From Province to Province: The Beaconsfield
INITIATIVE January 1-12, 2012
Above is a photo of a gathering with the Elders in Tubo, Philippines to talk about the land, the river and the people as sacred. I was fortunate to be a representative of Maritime Conference of the United Church of Canada as part of the Beaconsfield Initiative Tour to consider mining and its impacts in the Philippines. This happened from January 1st to 12th, 2012. We will be writing a report to government and the United Church of Canada at the national level concerning our experiences and the realities people are living in the Philippines. Please see my article below.
“River running in you and
me,
Spirit of life, deep
mystery.
Dancing down to the holy
seas,
river run deep, river run free.”
(Song of the Common Cup Company, written by Ian
Macdonald and Gordon Light; arranged by Andrew Donaldson, 2003,
Canada).
Connecting with the Local Filipino
people
While in the Philippines for 13 days on
the Beaconsfield Initiative Exposure tour, we visited many rural communities
under threat from mining applications or who are directly impacted by mining
activities, resulting in environmental degradation, human rights violations,
militarization and other social and economic impacts in the communities. To
that end, in terms of our information gathering, we met with municipal mayors
and councilors, provincial government representatives, 2 provincial governors,
representatives from women’s organizations, and clergy organizations, political
prisoners, the Canadian ambassador and his staff, the Attorney General of the
Philippines, Bishops and other church leaders, women and children, Elders, and
representatives from people`s organizations, including, CHESTCOR, CHRA, CPA,
UCCP, NCCP, RECCORD, ETS[1]and their student body, family members of the
disappeared, family members of victims of extrajudicial killings and protestors
of mining activity. As Christians engaged in justice, we have a responsibility
to know what is happening in these areas of injustice in the Philippines today.
Our focus became clear when we divided
our group into two teams in Salapaddan and Tubo, where we lived for several
days. It became clear, through our first conversations with people in all
communities, that the river is the source of life. It is sacred, holy, embodied
with the life of the people, a place of creation and goodness, where the
children play, the people wash and bathe, the fish swim, a place of celebration
and delight in the abundance of the earth. It is a place of life! The river is
also a place of death! An individual who had spoken out against mining companies
in the community of Tubo was decapitated, his body was desecrated, divided and
thrown into the river. With the explosion of mining activities in the nearby
centres, the Abra River has been impacted, with the mine tailings which contain
deadly cyanide, mercury and a host of other chemicals being deposited into the
once healthy and vibrant Abra river. We followed the course of the Abra river
from its headwaters where it continues to be polluted from the Lepanto mine. It
winds its way through several provinces, many communities and opens,
eventually, into the sea. Fish that once swam abundantly now float to the
surface, destroyed. Skin diseases plague the Filipino people and their animals.
The water buffalo, the most valuable domestic animal, and other domestic
animals help the people preserve their way of life in subsistence farming and
municipal or small-scale fishing. The Abra river is now an ambiguous place, a
place where the balance of life needs to be restored and whose very flow of life
is in peril with the development of mining practices.
As we heard the first hand stories of
people who were directly impacted, individually and communally, we were
awakened to the realities of gross injustice, realities we had heard about only
in theory.
Upon entering the communities, we were met with
unabashed hospitality and openness. Instead of finding a people filled with
fear, as our North American minds might have expected, we found a people filled
with radiance, warmth and welcome. The ministry of hospitality is abundant in
this part of the world, among people who are facing realities of injustice on
the part of principalities and powers that threaten their livelihoods of fishing
and farming, suppress their rights as indigenous people, and even compromise
their security and personal lives as well as the lives of their families. The people of the northern, central and
southern Philippines, in Luzon, in the Cordilleras, especially in Tubo and
Salapaddan, radiate a way through to justice, through their style of theological
reflection that is both contemplative and active, as in the praxis model of
liberation theologies of Latin America. Their challenge and strength, especially
grounded in the roles of women in cultural and social activities, is akin to the
womanist theologies of Black women in America, finding a way out of no way, as
theologian Monica Coleman describes the ongoing struggle toward freedom for the
individual and the community (Monica A. Coleman,Making
a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology, Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2008).
Considering Justice and Theology in our Global Context as
Canadians
In Canada, our theological reflection is
often unaware of these kinds of grave injustices, although we are beginning to
speak theologically from these marginal voices when we engage our own
indigenous populations in Canada.
