Rural Vulnerability and Resistance: Climate Initiatives by Grassroots Organizations in the Philippines

by Camille Rosas

(article for Compendium of People Powered Climate Actions, a project of Climate Change Network for Community-based Initiatives and Ibon International, 2022)

The Philippines' profile as a densely populated developing country with a high climate hazard

index is fundamental to understanding the full extent of its vulnerability. Like many other

countries in the global South, the archipelago is entangled in a web of geographic, political, and

socioeconomic factors that have led to its enduring the brunt of the climate crisis. Located in the western portion of the Pacific Ocean, the Philippines is surrounded by naturally

warm waters affected by a continuing rise in sea temperature. Storms are fuelled by warm

tropical waters and as a result, the country faces the full force of an average of 20 typhoons

each year, in addition to other extreme weather events and natural hazards such as droughts,

landslides, and floods. More damning than this, however, is the severe government neglect that

has enabled an alarming lack of instituted disaster preparedness and resiliency in a country so

often plagued by natural disasters (Lower Disaster Budget Shows Lack of Govt Priority, 2020).1

There remain significant knowledge and capacity gaps in disaster management, preparedness, and resiliency building across different regions (Bollettino et al., 2020).2 As a consequence, Filipinos have been left to suffer stronger and more frequent calamities unmitigated. The rural

population, who comprise 52.32% of the country’s total population ((Rural Population (% of

Total Population) - Philippines | Data, n.d.) and live in the thick of a rapidly changing natural

landscape, is especially at risk during ecological disasters.

1 Decreases in the national budget’s calamity fund are also worth noting; in January 2020, just two months prior to

the COVID-19 outbreak, the Philippine government had allocated only Php 16 billion to the National Disaster Risk

Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC)-- a Php 4 billion decrease from the previous year. In 2017, the first

national budget under the Duterte administration slashed the previous administration’s calamity fund by more

than half

2 Super Typhoon Yolanda, which struck in November 2018 and remains the strongest recorded typhoon to make

landfall in history, is often cited as a wake up call in terms of gaps in disaster preparedness. That year, the

Philippines ranked the highest in the world for mortality due to disasters.

Furthermore, persistent development aggression by the state, local corporations, and foreign

investors contribute significantly to rural climate vulnerability. The leveling of forests, mountains, ancestral domains, and farmlands for the sake of development projects erases what

once were rural communities' natural safeguards against calamity. Monica Anastacio, a 61- year-old grandmother from a fishing community along Manila Bay, said that in 2009, her house

on stilts could withstand intense storms because it was protected by a patch of mangroves. A

decade later, their community became completely submerged in saltwater due to an annual

rise in sea level. The mangrove patch that once saved them gave way to the construction of the

New Manila International Airport, which forced more than 200 fisherfolk families to relocate

and give up their livelihood. Pia Malayao, secretary-general of the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubo sa Pilipinas (Society of

Indigenous People in the Philippines) or KATRIBU, emphasized the fact that indigenous people, who are bonded with their land and are familiar with the characteristics of rivers and

landscapes, would under normal circumstances know how to adapt and avoid the path of

disasters such as landslides. Indigenous knowledge related to disaster management, such as

interpreting the wailing of goats as signal for an oncoming landslide, has been passed down

through generations (Quilo et al., 2015). However, they have been driven out of their lands and

can no longer return to the relative protection that this way of life granted them. Non- recognition of their right to ancestral lands forces them to vacate their homes to give way to

development projects such as large dams and mining operations. In 2018, killer landslides

claimed the lives of dozens in Cebu and Benguet, the latter of which is a province

predominantly populated by indigenous people (Mayuga, 2018). Environmentalist groups

identified the operations of mining and quarrying firms as the prime culprit; aerial photos of the

landslide in Naga even showed that the debris came from limestone deposits of a quarrying

project conducting earth-moving operations. Most, if not all forms of rural livelihood rely heavily on climate-sensitive factors and resources

such as the arability of land, seasonal changes in weather, and the availability of water sources.

