I left the US to live and work with the Ifugao Indigenous People in the Philippines back in 2010 because I was inspired by a widespread, vibrant, and fearless mass movement for change in the country. A movement with a vision, that is taking action to end deep-seated government corruption, to break the system of land dynasties and distribute land to the hungry tillers who comprise the majority of the population, provide decent jobs at home so that 4,000 Filipinos don’t have to migrate daily just for work and leave their children behind, and basic services to the marginalized. Today that number is nearly double at almost 8,000 Filipinos leaving the Philippines daily. 

In the Cordillera region, where I would reside, I was equally inspired and in awe by the vivacious Igorot mass movement and culture of resistance against government neglect, development aggression like large destructive mining and large and hydropower dams, and militarization. It was in joining this struggle that I met my partner and we raised our child. I have met some of the bravest and most selfless freedom fighters from the ranks of the country’s poorest, while the decadence of the country’s rich is maintained by a repressive and fascist state, by former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Begnigno “Noy Noy” Aquino III, and Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and now represented by President Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr. No matter who has helmed the Philippines, they have always kowtowed to foreign interests over their own country and people.

I struggled alongside the most courageous indigenous peasants to protect and defend the rich agricultural lands, mountains, forests, and rivers from the biggest foreign corporations conducting widespread, aggressive extraction and environmental degradation.

I saw firsthand how neoliberal policies peddled by intergovernmental entities like the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, such as the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 liberalized the mining industry. It allowed foreign mining companies to reap 100% profit from the plundering of Indigenous people’s lands. Unbridled large-scale destructive mining, dams, energy and other foreign projects, masquerades as development projects, while destroying the environment and forcibly displacing Indigenous people who have been living there for generations.

When indigenous people protest these neoliberal policies and foreign corporations they are met with the violence of the State’s Counterinsurgency program “whole of the nation approach”. Patterned after the United States’, the Philippine government chooses to instead protect big landlords and foreign corporate mining, dams, and plantations. Because of this work, the Cordillera Peoples Alliance chapters, to which the Ifugao Peasant Movement is a member of, were politically vilified and tagged as communist and New People’s Army supporters. The political repression caused a chilling effect as political freedom eroded. 

The communities that were oftentimes militarized bore the brunt of the attacks. IPM leaders in the communities were asked to surrender as NPA rebels and withdraw their membership from the IPM by State Security Forces; if they refused, they were threatened to have their government subsidies removed or worse, they were threatened with their lives. In some instances, the military would have communities sign sheets without a header only for the communities to find out later that they were announced on radio as NPA supporters and surrendered. There was an instance when the 54th Infantry battalion soldiers put a rice sack over a peasant and brought him to the police station and had him sign a document he could not read; it was a document stating that he is surrendering as a NPA rebel. The military soldiers placed a rifle in front of him and took a picture to document their ridiculous claim. The forced surrendering of the indigenous masses is not uncommon.  It’s happening all over the Philippines to polish the accomplishments of the Philippine military and collect a bounty for each surrenderee. This practice is meant to dissuade anyone from joining the NPA rebels. 

Militarized communities had to contend with soldiers antisocial vices like drinking that would lead to sexual harassment of women, womanizing, propositions of marriage even though soldiers themselves were married, And even rape. 

Other violations include government soldiers stealing the peasant’s livestocks and crops. Also UNICEF Tarpaulins declaring schools and barangay halls as zones of Peace were removed by government soldiers. If a community was seen as communist supporters they were bombed and strafed with artillery fire. The internationally banned white phosphorus bomb was even dropped on the province of Abra (2017) and Kalinga (2023) burning the Indigenous people’s communal forest for days and exacerbating the climate crisis. While the AFP receives billions of funds, which it uses for the bombings, the future of farmers in regions devastated by severe drought remains bleak. When peasants are not allowed to tend to their fields when there’s an ongoing military operation it impacts their livelihood. Their crops wilt or livestock dies when unattended for long periods of time. All of these are blatant violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes. 