A theology of the Philippines is one of
redemptive hope, embodied in the spirit of a people whose voices will not be
silenced and in whom the spirituality of celebration in the face of injustice
is fierce and determined. Such a spirituality or values system can be described
as practical, resistant, and celebratory. The theology is a practical one,
shaped out of the practicality and strength of the local people, predominantly
indigenous in their heritage. We saw this in the people of the local
communities but we also saw this strength of practicality in the workers from
the organizations with whom we worked and from whom we learned, including the
CPA, CHRA, RECCORD, and other related groups.
The commitment of these local indigenous
people and working groups is unswerving, as is their plea for solidarity with
us, as people with the potential to capture the attention of our churches and
government as well as the worldwide community. They call on us, as in the
covenantal relationship we have with our brothers and sisters elsewhere, to
enter their same struggle and to call into account our Canadian mining
companies operating in the Philippines. Particularly, they ask that we call
into account the people, the globalized mining industry and the governments that
support this industry as they directly impact on ongoing human rights
violations, environmental degradation, and their lack of respect for the voices
of the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and claims and use of
their ancestral lands. The Indigenous worldview teaches that the land and
resources were given to them in sacred trust by the Creator God Cabunian. The
Elders shared with us that their responsibility is to preserve the land, to
preserve the resources, to pass on the practices of the ancestors in caring for
the lands sustainably, and to care for one another. We were welcomed into the
practices of the Elders and celebrated in their communities. We were invited
into this covenant relationship with them to tell their stories, take action on
injustices, and continue a bond of connection and solidarity with the people we
had met. As foreigners, we were welcomed, as the story in scripture encourages,
‘welcome the stranger.’ Now, it is our turn to share our hospitality as
followers of Jesus, a person who directed the attention of people in
communities to the injustices that they were experiencing. Healing in the
parables involved the participation of every member of the community. We had
been welcomed as part of this community and are called to right living, right
action, and right relationship with them.
In his 2011 address to the Regional Ecumenical Council
in the Cordillera, held in Baguio City, Dr. Ferdinand Ammang Anno, presents
three sources of theological integration of peace in the Cordillera, especially
in recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples (IP). Firstly, the IP view is
eco-centric; viewing that nature shares in the divine reality and is the object
of reverence in many rituals. The created order is ‘radically egalitarian’ where
human beings are not over creation but a part of its interdependence. A blade of
grass is as significant as a person. (“Repent and Be Baptized: Rise Up and
Speak: Pursuing the Indigenous Peoples Vision of Peace Based on Justice,” from
The Writing on the Wall, September
2011, 21). Secondly, the IP view is Eucharistic, seeing feasting and
togetherness as community-building (p.22), as a celebration of all life and its
growth process, a concept we are familiar with in our Canadian community
ministries in places like the Carlington Community Chaplaincy (Ottawa, ON) and
St. Columba House (Montreal, QC). Thirdly, the witness of the IP way is one of
witness itself to the suffering of the Cordillera people, observing and relating
the misuse, exploitation, displacement, and dehumanization of the people and the
rape of the earth.
Theological Understandings and Call to
Action
From an eco-feminist theological
perspective, and within North American contextual theologies today, we echo
these belief systems in our Christian embrace of peace and witness to the
sacredness of the land. As we witness the destruction of our own lands in the
exploration of oil and gas in Alberta and other provinces in Canada, we make a
connection with the desecration of the land for the Elders and all people of the
Cordilleras. Without the land, the people are without promise. Thus, in our
celebration of the goodness of the land, we are called to resist those
activities that destroy its health and the well-being of its communities. As
the Elders of the Cordillera shared with us, the land is not for the use of
private organizations. It is not for the use of any one individual. It is a
sacred trust, a responsibility that grows out of an understanding that we are
not separate from, but intricately woven into, the earth, along with all other
life forms. This is the creation story we must share and doing so means
protesting the activities of mining corporations that threaten the land and the
people, whether they exist in Canada or the Philippines.
In the 2006 pastoral statement of the
Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on mining, the Bishops
spoke unequivocally against large-scale mining activities in the country. “They
called on religious leaders to strengthen the anti-mining campaign and raise it
to a national level, demanding the suspension of 24 priority mining projects of
the government and an abrupt end to ongoing large-scale mining activities by
the global mining giants…,” many of whom are Canadian companies. Bishop Arigo
has stated, “Based on experience, there is no responsible mining.” (Newsbreak
July/September 2008).
