Quarantining activism: COVID-19, frontline defenders and intensifying extractivism in the Philippines

Abstract

How does the intersection of authoritarian populism and a global pandemic reinforce the suppression of human rights, dismantle environmental protections, and accelerate resource extraction? In parts of Southeast Asia, the rise of authoritarian regimes has created conditions of impunity in which state and non-state actors have exploited restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic to restrain activism, contain indigenous livelihoods, and intensify resource exploitation. This article explores how political control and violence against activists (‘defenders') under authoritarian Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have intersected with and been reinforced throughCOVID-19 health measures to curtail grass-roots efforts to protect social and environmental safeguards. Since March 2020, violence against defenders has gone viral as activism in the country has been quarantined. Under Duterte's authoritarian populist rhetoric, state actors, parastatal and shadowy assassins have allegedly used public health measures to suppress activism further,enabling the harassment, arrests, and deaths of defenders and the intensification of resource extraction. Based on a critical review of news media and conservation policy, I describe the history and current context of defenders being 'quarantined' by authorities using lockdown measures to coercively suppress social and environmental activism across the country. I examine cases from Palawan Island to show how political authorities and elites have used COVID-19 to suppress defender mobility and enforcement practices and how lulls in defending and discourses of 'pandemic recovery' have facilitated mining and deforestation. The conclusion asserts that paying attention to how political conjunctures produce violent governance and local resistance reveals civil society's crucial role and vulnerabilities in protecting human rights and the environment in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

Environmental defenders suffering death threats and "under protection" in the state of Pará, Eastern Amazonia, Brazil

“…(i) the Notebook of Conflicts in the Brazilian Countryside 3 (2014 to 2020) (CPT, 2015;2016;2017a;2020a;2021a) It should be noted that the time frame is constrained by available and accurate data on leaders threatened with death and "under protection", between 2014death and "under protection", between and 2020death and "under protection", between (CPT, 2021a.…”

“…In the Amazon, 955 leaders were threatened during the same period. Therefore, almost 73% of all threats to these leaders in Brazil are located in the Legal Amazon, an important point to note and a sad reality (CPT, 2015;2016;2017a;2017b2020a, 2020b2021a).…”

“…Figure 2: Percentage of leaders under threat of death in the Legal Amazon between 2014 and 2020. Source: compiled from CPT (2015;2016;2017a;2020a;2021a) Over the same period (2014 to 2020), the state of Pará reported 261 leaders under threat of death. This represents, respectively, 27.32% and 20.43% of the cases in the legal Amazon and across Brazil.…”

“…There are also major issues of negligence by the state regarding social protection and affirmation of rights (Rapozo, 2021;, 2022Villén-Pérez et al, 2022). CPT (2015;2016;2017a;2020a;2021a) When we add the effort of groups seeking access to property and permanence on the land (landless and settler groups, 40.61%) to the struggle of these defenders, the total constitutes 65% of defenders who are threatened with death Pará state, from 2014 to 2020. Violence against defenders is part of a long history of colonization, expropriation of local communities as well as the exploitation of environmental resources (Larsen et al, 2021).…”

Radical social innovations and the spatialities of grassroots activism: navigating pathways for tackling inequality and reinventing the commons

“…The second form of inequality refers to the social-environmental impacts caused by the encroachment and settlement of capitalist forces in specific areas, primarily in the form of extractive, agribusiness, renewable energy and real estate industries, without the consent and approval of local communities but authorized by the state (see also Horowitz, 2012). The grabbing of land and resources has given rise to significant opposition movements across the Global South and North, constituting major sources of environmental conflicts that have led even to the assassination of activists (Dressler, 2021;Le Billon and Lujala, 2020;Prause and Le Billon, 2021;Tran et al, 2020). In Colombia, the small municipality of Piedras organized a popular consultation to give local people a say on whether a South African-based multinational, AngloGold Ashanti S.A., could build the mine tailings dam for the La Colosa mine in their territory.…”