Sarah “Bestang” Dekdeken is the Secretary General of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), an alliance of 307 of indigenous peoples’ and sectoral organizations, and belongs to the Kankanaey-Igorot indigenous people in the Cordillera region, northern Philippines. She is a long-time indigenous activist who advocates against corporate mining, mega-dams, and other destructive projects in the Cordillera. Bestang is among the victims of the Philippine government’s attacks against activists and human rights defenders. Bestang has reportedly been experiencing intensified red-tagging, terrorist labeling and political vilification especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. She faces an allegedly trumped-up case of cyber libel filed by the Cordillera police chief for speaking out against the police’s desecration of a Cordillera heroes’ monument dedicated to Dulag, Pedro Dungoc and Lumbaya Gayudan, whom were killed because of their fight against the World Bank-funded Chico Dam project construction  wayback in the 1970s.