[Bayan Muna partylist Rep. Eufemia C. Cullamat, explains via Zoom, her “No” vote to HB 6875 (the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020) via Zoom, at the House of Representatives’ session on 3 June 2020]

NO ang boto ng representasyong ito sa panukalang Terror Bill. Ayon sa Kongreso at Malacanang, pangontra raw ito sa terorismo at mga terorista, subalit kung susuriin natin ito ng mabuti, may ibang layuning ang panukalang ito. Hindi ito para sa mga terorista kung hindi para ito sa mga kritiko, aktibista o sa mga ordinaryong mamamayan na tumututol sa mga katiwalian at maling pamamalakad ng gobyerno.

Ang Terror bill ay labag sa ating saligang batas. Walang ano mang panukalang batas ang dapat lumusot kung ito ay lumalabag sa ating konstitusyon. Partikular sa Section 1 Article 3 o ang Bill of Rights, na nagsasabing bago mapagkaitan ng buhay, kalayaan at ari-arian ang isang tao, dapat ay may due process. Dapat Korte ang magpapataw nito para masiguro ang due process.

Sa ilalim ng Terror Law na ito, ang Anti–Terror Council ay binigyan ng nakababahalang kapangyarihang mag-designate o magtakda kung sino ang terorista, kahit walang utos ng korte o marapat na proseso ng batas. Kapag nadesignate na bilang terorista, lahat ng parusa o measures na ipinataw ng batas na ito para sa terorista ay maaari ng gamitin laban sa binansagang terorista, kahit hindi dumaan sa korte o walang panghukumang proseso. Sa ilalim ng terror bill, maaari na ding makulong ang isang taong hinuli ng 14 days kahit hindi pa nasasampahan ng kaso.

Totoong nakakasuklam ang TERORISMO; dapat itong gapiin. Subalit hindi sa pagwasak sa mga saligang karapatan ng mamamayan na ginagarantyahan ng ating saligang batas. Walang magagaping terorismo kung ang iiral lamang ay ang Terorismo ng gobyerno laban sa kanyang mamamayan.

Nararapat ko lamang ilahad ang mga saloobin ko. Bilang isang Lumad na galing sa Mindanao, may responsibilidad ako sa bayan na ito at sa kapwa kong katutubo na tutulan at labanan ang baluktot at immoral na mga polisiya na kontra-mamamayanan.

Mahal ko ang bansa ko. Hindi ako pwedeng magbulag-bulagan at magbingi-bingihan sa mga pangyayari ngayon. Kaya’t palagi kong ipapahayag ang hinaing naming mga katutubo at magsasaka.  Muli, hindi higit pang panunupil ang solusyon sa mapanupil nang sistema na nagdulot ng kawalan ng hustisya, lupa, disenteng trabaho.

Tutol ako sa terror bill sapagkat mahal ko ang aking bansa at ang aking mga mamamayan.

IBASURA ANG PANUKALANG TERROR BILL NA ITO.

READ:
Mindanawon reps warn anti-terror bill won’t eradicate but exacerbate terrorism 

[Anak Mindanao partylist Rep.  Amihilda Sangcopan explains via Zoom, her “No” vote to HB 6875  (the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020), at the House of Representatives on 3 June 2020]

Assalamu alaikum Warahmatullahi taala Wabarakatu.

Anak Mindanao votes “NO” vote to HB No. 6875 that repeals the Human Security Act of 2007 because of the unimaginable sufferings this piece of legislation may cause to individuals, groups, communities, and ethnicities out of sheer “terrorist” tagging.

For years, after the 9/11 attack, Islamophobia worsened. Muslims have been negatively stereotyped as extremist that has resulted in bias, discrimination, and marginalization. It is a brand that we, Muslims, strive to change each day, hoping that someday, we shall walk and share this earth with you as equals.

But with the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, this monstrous and evil legislation not only violates constitutional guarantees, but it also tramples almost every known article under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

And while we, the Filipino Muslims and members of the indigenous peoples remain unprotected from the prejudiced and the Islamophobic adherents with the non-passage of a law that will prohibit discrimination on account of ethnic and religious affiliation, this Bill will unjustifyingly broaden the influence of the already heavy-handed military and police forces through the extension of their surveillance power – including wire-tapping and recording our conversations, effecting warrantless arrests, and prolonging detention periods up to 14 days. It also suspends the P500,000 per day penalty against wrongful arrest and imprisonment.

