To most Filipinos the island of Luzon represents prosperity and development. Luzon is home to the majority of the country population; it has the biggest land area and is the focal point of infrastructure, investments and services.

What might seem to be a place for opportunity for others however remains a land of despair for most indigenous peoples in the island. Luzon exhibits the most rapid loss of forest cover and depletion of natural resources. It is the only place in the country to have the dubious record of having two of its major rivers officially declared dead.

Luzon is also home to the mineral industry of the country. The exploitation of mineral resources has sparked some of the most bitter and violent struggles among the Indigenous peoples in their effort to protect their rights over their ancestral domains.

With the national political leadership resident within the region, it is reasonable to assume that Luzon might exhibit a fairly informed policy environment over the sustainable and equitable distribution of its resources. But with its resources barely able to sustain, the mad scramble to wrest control over access to resources has distorted priorities in favor of large-scale, corporate-led development with the premise of tricle-down economic benefits to the people.

Sadly, this has not been the case with indigenous peoples. Ironically, this sector has paid the largest share of the cost of development the loss of ancestral lands, ejection from traditional hunting grounds, the systematic degradation of their culture, and worsening racial discrimanation and yet they have benefited the least. The price they have paid shall never be commensurate to what we as a nation have lost.