Climate change and the extreme conditions that come with it disrupt livelihoods that depend

on the natural environment. Rural communities and economies are threatened by higher

poverty rates and limited institutional capacity to respond or anticipate climate change impacts

(National Climate Assessment, 2014). Poverty, in turn, prevents households from investing in

long-term climate-preparedness, as more immediate everyday needs take priority (Enano, 2019).3

The Philippines experienced one of, if not the longest COVID-19 lockdown in the world, as well

as one of the worst outbreaks (Cahiles, 2021). On record, it counted an estimated total of 3.96

million COVID-19 cases, with 63,042 deaths. Enabled by the government's militaristic pandemic

response, violence against rights defenders intensified during lockdown. KALIKASAN People's

Network for the Environment (KPNE) has documented 260 cases of human rights abuse

committed against environmental defenders, including two killings, 173 arrests detentions, and

25 physical assaults during the first few months of the pandemic alone. Rampant red-tagging

has led to the deaths and illegal arrests of countless organizations, individuals, and members of

vulnerable rural communities. Militarization and state-sanctioned attacks against activists and

environmental defenders has aggravated conditions that breed rural vulnerabilities. Among

many victims of red-tagging there is a clear common thread of opposing projects and policies

‘that harm nature and the communities who rely on it (Beltran, 2021).’ When indigenous tribes

and peasants protest government projects, the state accuses them of being anti-development

or, at worst, terrorists.

In spite of this, sectoral groups have continued to vocally assert their demands to end policies

and development projects that violate the rights of peasants and indigenous people. Climate

change is a transnational issue; the political assertion that the Philippines has a

‘disproportionate’ experience of the climate crisis underlines the fact that it contributes

nowhere near the amount of CO2 emissions that major carbon polluting countries do, yet

3 A 2017 survey by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative found that while 9 million Filipinos had been affected by

disaster within the past 5 years, 47% had been unable to do anything to respond to these disasters. On average, most of the respondents said that they did not have the capacity to invest in disaster preparedness due to a lack of

funds and lack of time.

suffers climate change devastation earlier, more severely, and more frequently. At the same

time, rights defenders also emphasize that local threats such as development aggression

exacerbate rural climate vulnerability, and at the same time hinder rural communities’ efforts

at climate adaptation. Meet three grassroots organzations on the frontlines of environmental protection– AMIHAN is a nationwide federation of peasant women organizations asserting the calls for

genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, and an end to all forms of exploitation

and discrimination against women in the countryside. It was established to give a collective

voice to peasant women, the largest yet also the most discriminated sector of women in the

Philippines. PAMALAKAYA is an alliance of small fisherfolk that was established in 1987 to unite and

empower the Filipino fisherfolk. With 9 regional chapters, 43 provincial chapters, and over

80,000 individual members nationwide, it is the biggest federation of small fisherfolk in the

country, championing the interests of the fisheries sector. The SOS Network is a network of child rights advocates, organizations, and various

stakeholders working together to take action against the ongoing violation of children’s right

to education, particularly those in the context of militarization and state attacks on Lumad

schools. SOS was organized to assert the existence and advocacies of schools for indigenous

children. People’s organizations have played a key role in empowering Filipino peasants and indigenous

people amid the climate crisis by addressing the need for climate awareness at the grassroots

level and mobilizing communities to collectively assert the demand for climate justice. This

study discusses Philippine rural communities' particular vulnerability to climate change while

highlighting specific climate initiatives, campaign work, and sustainable alternatives forwarded

by the following organizations: the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women (AMIHAN), the National Federation of Small Fisherfolk Organizations in the Philippines (PAMALAKAYA), and

the Save Our Schools Network (SOS).

