Water flows, flushes, and cycles, constituting the majority of our bodies and planet and making possible all life on Earth. Inspired by the struggle to defend the Pulangi River, Liyang SoCal’s first mixtape called for contributors to respond to water in any and all of its forms and contexts.
The Pulangi is an extensive river system that supports the livelihood of many rural and indigenous communities as well as cities in Mindanao. The southernmost island of the Philippine archipelago, Mindanao is known for its lush forests and abundance of natural resources which make it the target of large-scale extractive industries around the world. Centuries of resistance left much of Mindanao outside of the reach of colonists that occupied other parts of the Philippine archipelago. Today, the decades-long struggle of communities of Lumad (Indigenous) people and peasants to defend Mindanao’s lands and waters from major damming projects and the plunder and pollution of large-scale agribusiness and mining ventures continues.
Our support of this struggle is ever-increasingly urgent as the calamitous effects of climate change compound with intense environmental degradation leading to more and more devastating disasters. While the Philippine Government refuses to provide aid to those affected and instead colludes with industries. They fund the militarization of rural and Indigenous communities and target the environmental and human rights defenders whose work is dedicated to exposing the root causes of environmental destruction in the Philippines.
We’ve dedicated this mixtape to some of these environmental and human rights defenders whose lives were taken in this struggle. On the evening of February 23rd, 2022, Chad Booc, Jurain Ngujo, Elegyn Balonga and their two drivers Robert Aragon and Tirso Añar were massacred by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in New Bataan, Davao de Oro, while returning from a visit to rural communities in southern Mindanao.
The victims were unarmed civilians who had been active in supporting the Lumad struggle for self-determination. They were deliberately targeted by the AFP because of the far-reaching impact of their service.
Elegyn was a community health worker who served displaced Lumad communities in UCCP Haran sanctuary, and participated in medical missions serving marginalized rural communities in Mindanao. Her work exposed the unwillingness of the government to meet the needs of its people.
Chad and Jurain, meanwhile, were volunteer teachers at Lumad schools, both in communities and in evacuation. As Lumad school teachers, Chad and Jurain helped provide scientific and culturally-responsive education, incorporating sustainable agriculture skills and holistic health practices so that their students could go on to help develop and lead their communities.
Lumad schools were also a key component in communities’ struggles to defend their ancestral lands, in the face of mining, logging and agribusiness interests who had their eye on the resource-rich areas. Jurain and Chad helped empower generations of Lumad youth to assert their rights and take an active part in defending and shaping their communities’ futures.
Despite not being Lumad themselves, Chad, Jurain and Elegyn all dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to supporting the Lumad cause and struggle.
Included in a special mix at the end of this tape are excerpts from a song sung by Jurain and Lumad students and a conversation between Liyang and Chad recorded during a webinar in July of 2021. Jurain was a student at a Lumad school before choosing to serve the community by becoming a volunteer teacher himself. The song he and the students sing describes the 2016 Lakbayan ng Pambansang Minorya (People’s Caravan of National Minorities) in which Indigenous peoples from all throughout the Philippines came together in the thousands to call attention to their common struggle to defend their ancestral lands and claim their right to self-determination. Chad taught math at ALCADEV in Lianga, Mindanao after studying Computer Science in college, and was one of the Bakwit 7, who were Lumad students, elders, and volunteer teachers, arrested, held, and later released due to lack of evidence, for three months on fabricated charges in early 2021 because of their advocacy supporting Lumad youth.
Liyang SoCal joins the call for justice for the New Bataan 5 and dedicates this mixtape to their lives, work, and sacrifice. These heroes understood the supreme importance of the ongoing struggle to defend the land, water, and life in Mindanao as connected to environmental defense and liberation throughout the Philippines and around the world. As we listen, let us consider all the ways we can amplify calls for their justice and an end to exploitation, foreign plunder, and tyranny in Mindanao and around the world.
