Defend ancestral lands and the right to self-determination!
Calls of indigenous peoples to develop a genuinely pro-people food system
1. Stop development aggression. Public and private development projects should respect consensus Free Prior and Informed Consent. Development projects should serve the interest of the community and take into consideration the effects of such projects on indigenous people in the community as well as on the environment .
2. End militarization in the countryside. Armed forces of the state should vacate rural communities and let the people live in peace. These forces should be held accountable for their long list of human rights violations.
3. Repeal neoliberal laws. Liberate rural sectors from WTO-WB-IMF prescriptions that work against strengthening local industries.
4. Stop the expansion of foreign extractive industries. The expansion of extractive industries in ancestral lands should be prohibited as these projects displace thousands of indigenous peoples from their ancestral domains.
5. Defend bakwit schools. Indigenous people’s right to education should be upheld, respected, and defended at all costs.
6. Initiate capacity-building projects for indigenous women and youth. These two sectors must be adequately equipped with the knowledge and skills to ensure food security for their communities.
7. Respect indigenous people’s human rights. Defending indigenous people’s ancestral domains and their right to self-determination is a key factor in achieving a genuinely pro-people food system in the country. . They should be fully accorded with the rights of every Filipino citizen, especially the freedom of speech, the press and of assembly. They also have the right to adequate and appropriate social services such as education, health and infrastructure.
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