By Witness Radio Team,
In the Visayas and Mindanao regions, in the Iloilo municipality on Panay Island in the central Philippines, thousands of Indigenous Tumandok people face forced displacement as a major energy project advances through their ancestral territories.
The Jalaur River Multi-Purpose Project, a state-backed dam and hydropower initiative, has triggered fears of forced evictions affecting more than 17,000 people and has already submerged ancestral land belonging to Indigenous communities.
The Tumandok have relied on the river basin as burial grounds, fishing sites supporting their livelihoods, and sacred landscapes preserved through oral history and cultural tradition for decades.
In 2012, the Korean Export-Import Bank provided a USD 260 million loan to the Philippine government for a multi-purpose project on the Jalaur River. Authorities present the project as a long-term solution for irrigation, flood control, and hydropower generation, designed to benefit agricultural production across thousands of hectares of farmland. However, host communities say the development has come at a high human cost.
The dam project, which began in the 1960s, entered a new construction phase in 2012, triggering new waves of human rights violations, from attacks and killings to arrests, and is expected to reach full completion in 2027.
As construction progresses, Indigenous ancestral domains within the project-affected watershed—covering approximately 16,780 hectares in the Calinog component—are being impacted by the Jalaur River Multi-Purpose Project Stage II. Community leaders say this is displacing Indigenous families from their homes amid concerns over inadequate consultation and potential violations of Indigenous land rights and free, prior, and informed consent standards.
Article 19 of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires states to consult and cooperate in good faith with the Indigenous peoples concerned, through their own representative institutions, to obtain their free, prior, and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.
Article 32(b) of the same declaration urges states to make consent the objective of consultation before any projects that affect Indigenous peoples’ rights to land, territory, and resources, including mining and other uses or exploitations of resources.
John Ian Alecianga, coordinator of the Jalaur River People’s Movement, says opposition to the project has drawn allegations of intimidation, killings, arrests, and a heavy security presence in affected communities.
“Mobilizing these indigenous communities to fight for their rights has come at a cost. Indigenous leaders and activists have been subjected to surveillance, harassment, and red-tagging due to their resistance to the dam,” John said in an exclusive interview with our team.
According to John, tensions escalated in December 2020 when a police attack in Tumandok communities killed at least nine Indigenous leaders and elders and led to the arrest of 16 others.
“The military was deployed, human rights were violated, many elders were killed, and others were arrested, escalating into what we call a massacre. A fake search warrant was used in a staged operation to enter the houses of the Tumandok leaders. This is how much the government has ignored the rights of the indigenous peoples from the project conception until the project implementation,” he said. “The event remains one of the most traumatic moments in the ongoing conflict around the project,” John added.
Despite pressure, Indigenous communities continue to resist eviction through local and international advocacy networks, calling for justice for those killed in 2020, recognition of their land rights, and immediate protection from further displacement.
“The people are resisting because land is their life. Without it, there will be no community. There will be no identity,” he said.
The Jalaur River People’s Movement also seeks accountability through international mechanisms, including engagement with South Korean institutions linked to project financing.
