Calls are ringing out louder and louder across nations, the Philippines included, in the populated continents the environment for today’s generations and for tomorrow’s must be protected.
As the ear-splitting echoes get to deafening decibels, the British-based watchdog Global Witness has released a report scores who have stood up against the ruinous effects of mining, logging and agribusiness have continued, aggravating people’s distress that often result in death.
By out-and-out count, the Philippines has been found to be the deadliest country for environmental defenders in 2018, with 30 environmentalists killed, eclipsing Colombia (24), India (23), Brazil (20), Guatemala (16) and Mexico (14).
In 2016, Brazil and Colombia topped the bulletin board on the killings of land and environmental defenders with 49 and 37 murdered, followed by the Philippines, India, Honduras and Nicaragua with 28, 16, 14, and 11.
While the total of 164 last year constitutes a plunge from the 2017 peak of 201, the watchdog has noted that non-lethal means of disallowing dissent are as well pandemic.
Global Witness has said “countless more people were threatened, arrested or thrown in jail for daring to oppose the governments or companies seeking to profit from their land,” adding it is common for businesses and authorities to “use courts and legal systems to silence those who threaten their interests.”
We share the far-reaching apprehension, the continuing international call to the butchery of environmental activists—at home and in other shores—by governments led by populist leaders, with the overall climate for these activists not looking any better in the near term.
The watchdog has said signs are nerve-racking the situation for environmental and land defenders will worsen.
While there are laws in each country that must be followed by the citizens, it is diabolical, if dastardly, to tag such defenders as terrorists who may face life sentences.
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Mountain Province-born UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, put it competently: “This is a phenomenon seen around the world: land and environmental defenders are declared terrorists, locked up or hit with paralyzing legal attacks, for defending their rights, or simply for living on lands that are coveted by others.”
We concur with her observation.