Rural communities, whose cultures and livelihoods are intimately and inextricably linked to the

natural environment, are the demographic currently facing the worst of climate change’s

impact. The study emphasizes the role that organized peasants and indigenous people play as

frontline environmental defenders by mapping the relationship between their struggle for land

and sea rights, and the urgent defense of natural ecosystems against the manmade perils of

capitalist plunder and pollution, and the climate change devastation emanating from both. Aside from teaching rural grassroots communities how to scientifically understand and

articulate changes in their surroundings that they likely have already noticed, climate education

has also paved way for peasants and indigenous people to embrace the position they hold as

key environmental defenders. Rural women’s response: campaigns against hunger amidst climate extremes

Climate change’s impact on food security is perhaps among its most glaring effects; at the same

time, today’s dominant global food systems contribute a third of human-caused greenhouse

gas emissions (Tandon, 2021). In the Philippines, calamities such as typhoons and droughts

have exacerbated existing vulnerabilities in a food production paradigm continually weakened

by farmers' landlessness, the rising prices of farm inputs, as well as decades of manufactured

dependence on foreign imports (WTO in PH Agriculture, Undermining National Food Security, 2020).4 The country’s underdeveloped and under-supported agricultural system is annually

exposed to the damage of storms and drought without adequate infrastructures for

rehabilitation.

In early 2019, several months of prolonged drought brought about by El Niño forced 10

provinces to officially declare a state of calamity. Local farmer organizations Kilusang

Magbubukid ng Bikol (KMB) and Amihan Bikol shared that farmers in the Bicol region had not

yet even recovered from the onslaught of December 2018’s Typhoon Usman when they were

4 AMIHAN, along with many other local peasant organizations, identified the country’s entry into the General

Agreements on Tariffs and Trade –World Trade Organization (GATT-WTO) as a major factor in promoting the entry

of foreign products and markets at the expense of local farming industries, creating the “export-oriented, import- dependent” character of the country’s food system.

struck by sudden drought. The drought caused P7.96 billion worth of damage to the agricultural

sector, affecting an estimated 247,610 farmers and fishers across the country. 5

During this period, farmers from the province of Bicol lost up to 80% of rice crops. Before the

drought, they were able to harvest up to 120 bundles within a single harvest. After the drought

struck, they were only able to harvest half of that. The quality of the palay also severely

declined, becoming more brittle and significantly smaller in size. Most of the farmers

interviewed did not have access to irrigation and had to pay to use a water pump. Even outside

the context of drought, Filipino farmers have long faced the nationwide problem of a lack of

irrigation services. Only 30% (2.93 million hectares) of the total farm area in the country has

access to irrigation, and government-provided irrigation services make up only 27% of these

(IBON Foundation, 2014). Peasant women in the area who planted vegetables such as ampalaya and beans were also

unable to harvest anything. The barrenness of the land, combined with the money they spent

to buy farming inputs such as seeds, pushed peasant women and farming communities further

into debt and poverty. Peasant women, who are at the frontline in sourcing food and other

basic needs for their families, endure heavy burdens and anxieties during food crises. Some

have shared that they experienced severe verbal abuse from their spouses as a result of their

families’ financial pressures. In order to increase their household income, many were forced to

start working as domestic helpers, market vendors, and laundry women. Many of their children

were also forced to give up their schooling to help their families earn money. Following the aftermath of successive typhoons Rolly, Quinta, and Ulysses in late 2020, farmers

in the Philippines struggled to recover from the devastation of their land, homes, and vital

farming tools. Cagayan Valley, particularly the provinces of Isabela and Cagayan, faced serious

flooding due to heavy rains and the opening of Magat Dam's floodgates. The province of

Cagayan is the catch basin of rainwater from Cagayan Valley and the Cordillera Administrative

5 See Amihan’s Drought Forum, Executive Summary, 2019.

(3 Issues That Need to Be Addressed in Cagayan Flooding, 2020). Authorities released water

from Magat Dam, the largest dam in the country, to prevent it from reaching critical spilling

levels but ended up submerging as many as 67,000 homes in the area. High-value commodities

such as abaca and rice were destroyed, with the Department of Agriculture estimating a total of

Php 12.3 billion loss for the agricultural sector. The typhoons were a devastating blow to farmers already suffering the socioeconomic backlash

of the COVID-19 health crisis and months of lockdown. Quarantine restrictions disrupted global

food supply chains by cutting means to transport raw materials and manufactured products,

jeopardizing farmers' means of income. Members of the peasantry slid further into debt and, faced with the skyrocketing market price of food, were unable to feed their families despite

being food producers themselves. Amihan's and its local chapter AMBI-Isabela (Asosasyon Dagiti Mannalon ti Babbai ti

