaka, Gukom of the Seven Rivers, Pigsalabukan Bangsa Subanon (PBS), Friends of the Earth Philippines Legal Rights Centre LRC-KSK, Tebtebba Foundation, Indigenous Peoples Links (PIPLinks) and the Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR) is available at:
http://www.piplinks.org/development_issues/Subanon_CERD.pdf

Numerous reports have been produced documenting the issues faced by the Subanon at Mount Canatuan and other indigenous peoples of the Philippines in the context of mining operations on their ancestral lands. These include among others:

1) Mining a Sacred Mountain, Human Rights Impact Assessment, Rights and Democracy, 2007, available at
http://www.humanrightsimpact.org/publications/item/pub/202/
2) Mining in the Philippines: Concerns and Conflicts, Fact Finding Trip 2006, available at http://www.business-humanrights.org/Documents/MininginthePhilippines
3) Breaking Promises Making Profits, Christian Aid and Indigenous Peoples Links, 2004 available at www.piplinks.org/development_issues/philippines_report.pdf
4) Undermining the Forests, Forest Peoples Programme and Indigenous Peoples Links, 2000, available at http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Country/undermining.pdf

For more information or documentation contact:
• Zherwinah Mosqueda, LRC-KSK – phone +63 88 856 5045 or email zherwinah [at] yahoo [dot] com
• Timuay Fernando Mudai, PBS – phone +63 62 353 1480 or email pigsalabukan [at] yahoo [dot] com
• Geoff Nettleton, PIPLinks – phone +44 207 326 0363 or +44 1367 718889 or email info [at] piplinks [dot] org
• Cathal Doyle, ICHR – phone +353 86 85 45 414 or email doncathal [at] gmail [dot] com