Defend mindoro!

Katribu and Sandugo express their solidarity with Defend Mindoro, an initiative that brings together Indigenous communities and human rights advocates in response to the worsening militarization and human rights violations in Mindoro.

On July 26, 2025, Mindoro-based organizations and communities, along with national human rights groups, gathered to formally launch Defend Mindoro and to bring to light the true state of human rights on the island, particularly the growing threats faced by Indigenous Peoples. The event forms part of local activities leading up to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s 4th State of the Nation Address, aiming to challenge the administration’s false narrative of peace and development.

During the program, Amirah Lidasan of Sandugo emphasized that the struggles of Indigenous and Moro Peoples are grounded in their inherent right to self-determination, which includes:

• The right to govern their ancestral territories, recognizing that Indigenous and Moro communities have the collective capacity to determine the future of their lands and peoples without external imposition.

• The right to resist destructive projects, including large-scale mining, land grabbing, and resource extraction operations imposed by foreign and local corporations. These projects, she emphasized, are legitimized by policies such as the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 and neoliberal programs that allow 100% foreign ownership at the expense of Indigenous rights.

• The right to challenge and reverse anti-people policies and decisions, most urgently the Supreme Court ruling lifting the mining ban in Mindoro. Lidasan described the decision as a direct betrayal of the people’s right to a safe and livable environment. Mindoro is home to destructive mining companies such as Intex Resources, Agusan Petroleum Mining Corp, and FF Cruz Coal Mining.

• The right to establish Indigenous community schools that promote progressive education. These schools are vital in raising political awareness and building unity between Indigenous and Moro communities in their shared struggle for liberation.

Lidasan also called for the defunding of state agencies such as the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and Philippine National Police (PNP), which have been instrumental in red-tagging, terror-tagging, filing fabricated charges, and killing Indigenous Peoples and their advocates. These institutions serve not to protect but to criminalize and repress Indigenous and Moro resistance. Under Bongbong Marcos’ administration, 21-year old Mangyan-Hanunuo Jay-el Maligday was killed by the military as part of the fascist-terrorist’s state counter-insurgency operations.

For Sandugo, Katribu, and allied Indigenous and Moro Peoples’ organizations, to defend Mindoro is to uphold and assert self-determination—our right to land, life, governance, education, and collective resistance against plunder, militarization, and state repression.

#DefendMindoro!