We can be unequivocal in calling for an end to extra-judicial killings,
incarceration of political prisoners, increased militarization, and intimidation
and vilification of people opposed to government policy and military intrusion
in community life. As well, we need to acknowledge the various points of view of
people we met concerning both large and small scale mining. The national
government, some local governments, and individuals
'on the ground' welcome a range of mining activity. On the other hand,
the vast majority of those whom we met are opposed to ecologically dangerous and
socially destructive large scale mining. ‘Free, prior, and informed consent’ is
not easy to apply in the context of conflicting legal and community agendas.
However, it is central to respecting community wishes. For us it is clear that
oppressive military pressure to enforce the mining agenda needs to cease. But
having acknowledged the complexity of economic development in the form of large
scale mining and that some people welcome it, we are called to stand with the
vast majority of Indigenous People who oppose such intrusions on their land. The
wishes of the Indigenous People need to be
respected.
In our Canadian churches, we have a
responsibility to be in solidarity with the progressive people’s organizations,
the churches, and all other organizations in the Philippines in denouncing
unregulated large-scale mining as destructive and against the ecological and
social well-being of the earth and its people. From a theological perspective,
the situation arising in the Philippines, call for a ‘status confessionis’ in
our work as a church. Dietrich Bonheoffer and others in the German churches
calls for this reality in the height of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. A
‘status confessionis’ is a particular call in the midst of a crisis situation.
It is, in fact, a time when the confession of Jesus Christ, our identity as a
church, is questioned if our response as a church is less than active in the
midst of a grave and clear injustice. In this kind of confession as a whole
church, then, we would respond to the Philippines and the extrajudicial
killings, human rights violations, ecological devastation and other social
realities as a situation where we need to stand in solidarity as a church
without differences, in the name of grace, in the name of the Gospel. As a
church grounded in the witness of Christ, we are called to develop and deepen
this understanding in relation to the Philippines and, specifically, the people
of the Cordilleras. Both in our theological reflections as a Christian church
and in our actions as the United Church of Canada, we are called to be directly
involved in social change, in our own country and in the
Philippines.
This is our call to the churches, presbyteries,
conferences and General Council 41 of the United Church of Canada and other
churches and all concerned Canadian citizens. We are dedicated to justice in our
day! Join us in the struggle and celebration! The following are our
recommendations for action at the 41st General Council meeting in Ottawa,
August 11th to
18th. Additionally, we
are including the recommendations made to the Sub-Committee on Human Rights at
the House of Commons, April 3rd, 2012.
Recommendations to the 41st General Council of the United Church of
Canada
These recommendations were received and unanimously approved on
March 13, 2012, by Montreal Presbytery and transmitted to the Montreal &
Ottawa Conference meeting in May for concurrence to be transmitted to General
Council 41.
The
Beaconsfield Initiative was an exposure mission to the Cordillera Region in the
Northern Philippines, with the purpose of establishing long term covenants with
partners and church congregations in the Cordillera region and congregations and
ministry sites in Canada. As well, to evaluate the impact of Canadian mining
practices and interests in the Cordillera, specifically in Abra Province; to
explore and document the effect on the lives of indigenous people; the
militarization of the region; the extrajudicial killings and enforced
disappearances; the resistance to mining explorations; the environmental
destruction and human rights violations.
We
ask General Council 41 to call for:
1.
The end of
the vilification and human rights violations of people and people's
organizations.
2.
The
immediate release of the 347political prisoners.
3.
The end of
illegal arrest and imprisonment of people.
4.
The end of
abuse, violence and sex crimes against women in indigenous communities as
practiced by the military.
5.
The
protection of the ancestral lands and resources from destructive large scale
mining and all projects affecting indigenous communities.
6.
A properly
worded petition, with 25 accompanied signatures (to be developed in consultation
with the Beaconsfield Initiative), to be distributed to all of its congregations
and ministry sites, which will be hand delivered to every member of Parliament
demanding the regulation of Canadian mining companies and their practices
abroad. In addition, to invite Kairos and all our national Church partners and
NGO’s to join in this campaign, to be completed by December 1, 2012.
7.
