For #OurPowerOurPlanet, let’s build locally grounded, community-led energy systems and redistribute decision-making power so that energy works for the people. #EarthDay2026

Without addressing how energy is managed in the country, upward ticks in fuel prices will only make the country more vulnerable to global movements.

At the same time, this expansion increasingly overlaps with ancestral domains, where the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) must be upheld as a substantive process of community governance.

Even with current responses that continue to focus on expanding supply, such as the Green Lanes for Strategic Investments to accelerate large-scale renewable energy projects, these measures fall short of resolving the country’s underlying vulnerability.

As global tensions create instability in fuel prices, the burden is passed directly onto households, especially among poor communities and consumers.
The Philippines’ heavy dependence on imported fuel creates a structural vulnerability, where global disruptions quickly become domestic crises

This Earth Day, we situate the ongoing fuel crisis within the country’s broader energy landscape and the conditions that continue to shape it.

Forests need to be recognized as embedded assemblages of life, culture and spirituality. Forest policies need to recognize Indigenous knowledge systems, practices and governance. Tenure security is critical in ensuring customary governance of these landscapes #ForestFuture #ForestDay

Conflicting forest governance policies and tenurial instruments continue to encroach into at least 2.8 million hectares of ancestral domains, resulting in 1.5 million hectares of forest cover loss.

Tenure security for indigenous territories is a critical factor in ensuring their effective customary governance of 75 percent of of our country’s forest cover that overlap with Ancestral Domains.

But PHP 43 Trillion worth of public health, sustainable livelihoods, and other ecosystem benefits remain at risk with the current forest policy framework.

Philippine forests also significantly contribute to global climate mitigation. Protecting these forests can contribute to the world’s total potential carbon emissions reduction potential by up to 9.42 percent.

Philippine Forests are also our safeguard against climate shocks. They can reduce the impacts of tropical cyclones by up to 40 percent and flooding by 47 percent. Likewise, forests can reduce soil erosion by up to 99 percent.

Philippine Forests are a potent major solution to the climate emergency. Our forest lands can improve the climate resilience of 24 million forest-dependent Filipinos. They sustain the livelihoods of up to 75 percent of forest-based communities, and increase household incomes by up to 78 percent.

with the objective of validating research findings on the Philippines’ forest-climate policy framework, and facilitating an exchange of reflections, insights, and recommendations.

🌳 For #InternationalDayOfForests, the Center, together with indigenous peoples, civil society networks, and government and academic experts, convened in a forum-workshop

📖 Read more about women and mining in our publication Mining as a Women’s Issue.

www.lrcksk.org/_files/ugd/d...

Yet women in mining-affected communities continue to resist large-scale mining that threaten their lands and their communities. They bring stability, cohesiveness, and morale into community struggles that have succeeded time and again against extractive and destructive mining projects. ✊🏽🌏

The roles of indigenous and rural women as stewards of land and water are heavily burdened as mining causes the collapse of subsistence livelihoods and the spread of environmental damage.

Large-scale mining disturbs not only the topographies of nature, but also the cultural landscapes of indigenous territories and other communities. 📖 Read more about women and mining in our publication Mining as a Women’s Issue. Link in the comments.

On International Women’s Day ✊🏽🌸, we recognized the interconnection of women’s rights with the integrity of ecology in the face of large-scale mining.

This affirms the rights and role of communities in directly acting to safeguard their environment, livelihood, and lives. May we continue to be brave and bold in defending our environment, our rights, and our democracy. Our barricades are our EDSA.

#EDSAat40
#PeoplePower
#OurRights
#OurFuture

The UN SR on Environmental Defenders articulated in the Guidelines on the Right to Peaceful Environmental Protests and Civil Disobedience, that acts of civil disobedience are protected under the right of peaceful assembly in article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

This kind of People Power that in history has deposed a dictator is recognized by international law as a legitimate exercise of rights.

Like citizens of Nueva Vizcaya who have a history of taking to the barricades from Kasibu to Dupax del Norte in the face of large-scale mining encroachment, the spirit of EDSA lives on in their assertion of their Constitutional rights–a Constitution created by the exercise of People Power itself

Forty years after EDSA, People Power continues to evolve, reminding us that collective action remains a vital force in defending our rights, communities, and the future we share.

This kind of People Power that in history has deposed a dictator is recognized by international law as a legitimate exercise of rights.

Like the citizens of Nueva Vizcaya who have a history of taking to the barricades from Kasibu to Dupax del Norte in the face of large-scale mining encroachment, the spirit of EDSA lives on in their assertion of their Constitutional rights–a Constitution created by the exercise of People Power itself

This kind of People Power that in history has deposed a dictator is recognized by international law as a legitimate exercise of rights.

Like the citizens of Nueva Vizcaya who have a history of taking to the barricades from Kasibu to Dupax del Norte in the face of large-scale mining encroachment, the spirit of EDSA lives on in their assertion of their Constitutional rights–a Constitution created by the exercise of People Power itself

we call for the faithful compliance with the statutory and constitutional requirements that safeguard communities and the national patrimony,” Atty. Roset ended.