Caritas Philippines: Development Without the Poor, the Earth, and the Next Generation Is Injustice

Caritas Philippines has warned that development which excludes marginalized communities, harms the environment, and burdens future generations loses its human and moral meaning.

Protesters continued to block a mining company from entering a mineral exploration site in Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya, eastern Philippines, despite a court order directing the removal of community barricades.

A regional court in Bambang last week issued a writ of preliminary injunction allowing Woggle Corporation to access the exploration site, upholding an earlier order to dismantle barricades erected by residents in September that had prevented mining activities in the area.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau granted Woggle an exploration permit in August covering about 3,100 hectares across five villages.

Expressing solidarity with communities opposing mining in Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya, Caritas Philippines said that when development is pursued, the question “Who is missing at the table?” must be raised.

“In Dupax del Norte, three seats remain empty,” Caritas said.

The first seat belongs to the poor—peasant families and rural communities whose voices were sidelined and who now face intimidation, force, and legal pressure, Caritas said. The second belongs to “our common home”—where trees were uprooted without permission, and land and water face irreversible harm, treated as resources to be extracted rather than gifts to be protected. The third belongs to the next generation, which will bear the long-term consequences of decisions made today for short-term gains.

“Any decision that excludes these three is not merely incomplete; it is unjust,” Caritas said.

“The people’s barricade is not an act of disorder,” Caritas added. “It is the response of communities excluded from decisions that shape their lives, born from the absence of genuine consultation and from the painful experience of having their land threatened.”

Caritas also expressed concern over reports of harassment, arrests, and violent dispersal of residents engaged in peaceful resistance.

“The deployment of armed personnel to enforce corporate entry raises grave moral questions,” it said. “Laws that protect profit while endangering communities may be legal, but they cannot claim moral legitimacy.”

“As a Church, we are called to stand where life is threatened,” Caritas said. “Silence in the face of such suffering is not neutrality; it is complicity.”

Caritas expressed support for the Diocese of Bayombong’s call for an immediate halt to mining exploration activities and for the issuance of a cease-and-desist order to prevent further harm and escalation of conflict.

Caritas also called on the national government to cancel Woggle Corporation’s permit and review policies that place communities and the environment at risk.

“We urge the faithful, civil society, and all people of goodwill to remain vigilant and in solidarity,” Caritas said.

“This is a shared moral responsibility,” it added.