From Exploitation to Liberation: The Awakening Begins, Crafting the Future With the Poor
When it comes to the resources of our country—whether natural or financial—three fundamental questions must be asked: Who profits? Who decides? Who controls?
The Philippines is blessed with immense ecological wealth. Before the destruction of our 17 million hectares of dipterocarp forests, our country was home to billions of endemic plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth. For instance, a mere 5,000-hectare stretch of Mt. Kitanglad contains more biodiversity than the entire one-billion-hectare continent of North America.
But our natural riches are not only above the ground. Hidden beneath are 72 types of minerals, many of which are found only in Mindanao. And our marine ecosystems are among the most diverse on the planet, making the Philippines the “center of the center” of marine biodiversity.
Yet despite this abundance, poverty persists—why?
Because the Filipino people remain powerless to benefit from their own resources.
In truth, it is not the people but a handful of elites—the ruling class, landlords, transnational corporations (TNCs), cartels, conglomerates, and monopolies—who profit and decide. Under the “growth-at-all-cost” model of extractive development and corporate globalization, control has been stripped from the people. Experts agree: poverty in the Philippines is not caused by a lack of resources but by the powerlessness of the people to access and control them. This truth is evident in the widespread destruction of our environment through reckless exploitation.
Take Cagayan de Oro, for example. It is deeply alarming that high-grade gold is being extracted there by illegal Chinese miners entering the country on tourist visas. Using open-pit mining, backhoes, and heavy equipment, they’ve devastated rivers and Macajalar Bay through massive siltation—driving coastal communities into hunger and destitution. Mindanao is another tragedy.
It is rich in resources, yet its people are among the poorest. Farmers till land they do not own and are trapped in exploitative systems controlled by powerful agribusinesses. Even their seeds and technology are owned by corporations, robbing them of self-sufficiency.
Our indigenous peoples are perhaps the most oppressed. For thousands of years, they lived sustainably within forest ecosystems. Those forests—once their “pharmacies,” “markets,” and homes—have nearly vanished, along with the biodiversity they protected. Forests were not just trees; they were our invisible water dams, soil protectors, climate regulators, and carbon sinks. Today, their destruction has brought forth ecological disaster.
With the forests gone, land itself is under siege. TNCs have converted vast areas into plantations, displacing Indigenous communities. Once stewards of the land, they are now powerless. As the saying goes, “Agaw lupa, agaw buhay”—to take the land is to take lives. Indigenous Peoples, whose way of life centered on sustainable cultivation, are being violently uprooted.
In the past seven years alone, over 101 IP leaders have been killed for defending their ancestral lands. In Butong, Quezon, more than 1,000 families from the Manobo Pulangiyon Tribe have lived under makeshift tents by the highway for over eight years now—eating only kamote once a day—after being forcibly evicted from their 1,111-hectare ancestral domain by a powerful corporation. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. These countless stories reveal the horrifying truth: Indigenous Peoples are treated as disposable, their lands stolen, their lives threatened or ended.
In Canada, Pope Francis apologized for the atrocities committed by Christians against Indigenous Peoples. Meanwhile, in Mindanao, hundreds of IP leaders have been tortured and killed—often by those who call themselves Christian. And yet, no apology has been offered. The cruelty continues.
Are we truly a Christian nation?
It seems evil is prevailing. Religious groups, instead of standing with the oppressed, often remain silent or side with the oppressors. We must confront the falsehoods and hypocrisies of religion in this country. Today, the state of the Philippine environment is a tragic reflection of an ecological disaster driven by a grand conspiracy of vested interests—those who profit, those who decide, and those who control. But the awakening has begun. And with it, a collective call for justice, empowerment, and the reclaiming of our land and future.