Clearly, the passage of the anti-terror bill will not only be used as a tool for repression in the guise of thwarting terrorism; but it may also be employed to silence the critics and suppress lawful dissent.

Time and again, we have felt these oppressions when the PNP reportedly did the noble act of issuing a memorandum that orders the profiling of all Muslim High School students in Metro Manila. They say it is their way of strengthening peace-building and to counter violent extremism by summarization directed only against our kind.

Time and again, we have felt these oppressions when a miner and a farmer from Maco, Davao de Oro were eating balut in downtown Tagum when they were accosted and accused of being thieves by soldiers. For days they were beaten and tortured until they were made to dig their own graves, poured crude oil on their bodies, set them on fire, and left for dead.

Time and again, we have felt these oppressions when we were driven out of our homelands because of an ensuing war that is not of our making.

Time and again, we have felt these oppressions when we are bullied because of the way we dress and how we exercise our religion.

Surely, the passage of the HB 6875 will embolden more oppressors who will wield its power under the cloak of an Anti-Terrorism Council.

Kaming mga Moro at Lumad ang madalas na unang biktima ng tunay na terrorismo, hindi lamang sa bansang ito, kundi sa iba’t- ibang panig din ng mundo. At sa pagpapatupad ng batas na ito, naniniwala akong dadagdagan lamang nito ang pagpapahirap at pang-aabuso sa tulad naming nahuhusgaan nang mga terorista bago pa man malaman ang aming mga pangalan o makita ang aming mga mukha.

This law is not the way to combat terrorism, but a way to further  incite people to resort to violence. Kalakip po ng aking pagboto, as  representative of Anak Mindanao (AMIN) Partylist, ang aking dasal  na nawa’y patnubayan tayo ng Panginoon sa ating desisyong magpapabago sa buhay ng napakaraming tao.

I vote NO to HB 6875. Salamat po.

READ:
Mindanawon reps warn anti-terror bill won’t eradicate but exacerbate terrorism 

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / 13 June) — Magandang reminder ang Hunyo 12, Independence Day. Apat na magandang alaala ang naramdaman ko. Una ang kanta ng national anthem; pangalawa ang centennial parade sa Iligan; pangatlo ang kanta uli sa isang komperensya sa mga college students sa Davao, at pang-apat ang mga karanasan ko sa mga klase ko, sa Lumad at sa mga Bangsamoro.

Mula sa Grade I, 1949 hanggang Grade VI sa Dinaig Elementary School, ngayon Nuro Elementary School na, Sandi sanding torning ang kanta namin araw-araw sa flag ceremony. Ito ang Land of the Morning. Ito ang national anthem hanggang naghaiskul ako sa siyudad ng Cotabato. Sa first year, Notre Dame Boys Department, Ingles na lang talaga, bawal ang hindi Ingles, may multa, ito na rin ang national anthem namin. Pag second year, 1957-58, dumating ang Lupang Hinirang pero Bayang Magiliw ang nakatimo sa dibdib ko. Itinuro ito sa Music class namin, at ang klase namin ang nag-lead sa flag ceremony ng buong haiskul. Hanggang ngayon, retired na ako, ito pa rin ang naririnig ko.

Sa isang kumperensiya sa Ateneo de Davao, 2014, puro mga senior na mga estudiante, siyempre nandoon din ang kanilang mga titser. Ako ang resource person. Merong akong dala na digital copy ng national anthem natin, sa Espanyol, sa Ingles at yong sa ngayon. Heto: Tierra Adorada. Land of the Morning, at Bayang Magiliw. (Heto ang link sa internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcGCGuzTNPA)

Pinatugtog ko sa opening bago ako nagsalita. Sa Tierra Adorada, nakaupo sila, walang reaksyon, tahimik lang. Tumingin ako sa kanilang mata, walang reaksyon talaga. Sa Land of the Morning, ganon din, nakaupo rin, wala ring  kibo. Sa Bayang Magiliw, automatic, tumayo lahat, ang palad nagpunta sa dibdib. Merong kumakanta rin. Ramdam na ramdam ang enerhiya at espiritu ng pagkabansa. Buhay na buhay.

