Jomorito Goaynon
Jomorito Goaynon is the Chair of the Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization of Northern Mindanao, a group engaged in the documentation of human rights violations carried out against indigenous peoples invoking ancestral land rights in opposition to large-scale mining and development projects planned for the Mindanao region. The area is home to large copper, gold, aluminium and iron reserves, and one million hectares of grassland which is gradually being turned into pineapple and palm oil plantations in defiance of the right of the indigenous peoples to self-determination.
The situation of human rights defenders has improved, to an extent, since the end of the Arroyo administration in 2010, but the current government has failed to address continuing violations against HRDs. HRDs still face extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, fabricated charges, arrest, denial of bail, threats and intimidation, and restrictions on their rights of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association. Heavy militarisation in some areas, Mindanao in particular, significantly affects the work of HRDs.