Because I protested alongside the Indigenous communities, documented human rights violations by the foreign corporations and the 54th Infantry battalion as the IPM’s human rights officer, and as a journalist, wrote about the daily attacks Indigenous peoples face, I was also given a death threat and harassed. I was placed under surveillance. Tailed. Followed. They watched our office. They took pictures of us at our office and homes, as well as the tricycle, jeep, and bus terminal. I was even stopped and pulled off a bus and had my bag illegally searched at a joint military police checkpoint.

My colleagues and I were in the crosshairs of the Philippine military, specifically the 54th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army. I lost two of my friends and colleagues – William Bugatti in 2014 and Ricardo Mayumi in 2018, both human rights peasant activists – to assassinations by State Security Forces. While members of the 54th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army shot me four times in front of my daughter and family in front of my home on August 6th, 2019. It took my family, friends, and the wider mass movement to secure the and raise the funds needed to airlift me back to the United States and to debunk the military’s lies that it was my colleagues that tried to kill me.

After being medically evacuated back to the United States, it horrifies me to think that the bullet fragments still lodged in my body have been funded through American tax dollars through U.S. military aid to the Philippines. 

Global Outcry and Advocacy:

As news of the assassination attempt spread worldwide, U.S. rights activists called for an end to U.S. military and financial aid to the Philippines through the Philippine Human Rights Act until human rights are respected and restored and the perpetrators are held accountable and brought to justice. 

I continued to demand accountability and voice my opposition to the Anti-Terror Bill in the Philippines alongside local Filipino American communities. This controversial law granted sweeping powers to define terrorism, persecute activists and critics, and suppress free speech and the right to assembly and to associate with an organization.

My inspiration to keep fighting and speaking out has been the indigenous communities and organizations like the Cordillera Peoples Alliance and the millions of people in the global south who continue to resist Imperialist attacks, neoliberal projects, and State fascism and tyranny. I continue to draw inspiration from the fallen Martyrs who taught me so much about why they fight. Despite the relentless attacks, the indigenous peoples did not cower and they did not back down. They remained steadfast and continued to protest. They have successfully barricaded several mines, rejecting countless mining and dam projects. They took care of each other. And they continued to hold the line.

United in their fight, the Igorot indigenous people have been on the frontlines of fighting the World Trade Organization, dismantling the Chico Dam equipment during the late dictator Marcos, which launched a coordinated people’s response that brought the Indigenous people to the national liberation struggle.

They are on the frontlines of fighting the WTO, APEC, RCEP, and IPEF neoliberal policies, and foreign corporations; a fight has led many to defend the land with their lives. When political freedoms are restricted and the right to protest is curtailed, many end up taking up armed struggle as an appropriate response to defending their land, which is their life.

One of their martyr freedom fighter, Arnold “Ka Mando” Jaramillo, favorite expression is payt latta! It means fight to the end, or continue to fight, and it is today emulated by the Cordillera mass movement. Payt latta.

I will continue to fight as long as I breathe.

I am considered one of the lucky ones. But I live with trauma every day. Although I am paralyzed physically, unable to walk or make a fist, they have failed to shut me up. I continue to champion human rights and expose war crimes in the Philippines. 

The U.S. government can change its complicity in war crimes in the Philippines through the Philippine Human Rights Act reintroduced by Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), which would cut support for the Philippine military and police until the government investigates and prosecutes police and military forces who engaged in human rights violations, as well as establish much-needed protections for basic human rights in the country. The United States needs to seriously reconsider its military assistance and support and ensure that the Philippine government is held accountable for war crimes committed against its own people.

Today, I am proud to be standing up for justice in fighting back against exploitation, Against state and political repression., Against corporate greed and power,  Against the wealthy elite,  Against the plunder of our planet, and Against foreign domination of our peoples