Stand with CPA! Junk the terrorist designation and the terror laws! Defend the defenders!

KATRIBU stands with the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) in its fight against the arbitrary designation of its Indigenous leaders Windel Bolinget, Sarah Abellon-Alikes, Jennifer Awingan-Taggaoa, and Stephen Tauli by the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC), and supports their challenge before the Court of Appeals following the decision of the Regional Trial Court of Baguio City, Branch 78.

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The case raises serious constitutional questions about the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 (ATA). The measures imposed on these four Indigenous Peoples’ leaders are arbitrary and unjust. Their long work defending ancestral lands, Indigenous rights, and the self-determination of Cordillera communities is not terrorism.

The ATA has been used in a context where Indigenous Peoples opposing mining, dams, energy projects, and other destructive projects face red-tagging, harassment, criminalization, and other rights violations. When communities organize to defend their ancestral lands from plunder and encroachment, they are treated as security threats. The exercise of ancestral land rights and self-determination must never be equated with terrorism.

The danger extends beyond the ATA. The Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 and related counter-terrorism measures have also been used against Indigenous Peoples and rights defenders. Sarah Abellon-Alikes, one of those designated, was also charged with terrorism financing and acquitted. Other Indigenous rights defenders, including Marcylyn Pilala and Mike Cabangon, remain charged, while Emilio Gabales, Aldeem Yanez, and Aileen Villarosa remain detained on terrorism-financing charges, taking them away from their vital work in their communities.

These cases expose the broader danger of counter-terrorism frameworks being wielded against people whose legitimate actions — organizing, speaking out, providing community support, or defending their rights — are treated as grounds for criminalization or other repressive state action. For Indigenous Peoples who continuously resist projects and rights violations, this danger is especially grave.

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The Cordillera Peoples Alliance is a founding member of KATRIBU and has inspired the collective resistance of Indigenous communities for more than four decades. The targeting of the Indigenous leaders is therefore not only an attack on four individuals, but on the Cordillera people and the long history of Indigenous resistance and self-determination.

KATRIBU calls on the Court of Appeals to give full and impartial review to the challenge of the four CPA leaders, taking into account the factual circumstances, broader context, and serious consequences of the measures imposed against them. We urge a review that fully considers the circumstances surrounding their work and advocacy, with due regard for their rights and dignity.

We demand the repeal of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and an end to the weaponization of counter-terrorism and terrorism-financing laws against Indigenous Peoples, human rights defenders, civil society organizations, and communities asserting their rights.

Stop the attacks on Indigenous Peoples’ rights defenders! Makatarungan ang ating paglaban!

Reference:

Funa-ay Claver

Secretary-General, KATRIBU