Cordillera: Fury From the Mountains Series | 14/26
One of the many die-ins during the Peasant Month mobilization. Session Road, Baguio City, October 2006.

^{(Please take time to read the links. Thank you.)}

In the Cordilleras, Peasant Month is a particularly complex celebration. In general, the Cordillera people's struggle is highly unique in the Philippines: they successfully resisted Spanish occupation, but now, their lives, land and traditions are threatened by US-led globalization. Policies of privatization, deregulation and liberalization have proved dangerous to the Cordillera people; their culture is exploited to boost tourism, and their environment is destroyed by foreign-owned mining corporations and new dam constructions.

As farmers, they are threatened by government promotion of genetically-modified strains of rice, dubbed suicide seeds, which has effectively destroyed traditional farming practices and made local farmers poorer. The farmers themselves go hungry. It is even more ironic that an agricultural nation like the Philippines is one of the world's top importers of rice, further worsening the farmers' plight.

Those who choose to fight back are met with bullets. The peasant movement has suffered the most casualties under Oplan Bantay Laya. Farmers, as well as indigenous people, are blatantly targeted by the military.

The situation of indigenous people under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is harsh. But as we can see, they remain firm in their struggle--and I believe it is a fight where they will emerge victorious.