Marilou

The Philippines, CAHR, April 2023 to September 2024

I am Marilou Verano Garcia, an accountant by profession, Council of Leader of Alyansa Tigil Mina, a national NGO in the Philippines focused on the preservation and protection of the environment and human rights. I started my advocacy as a Woman Environmental Human Rights Defender in 1997 and as a WEHRD, I am facing heightened risks and challenges in my efforts to increase public access to environmental information and participation in environmental decisions and solutions. I believe that without public access to information and participation, society is both unaware of environmental threats and unable to participate in politics that involve these threats. At the same time, the dissemination of information empowers individuals and communities to address environmental threats and challenge governmental and corporate decisions and vested interests that undermine the enjoyment of the rights to a healthy and safe environment for all. States and corporations in the Philippines have utilized various tactics that restrict the activism of Environmental Human Rights Defenders and violate our fundamental rights. EHRDs who speak out about potential environmental threats face severe risks that range from death threats, surveillance and defamation campaigns, judicial harassment, criminalization, and physical attacks such as torture and even assassinations. These various forms of human rights violations committed against EHRDs cause public information and participation in environmental issues to be severely restricted which then results in the increase of environmental conflicts. Threats or challenges I am facing as a WEHRD as a result of my advocacy are death threats, intimidation, red tagging and criminalization. The threats and attacks are across a large range of human rights in our community, with the threats to life and health, food and livelihood being the most serious, as well as freedom of association and assembly, freedom of expression and information, and the right to privacy.

So many injustices committed by the mining company such as social injustice, economic injustice and environmental injustice have resulted in hardship, poverty, various illnesses like tuberculosis, a lack of sources of food and livelihood, contamination of all bodies of water and marine resources, land grabbing resulting in the displacement, destroyed agricultural land due to open pit mining, destruction and deterioration of the whole ecosystem. Environmental and Human Rights activists in the Philippines are often targeted because resource extraction projects tend to be located in the Indigenous People's ancestral domain. State actors and mining corporations often prioritize potential economic profits brought by resource extraction projects over respect for the rights of the local communities that live in the mineral-rich land. Then when communities organize to defend their rights both State and non-State actors target EHRDs to quash or silence the dissent. WEHRDs face various risks and are exposed to or targeted for gender-based violence and gender-specific risk. Women active in human rights defense in the Philippines who are targeted for who they are as well as all those active in the defense of women’s rights who are targeted for what they do.

It is an honour for me to be selected as a fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights. My research will focus on Investment Chain Mapping addressing questions such as:

Who are the international investment companies or International Banks who invested in the destructive large-scale mining company and other businesses with negative impacts on human rights linked to business activities or corporate human rights abuses in the Philippines?
What effective measures could be put in place to ensure that the Government and corporations take responsibility for not following the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights?

Hopefully, the outcome of the research will raise awareness to the government to change the system and create new government policies on environmental laws and human rights protection laws which address the deteriorating condition of the environment to prevent the progression of climate change and its effects on the communities and protection of human rights defenders. The government should create a safe environment and civic space for defenders, and require mining companies, financial institutions and other businesses to carry out due diligence on human rights and environmental risk in all its business operations.

According to a Global Witness report, “Philippines is the 3rd deadliest country in the world for environmental activists. Between 2012 and 2021 a total of 270 environmental activists were murdered protecting the future of our species and our planet. Mining was the sector linked to most killings. Corruption and inequality are two kinds of key enabling factors for the killing”