By SHERWIN DE VERA
www.nordis.net

BAGUIO CITY — The more than 12-hour travel from Barangay Limos in Pinukpuk, Kalinga, to Baguio City did not deter 72-year-old Petrona Awingan from joining the People’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) in the country’s Summer Capital on July 24, in time for the second SONA of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.

She was supposed to send a message but decided to deliver it personally, so people may better be acquainted with her daughter, Jennifer Awingan Taggaoa, one of the four Igorot activists the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) designated as terrorists.

During the program, the retired public high school teacher read an open letter addressed to the President, the ATC, and state security forces. She stressed that her daughter has always been “a law-abiding citizen since her high school days up to the present.”

She described Jennifer as a diligent student who consistently excelled academically and co-curricular, completing her degree in secondary education as a government scholar under the Selected Ethnic Group Educational Assistance Program.

“Owing to her great desire to help us, her parents, in the education of her siblings, she managed to put up a little business and gave support for our farm works and all of these had alleviated my meager salary as a teacher that supported and maintained the college schooling of her brothers and sisters who are now government employees,” she said.

According to her, Jennifer’s siblings now serve as a police, public school teachers, and barangay health workers.

“Being a poor old mother, I am deeply saddened and depressed thinking over of what is being implicated on my daughter, the threats and the negative impressions for her when in fact, she has been working hard for the family well-being, helping other relatives and for the betterment of communities,” Petrona said.

Worsening rights situation

About 80 activists marched down one of the sidewalks on Session Road. They held a 30-minute program at the Kilometer 0 marker in Baguio’s central business district after successfully asserting their right to protest without a permit from the police.

Sarah Dekdeken, Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) secretary general, said that the plunder of resources and its accompanying human rights violations in the region continued under Marcos.

“The people continue to oppose the plunder of community resources in the Cordillera, which includes large-scale hydropower projects and mining, and the regime’s response against their resistance is violence,” she said in mixed Ilocano and Tagalog.

According to her, instead of heeding the concerns raised by indigenous peoples, the government has intensified harassment, threats, filing of trumped-up charges, and abduction of leaders and members of people’s organizations. She cited the terrorist designation of four CPA leaders as the latest of these attacks.

“There is nothing wrong with rejecting big dams, there is nothing wrong with opposing large-scale mining, these are the right of the people and indigenous communities,” she said.

“This is wrong, this is unjust, [the government] should not be doing this, but here we are now, this what we have been warning about when the Anti-Terrorism Law was still a proposal – that it will lead to violation of people’s rights and worst, it threatens lives and communities,” Dekdeken added.

Serving the marginalized

Jennifer’s mother was not the lone family member of those recently tagged by the ATC during the protest.

Siblings Amian, Kinja, and Josefa, and their mother Jill were also at the protest to demand the delisting of their father, Stephen “Steve” Tauli, from the growing list of designated terrorists.

Speaking before the protesters and passersby, Josefa said in Tagalog: “He is an indigenous activist who has devoted his entire life to serving the most marginalized communities in Cordillera. He is a noble person, not a terrorist.”

She said her father continues to dedicate his time, even now that he is a senior citizen, “to organizing miners, urban poor, farmers, and others to defend their human rights.”

“He is one of the thousands of Cordillera activists, who are part of the movement to protect the indigenous people’s rights to life, livelihood, and self-determination,” she added.

Josefa said the ATC’s designation had compounded the pain and hardship the family has endured since Steve’s abduction and psychological torture in August last year. The incident was followed by threats from unknown people, forcing their father to stay in their house and bringing fear to their household.

“Because of this situation, my father and our family are in a dangerous situation. There is no certainty about what could happen to him, and our bank accounts and assets have also been put on freeze order,” she added.

Despite these challenges, Josefa said his father remains committed to serving the Cordillera people and continues to dedicate time to care for their family. # nordis.net

First published on Rappler.com on July 25, 2023