Happy International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples!

We at Tebtebba, together with our partners in the Philippines, UPAKAT (Philippine Network of Indigenous Knowledge Holders) and our global partners, ELATIA (Indigenous partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America), we wish you more strength and power in your work to build more self-governing and sustainable communities. 

It is always inspiring to see the passion and commitment of indigenous peoples to assert and claim their rights contained in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. August 9 was the day the UN Working Group on Indigenous Peoples first met at the UN in Geneva in 1982. We celebrate this day when we finally succeeded to get the UN to officially open its door for our participation to raise our issues and craft the UN Declaration on our rights. Since then, we got the UN General Assembly to adopt the UNDRIP in 13 September 2007. 

Our task is to continue our efforts to get States to implement the UNDRIP and establish national laws to recognize and protect our individual and collective rights and corporations to respect our rights. We need to sustain our efforts to empower ourselves. We have come a long way but challenges remain which include criminalization of indigenous persons and organizations, grabbing of ancestral territories, forced displacement, among others. We will not be daunted and we continue to face these problems with grit and determination. Long live indigenous peoples of the world. Mabuhay!!

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Executive Director, Tebtebba Foundation

Intervention on the Workplan

Thanks to the Co-chairs and the members of the Fund Board for this opportunity to have this DIALOGUE with Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Organizations.  I am Grace Balawag of Tebtebba, the Indigenous Peoples International Centre for Policy Research and Education based in the Philippines, and representing the IPO constituency.  In this dialogue, we would  like to clarify that we are not representing only our respective constituencies but that we have coordinated among the various constituencies and we are covering different issues. So, specifically, I will be intervening on the Workplan:

• We believe that the Workplan is of crucial importance to take all the necessary steps and develop policies and modalities that should lead to a human rights-based and community-centered Loss and Damage Fund. 
• The workplan should prioritize urgent operationalization of the fund, direct access to resources for vulnerable countries, and community-centered approaches, with clear timelines and deliverables.
• We highlight the importance of modalities for public participation: There is a strong expectation that participation modalities will go well beyond established modalities for participation in other climate funds such as the need for a comprehensive approach to realizing meaningful participation and inclusion in all levels of the fund, from policy-making at the Board level to implementing and monitoring at the community level.
• We hope the Board will prioritize the setting up of a dedicated community access window that will realize simplification of direct access to small grants funding for affected communities, Indigenous Peoples, and those facing marginalization. Such a dedicated window will confirm the Fund’s intention and ambition to make priority support for those in the most vulnerable situations a central tenet of its funding mission.
• One crucial element is the development of a comprehensive Resource mobilization strategy reflecting the scale required (trillions not millions) and obligation of the developed countries to promptly deliver based on stringent timelines.
• We welcome the development of a dedicated framework for the best practice of environmental and social safeguards to avoid harm to communities and their environment, as well as the operationalization of an independent grievance redress mechanism. We ask the Board to be explicit about the intention to have dedicated mechanisms in place for the Fund. 
• In addition, the Fund also needs to develop proactive, dedicated policies such as an Indigenous Peoples policy, a gender policy and a youth policy, which are currently not mentioned in the Workplan. The same counts for putting in place a proactive information disclosure policy.
• Lastly, with regards to the potential operationalization of the Fund as a World Bank Financial Intermediary Fund, we highlight the need for accountability and disclosure, including through the involvement of observers and to the broader public, to secure the independence of the Fund and the full compliance with the 11 conditions set out in the COP/CMA.
• We are aware that the operationalization of all of these modalities in the context of the urgency to delivering funding is a daunting task for the Board. We would however caution against disbursing any funding before the modalities that will ensure the protection and fulfillment of the rights of those the Fund is meant to serve are in place. Civil society and Indigenous Peoples are here to support the development of any of these important modalities. 

Grace Balawag of Tebtebba Foundation and representative of the Indigenous Peoples Constituency addressed the board of the Loss and Damage Fund in the ongoing board meeting of the Loss and Damage Fund in Songdo, Incheon, South Korea. Balawag  delivered the cross-constituency statement specifically on the Board's Work Plan during observers’ dialogue with the Board.

[Image caption: ADVOCATE Indigenous people’s rights advocate Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (center) is flanked (from left to right) by Inquirer president and CEO Rudyard Arbolado, Inquirer Group of Companies president and CEO Sandy Prieto-Romualdez, associate publisher Juliet Labog-Javellana and executive editor Volt Contreras as she receives on March 11 her plaque and recognition as one of the Inquirer’s Women of Power awardees for 2024. —EUGENE ARANETA] 

Just a few years ago, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Victoria “Vicky” Tauli Corpuz, had every reason to live in fear.

During the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2018, she was included in a list of 600 scholars, activists, and lawyers that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had wanted a Manila Regional Trial Court to describe as terrorists, along with the New People’s Army, the Communist Party of the Philippines, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

At that time, Corpuz was serving as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, making the situation all the more alarming.

The Red-tagging stemmed from Corpuz’s condemnation of a 2017 large-scale military operation launched by Duterte to displace the “lumads,” the collective name for the indigenous group in Mindanao.

But the 71-year-old indigenous peoples (IP) rights advocate, who hails from Besao town in Mountain Province, did not waver in her mission to be the voice of the afflicted and the marginalized. 

Corpuz, a Kankanaey-Igorot, says the unfounded accusations hurled at her only fueled her determination to stand up for IPs who continually face threats while defending their lands.

For her, giving in to fear would have meant conceding defeat.

Supported by the global community, which stood by her during that challenging period, Corpuz confronted the allegations without hesitation.

On Sept. 21 last year, the DOJ’s petition was dismissed by Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 19 Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar, who concluded that the government’s counterinsurgency measures “should include respect for the right to dissent, due process, and the rule of law.”

Corpuz is no stranger to being wrongly labeled for being an activist. During Martial Law under the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr., her name was included in an “order of battle” or a hit list of personalities considered enemies of the state.

Prominent figure

With Corpuz’s devotion to mobilizing indigenous peoples and advocating for women’s rights in the last three decades, she has become a prominent figure in the global campaign for the recognition of IP rights.

And coming from a family of human rights and environmental defenders, Corpuz says she and her family members have endured persistent harassment and baseless allegations.

However, her efforts as an indigenous environmental defender resulted in her being shortlisted for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2023.

She is also known for her pivotal role in helping lead the successful push for the UN General Assembly to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. The declaration is an international instrument deemed a major, universal human rights document that IPs often resort to when defending their rights.

According to the website of the UN Human Rights Office, Corpuz also founded and managed various nongovernment organizations involved in social awareness raising, climate change, and the advancement of indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, and she is a member of the UN Development Programme Civil Society Organizations Advisory Committee.

Currently, Corpuz serves as the executive director of IP research and advocacy group Tebtebba (Indigenous Peoples’ International Center for Policy Research and Education), where she advocates for constructive dialogue.

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