Indigenous people declares China president “unwelcome visitor”

November 10, 2018

Organized indigenous peoples groups in the country declared Chinese President Xi Jinping as an “unwelcome visitor” in the country.

Xi will visit the country this month after attending the Asia Pacific Environment Cooperation ( APEC) in Papua New Guinea.

During International Indigenous Peoples’ (IP) Heroes Day Friday, Piya Malayao, secretary of the general of Katribu group said, "Xi Jinping is not welcome in the Philippines, especially in our sacred lands!".

Xi is scheduled to sign with President Rodrigo Duterte an Official Development Aid (ODA) loan for the Kaliwa Dam and other Build Build Build projects during his visit.

Malayao called on the Chinese government to withdraw from its commitments for loans and project “that will destroy our lands and the environment which our ancestors and martyrs have nurtured with their sweat and blood.”

Igorot, Dumagat and Lumad leaders and their advocates lit pinewood and held a ritual of solidarity to honor IP heroes and protest against Xi’s state visit to the Philippines.

"For four decades, we have struggled against Laiban dam, a project started by the fascist US-Marcos regime but frustrated by the Filipino people,”  said Wilma Quirrez, spokesperson of the Network Opposed to (NCWS) Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban Dam.

“Now, with loans from China, the dam project will encroach more than 20,000 hectares of our ancestral lands in the Sierra Madre Mountain Ranges. This will destroy our sacred lands and our environment – a damnation of our lives and of the future generations,” she said.

The NCWS will allegedly displace at least 31,000 people, mostly indigenous communities of the Dumagat and Remontado in nine villages of Rizal and Quezon provinces.

Other projects to be funded by Chinese ODA are Chico Dam in Kalinga and Pulangi Dam in Bukidnon and North Cotabato. DMS