International delegates successfully conducted a fact-finding and solidarity mission last October 11-14 to investigate the continuing fascist terror of the US-Marcos regime against peasants and indigenous communities, and were themselves subjected to numerous forms of harassment by the regime’s Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
The ISM’s theme “Grounding Solidarity: A Learning and Solidarity Mission to Communities Affected by Climate Injustice and Militarism,” aimed to investigate and build solidarity with communities affected by the climate crisis, environmental plunder, corruption, and militarization. The mission was in time for Peasant Month in October.
Delegates from 15 countries participated in the ISM organized by international organizations such as the Peoples Rising for Climate Justice, International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, Asia Pacific Network of Environmental Defenders, Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation, Oilwatch South East Asia, People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty, Asia Pacific Research Network, Asian Peasant Coalition, Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), and Ibon International.
During the ISM, the international delegates interacted with locals and their hosts and heard first-hand testimonies of land-grabbing, exploitation and militarization in the provinces of Rizal, Mindoro, Samar, Tacloban, Leyte and Negros Occidental, specifically the rights violations committed in connection with the Kaliwa mega dam in Rizal; a palm oil plantation in Negros; a real estate development in Mindoro; and low farmgate food prices in Samar.
The ISM delegates became targets of fascist harassment while conducting their fact-finding: AFP and Police agents conducted surveillance of ISM delegates in Manila and Leyte; barangay officials in Mindoro demanded permits for the mission and the list of names of delegates and threatened to declare participants persona non grata if the mission fail to comply; soldiers in civilian clothes tailed ISM delegates in Leyte, Negros, Rizal and Mindoro; elements of the 80th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army and barangay officials in Rizal province demanded names and identification documents of the delegates; delegates were monitored by drones while in the town of Abra de Ilog, Occidental Mindoro; and, personnel from the Land Transportation Office in Mindoro demanded identification documents from ISM delegates when they accompanied Iraya indigenous people to a court hearing on a fabricated cases filed against them such as malicious mischief, trespassing, and usurpation or occupation of real rights and properties by Pieceland Corporation, a big real estate company, to force them out of their ancestral lands.
Right after the ISM delegates left the communities they visited, fascist troops harassed and threatened the residents, summoning them for questioning on the identities of the ISM delegates and those from the communities who participated in the fact-finding activity.
The Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS), which was among the participants, stressed in a statement that “despite the US-Marcos regime’s violence and repression against the Philippine movement and its allies, the Filipino people have time and again proven that they are an irrepressible people. As international solidarity allies, we stand with their struggle for national and social liberation and will continue to amplify their aspirations in the international community.”
The total number of arrests reached more than 216, with over 100 still detained. They were charged with multiple cases.