Sa Centennial parade sa siyudad ng Iligan, malaking selebrasyon ito. Meron magagandang float, meron din mga banda. Siyempre yong mga sikat tulad ni Bonifacio, si Rizal, sina Gomburza, si Mabini at iba pa. Nanood ako, sa sidewalk ako nakatayo; meron akong katabi na Meranao. Siniko ko, tanong ko sa kanya, Brod, anong tingin mo. Ang sagot niya: Inyo man na. Maliwanag sa akin. Hindi siya makakonek.

Sa mga klase ko, laging tinatanong  ko  sa mga estudiante ko, anong tingin ninyo sa bandila ng Pilipinas.  Ang mga Muslim, ang sagot nila: Wala kami diyan.

Dagdag tanong ko, bakit? Ang sagot nila: 333 years na lumaban ang aming ancestors sa mga Kastila, wala diyan sa flag.

Sa mga kumperensiya ng mga Lumad, nagtatanong din ako sa mga partisipante, ramdam ba ninyo ang pagiging Filipino. Ang sagot: hindi. Bakit? Dito kami naging minority sa sarili namin ancestral domain. Sa sumunod na diskusyon sa kasaysayan ng Mindanaw-Sulu. Sa dulo ng isang diskusyon, meron akong napulot mula sa isang Timuay ng Erumanen (pinuno sa Manobo), 2001. Ang wika niya. Hindi na natin puedeng ibalik ang kasaysayan, tapos na yon. Itong Mindanaw, ituring natin na isang kolon o palayok. Nakatayo sa tatlong paa. Ang tatlo: ang Bangsamoro, ang Lumad at ang settlers. Halata na hindi pantay ang populasyon, una Bangsamoro 20%, ang Lumad 10%, ang settlers 70%, batay sa senso ng 2000. Sabi niya, tumingin tayo sa ating pagkatawo, inilagay ang palad sa dibdib niya, diyan tayo pantay. Maliwanag na nasa pagtanggap sa isa’t isa upang manatiling matatag ang Mindanaw.

Nagkaroon ng collective name na Lumad sa Mindanaw noong 1986, sa pagsisikap na magkaroon ng sariling pamahalaan sa loob ng sariling ancestral domain. At sumulpot ang IPRA (Indigenous Peoples Rights Act 1997) lumipas ng sampung taon. Ngayon buhay at kumikilos na ang kolektibong pangalan at proseso ng ancestral domain claim nila.

Sa Bangsamoro, mahabang usapan at peace agreements sa mga Bangsamoro Fronts, mula pa noong 1975.  Nagpirmahan sa Tripoli Agreement noong 1976, marami pang kulang  at nagkayari noong 1996. Ngayon heto na ang BARMM,  ang bagong Bangsamoro Automatic Region in Muslim Mindanao. Tanggap na sa plebisito noong 2019. Meron pang ilang detalye. Kapag nayari ang proseso ng normalization, o ang disposisyon ng mga armas, susunod na ang Exit agreement. Ito nang katapusan ng gulo sa GPH (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) at sa MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front).

Gumagana na ang proseso ng pagtanggap sa isa’t isa. Ito na ang bagong Pilipinas. Ang pundasyon nakatayo na.  Pagdating ng susunod na pangalawang centennial, tiyak maaliwalas na.

Ang mahalaga, nasa kamay natin kung alin ang detalye na nararapat.

[Si Prof. Rudy Buhay Rodil ay aktibong historyan ng Mindanao, tagapasulong ng kalinaw (Bisaya sa kapayapaan). Kilala siyang espesyalista sa paghusay ng mga gusot sa Mindanao-Sulu. Naging Komisyoner noon ng Regional Consultative Commision sa siyang nagbuo ng draft organic law ng Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao noong 1988. Dalawang beses siyang naging miyembro ng GRP Peace Negotiating Panel. 1993-1996, pakikipag-usap sa Moro National Liberation (MNLF), at noong 2004-2008 sa pakikipag-negosasyon sa Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Naging visiting propesor sa Hiroshima University, Oktubre-Disyembre 2011. Nagretiro noong Oktubre 2007]

ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews / 25 June) — Troopers from the 53rd Infantry (Matapat) Battalion have started their studies on Subanen language and culture to enhance their skills and capability in communicating with the Lumad or Indigenous Peoples of Zamboanga del Sur.

“We have a special group tasked to learn the language and culture of the Subanens as part of our community engagement. When we arrived here in Guipos, for example, there is a gap in language or in communicating,” said Lt Col Jo-ar Herrera, 53IB commanding officer.

The lecture, conducted by Alelie Grace Dawang-Lingating, aimed to break language and cultural barriers and help the troops understand the Lumad’s history, culture and traditions.

