49 Bae Inatlawan, the overall chieftain of the Daranghuyan Ancestral Domain in Mt. Kitanglad in southern Philippines, highlighted the value of the environment to her tribe, sharing that they regularly perform rituals and prayers to appease the spirits for sins committed against the environment.238 However, some of their cultural practices, including planting rituals that depend on cues from nature, have been rendered unreliable and ineffective due to the erratic changes in weather. 239 Rica Diamzon Cahilig, a member of the Aeta-Ambala indigenous community, shared her fear of losing the cultural traditions of her people because their natural resources could no longer provide the food and medicine they have relied on since time immemorial. The same is true for the tradition of Baki– a ritual practiced by Ifugao people before planting and after harvesting to prevent pests from eating rice grains. Dalia Naliw, an Ifugao culture bearer, explains that “the Baki tradition is observed by not taking a bath for a month” which has become unbearable because of the scorching heat.240 With these, it is clear that climate change adversely affects the Filipinos’ cultural rights and threatens their cultures’ very existence. viii. Right to Self-Determination and Right to Development Article 1 of the ICCPR and the ICESCR declare that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Related thereto is the right to development. Article 1 of the Declaration on the Right to Development241 states that “the right to development is an inalienable human right” and that “the human person is the central subject of development.” The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development (Rio Declaration) further puts the human being “at the center of concerns for sustainable development,”242 encompassing environmental protection.243 238 Bae Inatlawan, Northern Mindanao Community Dialogue, at 10. 239 Bae Inatlawan, Focus Group Discussion in Northern Mindanao, at 40. 240 T.S.N. of the Third Inquiry Hearing dated 29-30 August 2018, at 183-184. 241 United Nations General Assembly, Declaration on the Right to Development, A/RES/41/128 (Dec. 4, 1986). 242 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I) (Aug. 12, 1992) [hereinafter Rio Declaration] (Principle 1). 243 Id. (Principle 4).

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents