Declaration of the Principles

We, members of different organizations, religious institutions, academe, groups and individuals, the participants of the Solidarity Conference on Indigenous Peoples held in Davao City, after having heard and reflected on the situation of our brothers and sisters in the hinterlands, do hereby present this Declaration of Principles supporting the struggle of the Lumad people, in particular, and the Filipino people, in general, for peaceful and liberating society:

HENCE, inspired by the growing sentiments of the Lumad brothers and sisters for Land, Ancestral Domain and Self-determination, we do hereby make this Solidarity Conference for Indigenous peoples as venue for asserting and reaffirming our stand on the sanctity of land as the source of all life, by struggling for a society of the Lumads governed by themselves. Thus;

THAT, the Indigenous peoples’ future is threatened by government’s development program such as land and crop conversions which adversely affect the Lumads economically, politically, socially and culturally;

THAT, the Lumads’ Ancestral Domain, have kept them and their ancestors alive for centuries, are now being destroyed and grabbed by those who hardly care for it;

THAT, the Lumads are now culturally and socially discriminated against; their rights to food, shelter and security have been denied, thus, deprived of their right to exist;

THAT, the State has unleashed war in response to the Lumads’ demands and inarticulated utterance of distress and pain brought about by the basic social services they deserve;

THAT, as God’s mission to this Mother Earth is preservation and protection of His bountiful creatures, He made all faithfuls, men and women, equal and responsible stewards of His bounties and defenders of the rights He has given;

We, therefore:

1. Reaffirm the sanctity of life and land, and uphold the rights of Lumads to Ancestral Domain and Self-determination;

2. Recognize that the land, as source of life, binds peoples’ diversity of faith – Christian, Muslim and Lumad faithfuls – thus, making a radical outgrowth of these peoples’ faith to God, Allah or Magbabaya;

3. Recognize the Lumads as peoples’ whose cultural traditions are still rooted in the rich cultural values that defend and protect the source of life, and the land;

4. Recognize that the identity and race of the Lumads is rooted and sown in the land, and that no person can own the land because it sustains the lifesource of both the present and the future generations;

5. Urgently pursue the call of saving the Indigenous Peoples, part of God’s creation, from threat of total annihilation or ethnocide through supporting them in their struggle to ancestral Domain and Self-determination;

Recognize that, we, members of different organizations, religious institutions, academe, groups and individuals, and other Lumads advocates have indeed much to contribute for the integral liberation and development of indigenous Peoples in our land.