Herrera said this will eventually help the soldiers understand issues and concerns in Lumad communities as “part of the winning the peace and development in the remote areas as they are the most vulnerable sector.”

The Subanen, or people of the river, inhabit the Zamboanga Peninsula and Misamis Occidental. A survey conducted in the past decade put their number at around 148,000 in Zamboanga del Sur alone.

They are vulnerable to recruitment to or attack by the New People’s Army as they live in the hinterlands, Herrera said.

“They are the least served by government as they live the farthest. They are underserved, and palaging marginalized,” he added. (Frencie Carreon/MindaNews)

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / 18 July) — Tatlong ang mainam i-highlight sa kanilang kasaysayan sa Mindanao. Bahagi ito ng kanilang pagtubo sa konteksto ng buong Mindanao-Sulu. Una ang nangyari noong taon 1596. Pangalawa ang nagawa ni Mempurok sa Cotabato noong 1926-67. At pangatlo ang pagtatanim ng binhi ng Lumad Mindanao.

Malawak ang pamilya ng mga taga Mindanao, ayon sa pag-aaral na ginawa ni Richard E. Elkins noong 1974. Hindi masabi kung saan nakaugat ang iba’t ibang sangay nga mga ito. Heto ang ginawa niyang mapa na tinawag niyang Geographic extent of Manobo languages based on Ethnologue maps. Iyong pula sa mapa ang tumutukoy sa mga Manobo.   Kung titingin tayo sa kasalukuyang mapa. Magmula tayo sa itaas.

Meron mga Manobo sa Cagayancillo sa Palawan. Sa hilagang meron din sa isla ng Camiguin.

At karamihan sa kanila ay nasasakop sa buong Mindanaw. Ang malaking pulutong ng Manobo ay ang mga taga Agusan-Davao, at ang isa pa ay ang mga Erumanen na nasasakupan ng Central Mindanao, sa  pinagsamang Davao-Cotabato-Bukidnon.

Para sa mga Erumanen ay nakaugat sa magkapatid na Tabunaway at Mamalu. Si Tabunaway na nakakatanda ang nanatili sa sinaunang kultura at paniniwala, si Mamalu ang nakakabata ang naging Muslim at dito nagmula ang mga Maguindanao. Magkaiba na ang kanilang paniniwala, at nagkanya-kanya sila ng teritoryo, pero naging bahagi ng kanilang usapan na mananatiling magkapatid at magtulungan kung kinakailangan, tulad nitong merong kaaway na tagalabas.

Batay sa senso ng 2000, ang populasyon sa Cotabato ay pumapatak sa 169,919 o 17.75 % lamang ang mga Magindanawon, at ang mga Manobo ay 41,862 o 4.37%.

Taon 1596. Napatay ni Ubal si Kapitan Estevan Rodriguez de Figueroa, ang kumander ng Kastila ng ekspedisyon nila sa Cotabato.  Ang misyon niya ay, sa Ingles and nabasa ko:  “to pacify and settle Mindanao”—(mahirap isalin ito!) gawing mapayapa at gawing tirahan ang Mindanao; magiging kanya ang Mindanao sa loob ng dalawang buhay niya.  Dumating siya sa Cotabato, dala ang puwersa na 214 katao na Kastila noong Pebrero 1596. Sakay nila sa  iba’t ibang sasakyan (galleys, galleots, frigates, vireys, barangays, lapis). Meron din silang kasamang ilang Hesuwita at maraming mga “natives” para magsilbi ang pangangailangan ng pwersa. Pagdaan nila sa unang komunidad ng mga Maguindanao, tinutukoy na taga-ibaba ng Pulangi, maraming tagaroon ang nagsisama sa kanila patungo sa Rajah Buayan, lugar ng mga Maguindanawon na taga-ilaya ng Pulangi.

Doon sa Rajah Buayan, napalaban sila sa puwersa ni Datu Silongan (o Sirongan). Mula sa kanyang sasakyan, pinanood ni Figueroa ang takbo ng labanan, at sa tingin niya hindi nagandahan sa takbo ng labanan kaya bumaba siya,  kasama ang apat na katao. Dito sila na-ambush, isa ang tumaga sa kanyang ulo. Si Ubal ang tumaga kay Figueroa; patay din ito nang pinagtulungan siya ng apat na tao ng Kastila. Hindi naman namatay kaagad, kinabukasan pa pumanaw. Ang Hesuwita na si Brother Gaspar Gomez ang nagdala ng balita sa bagong gobernador sa Maynila, at para mabigyan ng maayos na libing.

Dalawang kuwento ang nakarating sa atin mula sa mga kaibigan. Ayon sa kuwento ng mga Maguindanao, si Datu Ubal ay kapatid ni Datu Silongan. Sa istorya ng mga Erumanen (Manobo),  kasamahan nila ito, isa siyang bahani (bagani) sa kanila, at hindi siya datu. Bayani siya ng tribu.

Ang mga Erumanen at ang Maguindanao at nagtulong sa labanang ito. Maliwanag na tinalo nila ang mga Kastila, na di naglaon ay nagsialis.

1926-27. Kilos ng Langkat ng mga Erumanen.

Ang barangay ng Palakat ang lugar ni Datu Busegew Mempurok, anak ni Datu  Sapalaw a Kerentekan, bahagi ito ng Pikit, sakop ng Banisilan na munisipalidad ng Carmen noon. Taong 1920 ng itinatag ng Amerikanong District Supervisor ang dalawang eskwelahan, sa Banisilan at sa Palakat. Lahat ng mga batang nasa wastong edad, pati na yaong dalawampung taon ang edad ay obligadong mag-aral, simula sa unang baytang.  Ang hindi sumunod nga mga magulang ay mabibilanggo.

Humirang ng pinunong Erumanen sa bawat barangay, isa si Mempurok. Di naglaon, nakarating sa Supervisor na maganda ang takbo sa lahat barangay maliban sa lugar sa Palakat.  Ipinatawag ito si Mempurok sa Banisilan at tinanong bakit ganon?

Ang sagot ni Mempurok.  Natatakot ang mga bata sa eswelahan. Binigyan siya ng ultimatum. Siya at lahat ng mga magulang na sumuway ay mabibilanggo.

Sa takot niyang mabilanggo, namundok si Mempurok kasama ang kanyang pamilya. Dalawa sa  kanyang mga anak ang dapat ay nasa eskwelahan. Nagsisama rin ang pamilya ng kanyang kapatid na babae na may anim na anak na puro nasa edad para mag-aral. Sa bundok ng Kitubod sila nagtungo. Habang siya ay naroroon, nagsimula siyang maging patutulus, isang tao na naniniwalang siya ay bukod na pinagpala. Nakarating ito sa kaalaman ng mga tao at mula noon ay marami ang nagpupuntahan sa kanya. Di naglaon ay naging bantog siya bilang pinuno ng Langkat. Inihambing niya ang kanilang sitwasyon sa kalagayan ni Agyu, ang kanilang ninuno.

Nadeskubrihan nila na may mga kababalaghan nga namang pinaggagagawa si Mempurok. Hindi siya kumakain ng maraming araw subalit nananatili siyang malusog. Inaawit niya ang kanilang istorya sa estilo ng Ulahingan na kahit matagalan ay hindi ito napapagod. Ang istorya ay tungkol sa buhay nila sa gubat na walang matirahan, kakaunti ang pagkain at kulang sa damit. Namumula ang katawan nito at umuusok kapag pumasok na raw ang panginoon sa kanya. Ipinalaganap sa ibang mga tao na kapag hindi sila sumunod sa kanya sa Kitubod, maiiwanan sila ng sarimbar (sasakyan na magdadala sa kanila sa pinakamataas na langit).

Gabi-gabi ay nagdarasal sila sa bahay dasalan, namumuno si Mempurok. Doon ito nakapuwesto sa gitna ng plataporma at ang mga alalay naman sa bandang unahan. Apat na mga lider ang nakaupo sa gilid ng plataporma. Sa pinakagitna ay may memeem (lalagyan ng nganga). Puro sila nakaupo sa sahig. Ang mga tao naman, bata at matanda, ay nakaupo sa mga mahahabang upuan.

Itinuturo ng mga diwata sa pamamagitan ng bawat isang pinapasukan nila na dapat at nagtutulungan sila sa isa’t isa, pinapatawad nila ang isa’t isa, hindi sila magnanakaw, hindi sila papatay, hindi sila makikiapid, hindi sila magtitsismis. Ang hindi sumunod sa mga ito ay hindi lalawitan ng awa ng punong diwata. Hinimok din ng mga diwata ang mga walian  na sumunod kay Mempurok.