Isabela) officially launched the Kampanya Kontra Gutom (Campaign Against Hunger) in early

2021 to rouse affected peasant communities in Isabela to action against worsening hunger and

the COVID-19 pandemic. The participating communities received climate education from the

Climate Change Network for Community-based Initiatives (CCNCI) in conjunction with vital

information about the COVID-19 pandemic, human rights, and community action. The

campaign encouraged local communities to plan and implement community actions in response

to climate change and the pandemic. With support from the Agroecology Fund the peasant

women organization's sustained relief efforts, complemented by the setting up of communal

vegetable farms and backyard gardens, were able to answer the need for food security at the

community level. Months later in June, however, the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) issued a freeze

order on Amihan's bank account based on accusations of terrorist financing by two alleged

rebel returnees. The organization was cut off from its already limited financial resources, despite the Court of Appeal's lifting of the freeze order for lack of probable cause in November

2021. The state's continuous persecution of Amihan through red-tagging and digital censorship

remains a looming threat and hindrance to its campaigns on climate justice and food security. Amihan's work in addressing food security and community organizing towards climate

resilience and sustainable production, which pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic, were able to

mitigate widespread hunger brought about by the global health crisis. The community garden

set up by their local chapter in Isabela was able provide their area with vegetables while food

supply chains were disrupted and farmers were restricted from going to the fields due to

lockdown. The promotion of agroecology in community efforts to address food security is significant in

both climate change resiliency and the encouragement of sustainable production. Agroecology

is the practical application of ecological concepts and principles in farming (What Is

Agroecology? | Soil Association, n.d.). It forwards farming practices that respond and mitigate

climate change, considers and works with wildlife ecosystems, and puts small farming

communities at the forefront of food production. Amihan stresses agroecology as key to

‘liberation from the clutches of foreign monopoly agro-corporations that control seeds and

their corresponding agrochemical inputs.' Nenita Apricio, Chairperson of AMBI Amihan Isabela, said that the peasant women in her local chapter saw firsthand how bringing ecological

principles to agroecosystems created novel management approaches, and how agroecology

engendered cultural, social, economic, and environmental benefits.6

Amihan’s campaign against hunger highlights the role of small farmers and peasant women

within a food production system that is not only climate adaptive but also provides a viable, sustainable alternative to the corporate food regime. Such an alternative would shift the locus

of food systems away from the global market and back to addressing national food security

through food sovereignty. Amihan, alongside farmers and peasant women, emphasizes the

6 See the account of Nenita Apricio in ‘Stories from the Field: Isabela Province, Philippines’ by the AMIHAN

National Federation of Peasant Women and Asosasyon Dagiti Mannalon ti Babbati ti Isabela (AMBI).

protection and strengthening of local food production, especially in response to the ongoing

climate-induced food crisis. Fisherfolk’s response: the fight for climate justice and national sovereignty

The Philippines has 2.2 million square kilometers of among the richest fishing grounds in the

world, and yet at the same time has the poorest fisherfolk. Small fisherfolk remain the primary

producers of two-thirds of the fish for human consumption, making significant contributions to

food security while at the same time engaging in more environmentally sustainable fishing

practices than commercial fisheries. However, the sector remains largely neglected in terms of

social services and laws that would protect their livelihood from climate change and

development aggression. The Philippine fishing industry is largely a monopoly of both local and

foreign large businesses, which leaves barely anything for small fisherfolk who are only allowed

to fish in municipal waters. Even these areas have dwindled due to amendments to local and

national ordinances. As an archipelagic country with many low-lying coastal communities, the country is among

those most vulnerable to sea-level rise. Coastal flooding, coastal erosion, and salinization of

aquifers are already happening, compounded by other local factors such as compaction due to

excessive groundwater withdrawal and subsidence due to aquaculture ponds (Philippines

Raises Alarm on Impacts of Sea-Level Rise, n.d.). Meteorologist and climatologist Lourdes Tibig

has forwarded the possibility that sea levels in the Philippines may be rising faster than the

global average (Guerrero, n.d.). While the global average is at 3.7 millimeters per year, studies

have found that a coastal island in Visayas experiences an annual sea level rise of four times

that much. Ocean acidification has also resulted in fish kills, as well as increased flooding and

storms. The destruction of mangroves and reefs to clear space for development projects has

made coastal communities alarmingly more vulnerable to tidal waves and storm surges.