The UCC,
Kairos and other Church partners to lobby their membership and the Canadian
government to boycott and divest from any companies who use and employ private
militias or security forces, trained and equipped by the Armed Forces of the
Philippines.
8.
An
increase in funding and support for the National Council of Churches of the
Philippines, United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Regional Ecumenical
Council of the Cordillera, Cordillera Peoples Alliance and the Cordillera Human
Rights Alliance, who have been a long term partners, allowing them to expand
their capacity to report on human rights violations, extra judicial killings,
enforced disappearances, violence against women and children, the treatment of
indigenous populations, the militarization of communities and monitor Canadian
Mining applications and interests.
List of Participants on the Beaconsfield
Initiative
The Very Reverend Dr.
Bill Phipps, Former Moderator UCC,
Calgary
The Reverend Shaun E.
Fryday, Beaconsfield United Church,
Montreal
Honorio Guerrero,
Canadian Philippine Solidarity Group,
Vancouver
Beth Dollaga, Canadian
Philippine Solidarity Group
Darlene Brewer, Ph.D.,
(Theology), UCC, Fredericton (Principle
Writer)
Guy Lin Beaudoin, UCC,
Montreal
The Reverend Patricia
Lisson, St. Columba House, UCC,
Montreal
The Reverend
Marie-Claude Manga, St. Jean-sur-Richelieu, UCC,
Montreal
The Reverend Bob
McElhinney, UCC, Toronto
Dorothy McElhinney, UCC,
Toronto
Ivy Taguik
Prénoveau
Alain
Prénoveau,
Former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Aboriginal Peoples,
Québec,
Laval
Connie Sorrio, Kairos,
Toronto
Tess Tesalona, Centre
for Philippine Concerns, Montreal
Darlene
Br
[1] The
acronyms represent the following:
CHESTCOR (Community Health Educational and
Sustainability Training in the Cordillera
region)
CHRA (Cordillera Human Rights
Alliance)
CPA (Cordillera People`s
Alliance)
UCCP (United Church of Christ in the
Philippines)
NCCP (National Council of Churches in the
Philippines)
RECCORD (Regional Ecumenical Council in the
Cordillerra)
ETS (Ecumenical Theological
Seminary)
INITIATIVE January 1-12, 2012
Above is a photo of a gathering with the Elders in Tubo, Philippines to talk about the land, the river and the people as sacred. I was fortunate to be a representative of Maritime Conference of the United Church of Canada as part of the Beaconsfield Initiative Tour to consider mining and its impacts in the Philippines. This happened from January 1st to 12th, 2012. We will be writing a report to government and the United Church of Canada at the national level concerning our experiences and the realities people are living in the Philippines. Please see my article below.
“River running in you and
me,
Spirit of life, deep
mystery.
Dancing down to the holy
seas,
river run deep, river run free.”
(Song of the Common Cup Company, written by Ian
Macdonald and Gordon Light; arranged by Andrew Donaldson, 2003,
Canada).
Connecting with the Local Filipino
people
While in the Philippines for 13 days on
the Beaconsfield Initiative Exposure tour, we visited many rural communities
under threat from mining applications or who are directly impacted by mining
activities, resulting in environmental degradation, human rights violations,
militarization and other social and economic impacts in the communities. To
that end, in terms of our information gathering, we met with municipal mayors
and councilors, provincial government representatives, 2 provincial governors,
representatives from women’s organizations, and clergy organizations, political
prisoners, the Canadian ambassador and his staff, the Attorney General of the
Philippines, Bishops and other church leaders, women and children, Elders, and
representatives from people`s organizations, including, CHESTCOR, CHRA, CPA,
UCCP, NCCP, RECCORD, ETS[1]and their student body, family members of the
disappeared, family members of victims of extrajudicial killings and protestors
of mining activity. As Christians engaged in justice, we have a responsibility
to know what is happening in these areas of injustice in the Philippines today.
