Global delegates join mission to the world’s most disaster-prone country to stand with communities facing climate injustice
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Global delegates join mission to the world’s most disaster-prone country to stand with communities facing climate injustice
Peoples Rising for Climate Justice
Press Release
October 10, 2025
Quezon City, Philippines — Grounding Solidarity, a pre-conference initiative of the Asia Pacific People’s Conference Against Climate Imperialism and Militarism, will bring together researchers, academics, journalists, environmentalists, and human rights advocates to visit communities on the frontlines of climate and militarist injustice.
The Philippines remains the most dangerous country in Asia for environmental defenders, according to Global Witness, which has recorded the nation in this position for 11 consecutive years. Supported by findings from Kalikasan, the Philippine state’s armed forces, notoriously the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) persist as the top actor behind such attacks. The trend persists amid ongoing large-scale resource extraction, land conversion, and militarized ‘development’ projects that endanger both ecosystems and those who protect them, with continuing abuses linked to counter-insurgency and surveillance operations by state forces, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and harassment of community leaders, organizers, and activists. These violations often occur in areas overlapping with ancestral domains and protected territories. The worsening climate crisis, further fueled destructive extractive industries and stolen public funds meant for safeguards against natural disasters have displaced communities, worsened food insecurity, and ecological loss — conditions that drive local resistance and calls for accountability, which the government often too immediately labels as ‘insurgency’ and ‘security threats.’
The Southern Tagalog region continues to denounce state surveillance and harassment as they still demand accountability for the 2021 Bloody Sunday Massacre, where among those killed were four indigenous people and two coastal conservationists under the Duterte administration, as they resist megadam projects, ecotourism encroachments, quarrying, and land‑use conversions.
On Mindoro Island, indigenous Mangyan communities are trapped between critical‑mineral extraction and “clean‑energy” schemes, sheathed as ‘progress initiatives’; and indiscriminate military actions such as strafing, bombings, and hamletting. The 2024 extrajudicial killing of Mangyan student Jay‑el Maligday, falsely labeled an ‘encounter against rebels,’ exemplifies how militarization silences dissent.
Negros Island suffers from military‑enforced abuses layered onto an exploitative hacienda economy, with AFP forces acting as enforcers of modern slavery. Community resistance is routinely met with violence, evident in repeated military drills and massacres across towns and cities.
Leyte Island’s residents are still reeling from the 2013 Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and subsequent annual disasters, yet their pleas for adequate social services and genuine disaster preparedness are now already intersected with demands to halt destructive infrastructure, seafloor dredging, mining, and other projects that displace communities.
“Sa bansang ganito ang turing sa mga magsasaka, sa mga nasa laylayan ng lipunan, hindi mali ang tayo’y tumindig at lumaban. Hindi tayo ang kaaway ng mamamayan. Ang terorismo ng estado ang kaaway. Ang krimen nila: ang Bloody Sunday Massacre, ang mga masaker sa Escalante at Himamaylan, at marami pang iba,” reiterates Danilo Ramos of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP). (Translation: ‘In a country that treats farmers and people on the margins like this, it isn’t wrong for us to stand up and fight. We’re not the enemy of the people. State terrorism is. Their crimes include the Bloody Sunday massacre, the killings in Escalante and Himamaylan, and many other atrocities.’)
“The Philippines is ground zero both for climate disasters, and for resistance to the plunder of land and resources,” said Jonila Castro of Kalikasan - People’s Network for the Environment.
Through the Grounding Solidarity mission, participants will visit communities in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Southern Tagalog and the islands of Mindoro, Negros, and Leyte, documenting the stories of those most impacted of climate injustice and militarization. Delegates will engage in people’s fora, focus group discussions, and immersion activities, culminating in a report-back press conference amplifying the demands and aspirations of affected peoples.
“It is only imperative that we refuse to simply tolerate as those in power and influence ravage our only planet, and therefore our future. We choose to act on it, and we choose to do it collectively, across borders, from the every impacted communities to every platform and conversation spaces nationally and internationally,” Rachelle Junsay of Peoples Rising for Climate Justice rallies.
“Global solidarity is our response to global injustice. This mission is about standing with those who protect the planet at great personal risk,” Peter Murphy of International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) summarizes.
Media coverage is vital in bringing these stories to light. Journalists and media organizations are invited to join the send-off of the area teams and to cover the concluding press conference in Manila. On-the-ground reporting will offer rare, human-centered documentation that connects local struggles to the broader regional fight against militarized attacks and climate imperialism.
Media Contact: 09542392974 (viber) or seba...@kalikasan.net
Sebastian Tueres, media liaison
Peoples Rising for Climate Justice
+63 954 239 2974
seba...@kalikasan.net
PUBLIC INFORMATION DESK
publi...@karapatan.org
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