For years, PAMALAKAYA has carried the demand for climate justice within its campaigns, stressing its ties with its calls for the protection of marine ecosystems, coastal communities, and the small fisheries sector. The organization actively immerses in climate change education, gathering and sharing small fisherfolk’s experiences in the face of ecological crisis. In 2020, PAMALAKAYA led the world’s first fishers’ climate strike. Fishers Rise Up! was an initiative that

included mass protests and educational campaigns in coastal communities that culminated in a

massive climate strike in the capital city of Manila (Kapfinger, 2020). The protests demanded

immediate climate action from the previous administration, raising alarm over studies

predicting that 8 million residents in Metro Manila would likely be submerged by the projected

sea rise of about at least 2-7 feet (Pamalakayaweb, 2020). PAMALAKAYA Secretary General

Salvador France warned, “There is no need to wait for 3 decades for the ‘great flood’ to happen

because land reclamation projects across Manila Bay would expedite the submersion of its

communities.” The fisherfolk group recently raised alarm over the 187 proposed and ongoing reclamation

projects threatening the Philippines' marine ecosystem as well as the livelihood of small fishers

(Cabico, 2022). Among these are the Navotas City Coastal Bay Reclamation and Development

Project, the Manila Waterfront City Reclamation Project, and the Bacoor Reclamation and

Development Project. PAMALAKAYA National Spokesperson Ronnel Arambulo said, “This isn’t

just figures; these are actual productive marine and aquatic ecosystems to be destroyed and a

significant numbers of coastal population to be forcibly displaced to pave way for these profit- driven and environmentally-destructive projects.” Both scientists and fishers have long

emphasized the threat of reclamation impacts such as decreases in fish populations, the

destruction of wetlands and mangroves, and flooding as a result of large-scale dump-and-fill

projects. PAMALAKAYA has also been at the forefront of collective protests by fisherfolk against China’s

aggression in the West Philippine Sea. Their protest against Chinese aggression during World

Fisheries Day last November 24, 2021 was attended by a hundred fisherfolks, members of the

youth, and other allies. On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) made a

historic arbitral tribunal ruling in favor of the Philippines’ assertions of sovereignty in the West

Philippine Sea according to UNCLOS (Medina, 2017). The PCA notably concluded that there was

no legal basis for China’s claim to resources falling within the so-called ‘9-dash line,’ and that

China’s activities in the Philippines’ territory breached the provisions of UNCLOS. The purported

9-dash line spans most of the South China Sea, overlapping with the exclusive economic zones

of not only the Philippines, but also Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The

ruling's rejection of the 9-dash line was a monumental step forward for countries engaged in

territorial disputes with China. It also ruled that China failed to prevent its fishermen from

conducting large-scale harvests of endangered species, which destroyed the area’s coral reef

ecosystem. It also noted that its land reclamation and construction of artificial islands in the

Spratly Islands had also engendered ‘irreparable harm’ to the coral reef ecosystem. However, the Hague ruling has done little to deter China, which has repeatedly refused to

recognize the ruling and instead continues to expand its presence. In 2021, the Chinese Foreign

Ministry spokesperson called the ruling “nothing more than a piece of waste paper (Viray, 2021).” According to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, 20% of the country’s total

fish production comes from the West Philippine Sea (Rivera, 2022). Harassment from Chinese

vessels and military personnel has limited fishing activities and hindered the transport of

products to local markets, worsening fisherfolk’s already high poverty vulnerability (Gutierrez &

Aznar, 2021). Reclamation by both private corporations and foreign nations such as China have rendered

extreme ecological damage to marine ecosystems in the Philippines. Scientists have warned

that China’s continued activities would bring further destruction to the environment and

fisherfolk sector, causing major harm to the country’s food security (INQUIRER.net, 2021). PAMALAKAYA, standing firm with small fisherfolk, continues to assert its anti-reclamation

campaign, emphasizing its aggravation of coastal communities’ vulnerability to the effects of

climate change. Filipino fisherfolk are the first casualties of rising sea levels, and protest actions

by the fisheries sector are potent expressions of justified outrage against threats to their lives

and livelihood. Indigenous children’s response: climate justice and the right to the future

Policy debates on climate change, which is an existential human crisis as much as it is an

ecological one, generally pay very little attention to children’s rights. However, children are

among the most at-risk to climate hazards and effects such as worsened malnutrition and

disease. For Lumad children in the Philippines, their experience of the climate crisis lies at the

intersection of geographical injustice, socio-political injustice, cultural injustice, epistemic

injustice, and intergenerational injustice. The Lumad are the largest indigenous group in the country-- they make up 18% of the country's

population, and of the 14-17 million indigenous peoples in the Philippines, they comprise 61%

(INFOGRAPHIC: Who Are the Lumad?, 2017). More than half of them reside in the mountainous, mineral-rich regions of Mindanao. However, large-scale mining operations and intensifying

militarization have ripped them from their ancestral domains. Former President Rodrigo

Duterte, who declared martial law in Mindanao in May 2017 purportedly as a response to

insurgents, said that he welcomed investors and mining companies to tap into the island

group's rich deposits of gold, nickel, and copper (Chandran, 2018). Duphing Ogan, secretary

general of indigenous peoples’ alliance Kalumaran, described these actions as "waging war

against defenseless indigenous people in Mindanao.”

“They are targeting our lands, destroying our mountains and our forests, and selling out to

corporations. This is an all-out war against minority people, not against terror," said Ogan. The range of state attacks against indigenous communities in the Philippines includes the

violent and widespread closure of dozens of Lumad schools as a result of state accusations of

being recruiting grounds for rebels. Duterte himself threatened to unleash airstrikes on Lumad

schools, accusing them of teaching subversion and communism. However, rights defenders

have asserted that the true purpose of militarization of Mindanao is to displace indigenous

communities from their ancestral lands, so that they may be sold to mining and logging

companies. Conditions of state brutality and displacement continue to stand in the way of

Lumad children's education. According to the Save Our Schools Network, 9 out of 10 Lumad children have no access to

education. 233 alternative schools geared towards Lumad communities were established to

address this gap. Lumad schools such as ALCADEV (Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural

and Livelihood Development) provide indigenous children with an alternative, culturally-apt

learning system that highlights sustainable agriculture and environmental protection along with

traditional subjects such as Math, Science, History, and English (Katona, 2019). Their education

is oriented towards preparing students for their future positions as community leaders

endowed with responsibility of their community's livelihood. SOS documented over 500 cases of military violence against Lumad schools from May 2017 to

July 2019 alone (Kennedy, 2021). These operations were legalized via the Department of

Education Memorandum Order 221, signed in 2013 to allow the Armed Forces of the

Philippines to use schools in military and counterinsurgency operations (DepEd Memo 221, n.d.). The overwhelming brutality inflicted by soldiers forced students, teachers, and their families to

evacuate and seek refuge in churches and other institutions. This was the catalyst for the

opening of “bakwit” or mobile schools for Lumad children, scattered across different

institutions such as universities. However, many other children retreated to other communities

for their safety, completely deprived of education. Lumad children from the Pantaron Mountain Range have expressed a deep desire to return to

their ancestral lands, which they describe as a source of ‘abundance, peace, and happiness.’ The schools they once attended that were built to blend into this ecosystem gave way to four

mining concessions, currently cordoned and heavily guarded by soldiers from members of

indigenous communities voicing their opposition. In addition to mining operations, the

continuous construction of massive dams disrupting natural river flow and wreaking havoc on

ecosystems has not only contributed to Philippine indigenous people's increasing vulnerability

to disaster but has also displaced them from their ancestral domains. The students, teachers, and allies of Lumad Bakwit Schools continue to engage in climate

education and calls for climate justice, highlighting indigenous communities' central role in

environmental defense and preservation. In observance of the 30th anniversary of the United

Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, over Lumad 500 children and youth advocates

formed a human tree using their bodies, artworks, and placards calling for climate justice, while

at the same time stressing the government’s failure to uphold children’s right to development, education, and protection from the disastrous effects of climate change. Aside from the Lumad, other indigenous communities are also under threat due to ongoing

development aggression. The New Centennial Water Source Project (NCWSP), funded by loans

from China, is a multi-billion hydroelectric project that will destroy 28,000 hectares of land and

forests, including 291 hectares of environmentally critical areas as well as the farms and homes

of the Dumagat and Remontado tribes in the Southern Tagalog area. The project consists of

building three dams in phases: Laiban Dam, Kaliwa Dam, and Kanan Dam. The project threatens

the area's natural water source and is likely to cause irreversible damage to the Sierra Madre

Mountain Range, which has long acted as a barrier protecting inlanders from the brunt of

strong typhoons. 10,000 Dumagat and Remontado people, who are among the poorest and

most vulnerable highland dwellers, will be displaced by this project. Dumagats who have

protested the construction of the dams have been tortured and killed since the regime of

Ferdinand Marcos Sr. The conceptualization of climate change as a children’s rights issue is an acknowledgment that

its harms are spread unequally across generations. For indigenous cultures who harbor a deep

relationship with their ancestral domains, the destruction of these lands and their deprivation

from future generations of indigenous children is an act of cultural violence; one of many

inflicted by the Philippine government on Lumad children. The SOS Network continues to

educate and act for children and climate justice, and lobby for Lumad communities’ safe and

just return to their ancestral lands. Summary and Recommendations

Regressive social and economic development in the Philippines has condemned Filipinos, especially those in the countryside, to the perils of climate-induced catastrophes. Sectoral

groups have underlined systemic deprivation of social services and protection from rural

communities as a major hurdle in climate adaptation efforts. Climate-sensitive industries such

as agriculture and fisheries have insufficient infrastructures for support and rehabilitation even

without taking climate hazards into account. Red-tagging has also proved to be a consistent threat and hurdle to organizations’ climate

campaigns and organizing work. Such baseless accusations that serve anti-people development

projects are protected by the government’s counterinsurgency programs and policies such as

the Anti-Terrorism Act, passed in 2020. The law authorizes the warrantless arrest and

detainment of groups and individuals suspected of involvement in ‘acts of terrorism;’ this

inclues ‘[inciting] others to commit terrorism through ‘speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, banners (Philippines | Anti-Terrorism Law Further Threatens the Safety of Human

Rights Defenders, 2020).’ Aside from the freezing of bank accounts as experienced by Amihan, digital attacks are another major roadblock to rural grassroots organizations forwarding

campaigns for climate justice; in June 2022, the websites of Amihan, PAMALAKAYA, and SOS

were among several progressive groups and media outlets whose websites were blocked, as

per orders of National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. to the National

Telecommunications Commission (NTC) (Ramirez, 2022).

Despite these, the campaign efforts of Amhan, PAMALAKAYA, and SOS have achieved more

widespread climate awareness. Their work in climate organizing has helped strengthen rural

communities’ ability adapt to the various forms of ecological crises brought about by climate

change. Grassroots organizations’ climate initiatives, actions, and community organizing efforts

are all rooted in the need for major systemic change with regard to land rights, food systems, and socioeconomic and political policies. To do this, the current administration must finally

listen to the demands laid out and reiterated time and time again by sectoral organizations. Among the most urgent is putting harmful development projects to an immediate halt; rather, development projects must first achieve the genuine approval of peasant and indigenous

communities likely to be affected before they are pursued. Addressing food security is also key

to effective climate action. This entails strengthening and protecting local food production on

the fronts of the agriculture and fisheries sectors. Rather than be among the biggest roadblocks

to climate adaptation, the Philippine government must recognize and act on its mandate to

protect its citizens who are perhaps the most vulnerable stakeholders of the climate crisis.

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