Continuous Heavy Rains, Successive Typhoons, and the Growing Threat from Hydropower and Mining Projects in the Cordillera
July 25, 2025
A Region Drowning in Disaster
The Cordillera is beset with impending disasters —not only from the pounding rains and serial typhoons, but from decades of corporate plunder and development aggression that transformed our ancestral domains into disaster zones. The disasters are not merely caused by nature alone. It is the inevitable consequence of corporate greed and government neglect.
Barely a month into the typhoons season, consecutive typhoons Bising, Crising, Emong, and the monsoon rains have caused massive landslides and flooding, and the destruction of critical infrastructure. As of July 21, according to OCD-CAR, 7,956 families or 24,679 persons in 69 barangays across the Cordillera were affected. Highways such as Kennon, Halsema, and other lifelines have been made impassable, cutting off communities and stopping the delivery of goods and services.
The rains not only swept soil but also livelihoods. Based on the partial report of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) on July 22, 2025, the Cordillera and its nearby regions have been heavily affected by typhoons and monsoons, incurring P339.3 million worth of agricultural damage. Over 31,172.23 hectares of agricultural land have been submerged or washed away, destroying the livelihoods of more than 23,385 farmers struggling to restore their fields and their lives. These include vital staples such as rice, vegetables, and livestock — the very foundation of our regional food systems.
Hydropower and Mining: The Silent Weapons of Destruction
Let us be clear: mega dams and large-scale mining are not the answers to climate crisis — they are the accelerators of disasters. Large-scale mining and the so-called “green” projects such as hydropower dams have caused decades of environmental destruction, land dispossession, economic dislocation, and lives taken.
Ambuklao, Binga and Magat dams, already at spilling levels, have recently opened their floodgates, raising alerts to downstream communities for water level rise and flood risks.
Communities in the mining areas in Benguet are wary of killer landslides and ground subsidence, which occur during the typhoon season as a result of more than a century of large-scale mining. The latest Itogon landslide that killed three miners is yet another grim proof of such mining disasters.
On top of large-scale mining and dams already in operation, as of April 30, 2025, five Geothermal Projects and 106 Hydropower Projects have been awarded by the Department of Energy while a total of 106 large-scale mining applications are further threatening the entire Cordillera.
This is not development. It is slow death. A place rich in Indigenous wisdom and natural resources is being offered up to corporate greed and disasters, project by project.
Climate Crisis + Corporate Capture = Systematic Injustice
We are in a state of climate emergency, yet the prevailing government and corporate action is to greenwash destruction. The profit-driven large-scale mining and renewable energy projects — false solutions to the climate crisis — undoubtedly cause long-term destruction and disasters, and systemic violations of our rights as Indigenous Peoples to our lands, resources, culture, and identity.
We are being turned into climate refugees and squatters in our own lands. Worse, our human rights are further violated by unjustly and wrongfully criminalizing us and branding us terrorists and enemies of the state in our struggle to defend our lands and rights.
This is state violence and betrayal of our shared future.
- No More Dams. No More Mines. No More Lies.
- STOP all destructive hydropower and large-scale mining projects
- UPHOLD Indigenous Peoples’ rights and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
For Reference:
Sarah Dekdeken
CPA