Our focus became clear when we divided
our group into two teams in Salapaddan and Tubo, where we lived for several
days. It became clear, through our first conversations with people in all
communities, that the river is the source of life. It is sacred, holy, embodied
with the life of the people, a place of creation and goodness, where the
children play, the people wash and bathe, the fish swim, a place of celebration
and delight in the abundance of the earth. It is a place of life! The river is
also a place of death! An individual who had spoken out against mining companies
in the community of Tubo was decapitated, his body was desecrated, divided and
thrown into the river. With the explosion of mining activities in the nearby
centres, the Abra River has been impacted, with the mine tailings which contain
deadly cyanide, mercury and a host of other chemicals being deposited into the
once healthy and vibrant Abra river. We followed the course of the Abra river
from its headwaters where it continues to be polluted from the Lepanto mine. It
winds its way through several provinces, many communities and opens,
eventually, into the sea. Fish that once swam abundantly now float to the
surface, destroyed. Skin diseases plague the Filipino people and their animals.
The water buffalo, the most valuable domestic animal, and other domestic
animals help the people preserve their way of life in subsistence farming and
municipal or small-scale fishing. The Abra river is now an ambiguous place, a
place where the balance of life needs to be restored and whose very flow of life
is in peril with the development of mining practices.
As we heard the first hand stories of
people who were directly impacted, individually and communally, we were
awakened to the realities of gross injustice, realities we had heard about only
in theory.
Upon entering the communities, we were met with
unabashed hospitality and openness. Instead of finding a people filled with
fear, as our North American minds might have expected, we found a people filled
with radiance, warmth and welcome. The ministry of hospitality is abundant in
this part of the world, among people who are facing realities of injustice on
the part of principalities and powers that threaten their livelihoods of fishing
and farming, suppress their rights as indigenous people, and even compromise
their security and personal lives as well as the lives of their families. The people of the northern, central and
southern Philippines, in Luzon, in the Cordilleras, especially in Tubo and
Salapaddan, radiate a way through to justice, through their style of theological
reflection that is both contemplative and active, as in the praxis model of
liberation theologies of Latin America. Their challenge and strength, especially
grounded in the roles of women in cultural and social activities, is akin to the
womanist theologies of Black women in America, finding a way out of no way, as
theologian Monica Coleman describes the ongoing struggle toward freedom for the
individual and the community (Monica A. Coleman,Making
a Way Out of No Way: A Womanist Theology, Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2008).
Considering Justice and Theology in our Global Context as
Canadians
In Canada, our theological reflection is
often unaware of these kinds of grave injustices, although we are beginning to
speak theologically from these marginal voices when we engage our own
indigenous populations in Canada.
A theology of the Philippines is one of
redemptive hope, embodied in the spirit of a people whose voices will not be
silenced and in whom the spirituality of celebration in the face of injustice
is fierce and determined. Such a spirituality or values system can be described
as practical, resistant, and celebratory. The theology is a practical one,
shaped out of the practicality and strength of the local people, predominantly
indigenous in their heritage. We saw this in the people of the local
communities but we also saw this strength of practicality in the workers from
the organizations with whom we worked and from whom we learned, including the
CPA, CHRA, RECCORD, and other related groups.
The commitment of these local indigenous
people and working groups is unswerving, as is their plea for solidarity with
us, as people with the potential to capture the attention of our churches and
government as well as the worldwide community. They call on us, as in the
covenantal relationship we have with our brothers and sisters elsewhere, to
enter their same struggle and to call into account our Canadian mining
companies operating in the Philippines. Particularly, they ask that we call
into account the people, the globalized mining industry and the governments that
support this industry as they directly impact on ongoing human rights
violations, environmental degradation, and their lack of respect for the voices
of the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and claims and use of
their ancestral lands. The Indigenous worldview teaches that the land and
resources were given to them in sacred trust by the Creator God Cabunian. The
Elders shared with us that their responsibility is to preserve the land, to
preserve the resources, to pass on the practices of the ancestors in caring for
the lands sustainably, and to care for one another. We were welcomed into the
practices of the Elders and celebrated in their communities. We were invited
into this covenant relationship with them to tell their stories, take action on
injustices, and continue a bond of connection and solidarity with the people we
had met. As foreigners, we were welcomed, as the story in scripture encourages,
‘welcome the stranger.’ Now, it is our turn to share our hospitality as
followers of Jesus, a person who directed the attention of people in
communities to the injustices that they were experiencing. Healing in the
parables involved the participation of every member of the community. We had
been welcomed as part of this community and are called to right living, right
action, and right relationship with them.
In his 2011 address to the Regional Ecumenical Council
in the Cordillera, held in Baguio City, Dr. Ferdinand Ammang Anno, presents
three sources of theological integration of peace in the Cordillera, especially
in recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples (IP). Firstly, the IP view is
eco-centric; viewing that nature shares in the divine reality and is the object
of reverence in many rituals. The created order is ‘radically egalitarian’ where
human beings are not over creation but a part of its interdependence. A blade of
grass is as significant as a person. (“Repent and Be Baptized: Rise Up and
Speak: Pursuing the Indigenous Peoples Vision of Peace Based on Justice,” from
The Writing on the Wall, September
2011, 21). Secondly, the IP view is Eucharistic, seeing feasting and
togetherness as community-building (p.22), as a celebration of all life and its
growth process, a concept we are familiar with in our Canadian community
ministries in places like the Carlington Community Chaplaincy (Ottawa, ON) and
St. Columba House (Montreal, QC). Thirdly, the witness of the IP way is one of
witness itself to the suffering of the Cordillera people, observing and relating
the misuse, exploitation, displacement, and dehumanization of the people and the
rape of the earth.
Theological Understandings and Call to
Action
From an eco-feminist theological
perspective, and within North American contextual theologies today, we echo
these belief systems in our Christian embrace of peace and witness to the
sacredness of the land. As we witness the destruction of our own lands in the
exploration of oil and gas in Alberta and other provinces in Canada, we make a
connection with the desecration of the land for the Elders and all people of the
Cordilleras. Without the land, the people are without promise. Thus, in our
celebration of the goodness of the land, we are called to resist those
activities that destroy its health and the well-being of its communities. As
the Elders of the Cordillera shared with us, the land is not for the use of
private organizations. It is not for the use of any one individual. It is a
sacred trust, a responsibility that grows out of an understanding that we are
not separate from, but intricately woven into, the earth, along with all other
life forms. This is the creation story we must share and doing so means
protesting the activities of mining corporations that threaten the land and the
people, whether they exist in Canada or the Philippines.
In the 2006 pastoral statement of the
Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on mining, the Bishops
spoke unequivocally against large-scale mining activities in the country. “They
called on religious leaders to strengthen the anti-mining campaign and raise it
to a national level, demanding the suspension of 24 priority mining projects of
the government and an abrupt end to ongoing large-scale mining activities by
the global mining giants…,” many of whom are Canadian companies. Bishop Arigo
has stated, “Based on experience, there is no responsible mining.” (Newsbreak
July/September 2008).
We can be unequivocal in calling for an end to extra-judicial killings,
incarceration of political prisoners, increased militarization, and intimidation
and vilification of people opposed to government policy and military intrusion
in community life. As well, we need to acknowledge the various points of view of
people we met concerning both large and small scale mining. The national
government, some local governments, and individuals
'on the ground' welcome a range of mining activity. On the other hand,
the vast majority of those whom we met are opposed to ecologically dangerous and
socially destructive large scale mining. ‘Free, prior, and informed consent’ is
not easy to apply in the context of conflicting legal and community agendas.
However, it is central to respecting community wishes. For us it is clear that
oppressive military pressure to enforce the mining agenda needs to cease. But
having acknowledged the complexity of economic development in the form of large
scale mining and that some people welcome it, we are called to stand with the
vast majority of Indigenous People who oppose such intrusions on their land. The
wishes of the Indigenous People need to be
respected.
In our Canadian churches, we have a
responsibility to be in solidarity with the progressive people’s organizations,
the churches, and all other organizations in the Philippines in denouncing
unregulated large-scale mining as destructive and against the ecological and
social well-being of the earth and its people. From a theological perspective,
the situation arising in the Philippines, call for a ‘status confessionis’ in
our work as a church. Dietrich Bonheoffer and others in the German churches
calls for this reality in the height of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. A
‘status confessionis’ is a particular call in the midst of a crisis situation.
It is, in fact, a time when the confession of Jesus Christ, our identity as a
church, is questioned if our response as a church is less than active in the
midst of a grave and clear injustice. In this kind of confession as a whole
church, then, we would respond to the Philippines and the extrajudicial
killings, human rights violations, ecological devastation and other social
realities as a situation where we need to stand in solidarity as a church
without differences, in the name of grace, in the name of the Gospel. As a
church grounded in the witness of Christ, we are called to develop and deepen
this understanding in relation to the Philippines and, specifically, the people
of the Cordilleras. Both in our theological reflections as a Christian church
and in our actions as the United Church of Canada, we are called to be directly
involved in social change, in our own country and in the
Philippines.
