The Winning Piece……

PPDD Executive Director and PPDD as an organization together together with two other organizations represented by colleagues from India and Mongolia were chosen and had been given the “best presentation award” during the closing ceremony of the folk school in view of its creative, unique and very comprehensive way of presenting human rights issues common among countries like Mongolia, India and Southeast Asia especially the Mekong region and that are issues related to Business and Human Rights i.e. mining, logging, and gas exploration and other related issues which causing massive human rights abuses. These HR activists composed a song in two hours time complete with melody discussing these issues with a power point presentation visually showing the message of the song. They also performed their composition in front of the judges and other participants which ended with huge applause and praise.

Here is the winning piece…..

The struggles of our people ……….

We come from different nations
Mongolia, India and the Philippines
But our problems are the same
Land confiscation! Displaced people!
Environmental destruction, child labor and militarization
Who’s to blame? Who’s to blame?

ADB, MNCs, and the World Bank
You come to our lands
You take away our lands
You set-up factories
Extract our natural resources
Exploit our people and violate our rights

You destroy our environment
You bribe the authorities to suppress us
And when we resist, the police and the military take our lives

Chorus 2x:

It’s our place!
It’s our rights!
It’s our people!
It’s our homelands!
We will fight for our rights!

Fresh air and nature… that’s our rights!
Water, air, rivers and forests… that’s our rights!
So go back
Give us back our lands
Give us back our freedom
Give us back our lives
We will not give up
We will not give up our rights
We will stand and fight

(Repeat chorus 2x)