Mt. Malidang is home to Zamboanga Peninsula’s last remaining frontier, the Mt. Malindang Range Natural Park. For years, thousands of Subanen cultural minority members have lived peacefully inside the park maintaining a health balance of biodiversity in the area.

But everything, both the protected wildlife environment and the Subanen people, will soon be displaced when the City Government of Oroquieta pushes through its planned multi-billion trans-axial highway across the  natural park.

More than 12,000 community members of the Subanen tribe  mostly women and children are facing threat of displacement.  We cannot let development aggression undermine women’s human  rights. We cannot let blood spill in our lands in the name of local development. We cannot let our last remaining forests be destroyed because of projects which will only be a major source of corruption.

Save our forests. Save our women and children.

How to help:

Spread the word to your friends. Send a petition addressed to the government officials of Oroquieta City and Misamis Occidental. Volunteer to organize communities.  Together we can advance our rights s women and cultural minorities.

De Lima, who visited the rape victim, Florence (not real name), at the Southern Philippine Medical center in this city last Friday, said Ibrahim is not yet off the hook as she already told the police to investigate his connection to the case.

“I told the police to look into that although he’s not officially a suspect, but I told the police not rule him out,” De Lima said.

Florence was found naked and unconscious in a corn field in the town of South Upi on September 25 after she was reportedly abducted and raped by a group of men.

The Justice secretary said the National Bureau of Investigation is focusing on Melchor Fulgencio, a former government militia, who admitted to the crime.

“Sabi ko nga kailangan pang i-verify pa nang husto because this guy ay may tinuturong co-perpetrator niya, a certain Edwin, but he cannot be traced or located. We do not know whether he truly exists,” she said.

De Lima also said she is “inclined to believe” that the original six suspects to the crime are innocent, since initial investigation showed that the six were all at a karaoke place on the night of the rape and only one of them left because he was already very drunk.

Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte on Monday said she supports health workers arming themselves when assigned to far-flung areas.

“This is a very unfortunate incident and I hope the local government unit of Maguindanao will do something to solve it and to make sure the real perpetrators are found,” she said. (Jade C. Zaldivar of Sun.Star Davao/Sunnex)

The ECOLINK Women’s Network carries out a campaign against the dispalcement and harassment of indigenous communities in the southern Philippines by the Xstrata and SMI -both transnational mining giants who have recently been awarded with vast mining concession areas.

Women community members undergo seminars and trainings that equip them with the necessary paralegal skills to respond to violations of their rights by operatives of the mining companies.

A Primer on Mining in Southern Philippines has also been published through the project, paving the way for an even broader network of civil society organizations and concerned individuals fighting against open pit mining.

Rape victims can go home and find a family that will her support but “incest” rape can’t. They do not only lose their self but also their family.

Now, Inday is in need of urgent medical and legal help. Help us get her back to school, and seek medical support and legal assistance.

Over the years, EWNet have been able to provide assistance to  hundreds of women who have been exposed to discriminatory practices in the workplace and public offices as well as to those who have suffered physical, sexual and other forms of abuses.

As we hope to continue our tradition of collective women’s action for individual women’s needs, EWNet will always be there to respond to any crisis involving women’s rights.

EWNet joins hands with other women’s groups in calling for immediate justice.

The enactment of the Human Security Act of 2007 in the Philippines has put in danger the lives of thousands of women who are known advocates of social justice and advancement of women’s rights.

The law allows, more than others, the warrantless arrrest, seclusion, and biased judicial processes of anybody whom the national government deem an enemy of the state.

With the notorious records of political killlings at one hand and other forms of human rights violations on the other hand in the past four decades, the Philippine Government will be freed from accountabilities through the law.