This is our call to the churches, presbyteries,
conferences and General Council 41 of the United Church of Canada and other
churches and all concerned Canadian citizens. We are dedicated to justice in our
day! Join us in the struggle and celebration! The following are our
recommendations for action at the 41st General Council meeting in Ottawa,
August 11th to
18th. Additionally, we
are including the recommendations made to the Sub-Committee on Human Rights at
the House of Commons, April 3rd, 2012.
Recommendations to the 41st General Council of the United Church of
Canada
These recommendations were received and unanimously approved on
March 13, 2012, by Montreal Presbytery and transmitted to the Montreal &
Ottawa Conference meeting in May for concurrence to be transmitted to General
Council 41.
The
Beaconsfield Initiative was an exposure mission to the Cordillera Region in the
Northern Philippines, with the purpose of establishing long term covenants with
partners and church congregations in the Cordillera region and congregations and
ministry sites in Canada. As well, to evaluate the impact of Canadian mining
practices and interests in the Cordillera, specifically in Abra Province; to
explore and document the effect on the lives of indigenous people; the
militarization of the region; the extrajudicial killings and enforced
disappearances; the resistance to mining explorations; the environmental
destruction and human rights violations.
We
ask General Council 41 to call for:
1.
The end of
the vilification and human rights violations of people and people's
organizations.
2.
The
immediate release of the 347political prisoners.
3.
The end of
illegal arrest and imprisonment of people.
4.
The end of
abuse, violence and sex crimes against women in indigenous communities as
practiced by the military.
5.
The
protection of the ancestral lands and resources from destructive large scale
mining and all projects affecting indigenous communities.
6.
A properly
worded petition, with 25 accompanied signatures (to be developed in consultation
with the Beaconsfield Initiative), to be distributed to all of its congregations
and ministry sites, which will be hand delivered to every member of Parliament
demanding the regulation of Canadian mining companies and their practices
abroad. In addition, to invite Kairos and all our national Church partners and
NGO’s to join in this campaign, to be completed by December 1, 2012.
7.
The UCC,
Kairos and other Church partners to lobby their membership and the Canadian
government to boycott and divest from any companies who use and employ private
militias or security forces, trained and equipped by the Armed Forces of the
Philippines.
8.
An
increase in funding and support for the National Council of Churches of the
Philippines, United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Regional Ecumenical
Council of the Cordillera, Cordillera Peoples Alliance and the Cordillera Human
Rights Alliance, who have been a long term partners, allowing them to expand
their capacity to report on human rights violations, extra judicial killings,
enforced disappearances, violence against women and children, the treatment of
indigenous populations, the militarization of communities and monitor Canadian
Mining applications and interests.
List of Participants on the Beaconsfield
Initiative
The Very Reverend Dr.
Bill Phipps, Former Moderator UCC,
Calgary
The Reverend Shaun E.
Fryday, Beaconsfield United Church,
Montreal
Honorio Guerrero,
Canadian Philippine Solidarity Group,
Vancouver
Beth Dollaga, Canadian
Philippine Solidarity Group
Darlene Brewer, Ph.D.,
(Theology), UCC, Fredericton (Principle
Writer)
Guy Lin Beaudoin, UCC,
Montreal
The Reverend Patricia
Lisson, St. Columba House, UCC,
Montreal
The Reverend
Marie-Claude Manga, St. Jean-sur-Richelieu, UCC,
Montreal
The Reverend Bob
McElhinney, UCC, Toronto
Dorothy McElhinney, UCC,
Toronto
Ivy Taguik
Prénoveau
Alain
Prénoveau,
Former Grand Chief of the Confederacy of Aboriginal Peoples,
Québec,
Laval
Connie Sorrio, Kairos,
Toronto
Tess Tesalona, Centre
for Philippine Concerns, Montreal
Darlene
Br
[1] The
acronyms represent the following:
CHESTCOR (Community Health Educational and
Sustainability Training in the Cordillera
region)
CHRA (Cordillera Human Rights
Alliance)
CPA (Cordillera People`s
Alliance)
UCCP (United Church of Christ in the
Philippines)
NCCP (National Council of Churches in the
Philippines)
RECCORD (Regional Ecumenical Council in the
Cordillerra)
ETS (Ecumenical Theological
Seminary)