Subalit dahilan sa dami nila sa Kitubod, kinapos naman sila sa pagkain. Wala ring sarimbar na dumating. Nagpaalam naman sila; kokonti na lamang ang naiwan sa doon.

Ang ibang Muslim na nakisali na rin ay lumihis sa mga itinuturo ni Mempurok. Nireyd nila at pinagbabaril ang mga baka sa rantso ni Manyon, pinutol nila ang linya ng telepono sa pagitan ng Pikit at Banisilan, at pinagnakawan nila ang mga tao at pinapatay. Nang panahong ito ay mas marami na ang mga Muslim kaysa sa Manobo at hindi na sila makontrol ni Mempurok.

Nang makarating sa gobiyerno ang mga balitang ganito, kaagad silang nagpadala ng dalawang Bisayang sundalo na nakadamit Muslim. May suspetsa ang gobiyerno na si Mempurok ang namumuno sa mga Muslim na ito.

Nang bumalik na sa Pikit ang mga sundalo, nilagyan nila ng pananda ang mga daang patungo sa lugar kinalalagyan ni Mempurok.

Marso 23, 1927 nang dumating na ang mga sundalo. Nagkaputukan, tinamaan si Mempurok sa dibdib at dalawang paa. Tatlumpo sa kanyang mga tauhan ang napatay; maraming Muslim din ang nasawi. Marami ang nalunod habang tumatawid sa ilog sa kanilang pag-iwas sa putok. Ang mga miyembro ng pamilya ni Mempurok na nakaligtas ay dinala sa Balogo at doon sila  pinangalagaan  ng pinunong Muslim. Itong nasa litrato, ito si Datu sa Pelew Sumpel Mempurok (ibig sabihin Datu ng Kagubatan), anak ni Datu Busegew Mempurok. Nagkawatak-watak na ang mga Langkat, subalit patuloy pa rin sila, Manobo man o Muslim, sa kanilang mga dalanging Langkat, maging sa kanilang mga taguan.

Para sa ilang mga Muslim,  ang kanilang  iginagalang na Datu Ali na siyang nangulo sa pagsagupa sa mga Amerikano noong unang dekada ng pagdating nga mga Amerikano ay nagbalik sa katauhan ni Mempurok.

Hunyo 1986. Isinilang ang Lumad.

Sa unang pagkakataon sa kasaysayan ng mga tribu sa Mindanaw, doon sa siyudad ng Kidapawan, Cotabato,  nagpasiya ang mga partisipante mula sa 15 tribu ng Mindanaw na tawagin silang Lumad, taga Mindanaw.  Bisaya ito sapagkat sa pamamagitan ng wikang Bisaya, dito lamang sila nagkakaintindihan tuwing nagkakaipon-ipon ang iba’t ibang tribu.

Nagtatag sila ng isang Lumad Mindanaw na organisasyon.  Dala nila ang bagong kolektibong kamalayan, napatanim din ang pagkakaroon ng kanya-kanyang makapagsarili sa loob ng sariling nilang teritoryo at pamahalaan ang sarili nang naaayon sa kanilang asal at kostumbre.

Wala na ang organisasyong ito, subalit ang pangalang Lumad ay nanatili at dumarami ang tumatanggap nito.

Isa pang konsepto ang napadagdag sa kamalayan. Kung papaano makikipagkapwa sa ibang mga mamayan ng Mindanaw at Sulu.

Isang Timuey na Erumanen ng Carmen ang nagsabi tanggapin ang ating kasalukuyan, bunga ng kasaysayan, at hindi na natin maaaring ibalik sa nakaraan. Batay sa senso ng 2000, ang mga Lumad ay 10 porsiyento ng Mindanaw-Sulu, ang mga Bangsamoro ay 20 porsiyento, at ang mga settler ay 70 porsiyento. Ituring nating isang kolon o palayok ang Mindanaw-Sulu, bawat grupo ay tatayong tungko ng palayok. Tanggapin natin ang isa’t isa, tumingin tayo sa dibdib, bilang tao, diyan tayo magkapantay, huwag tumingin tayo sa populasyon. Ang misyon natin na panatiling balanse ang kolon.

[Si Prof. Rudy Buhay Rodil ay aktibong historyan ng Mindanao, tagapasulong ng kalinaw (Bisaya sa kapayapaan). Kilala siyang espesyalista sa paghusay ng mga gusot sa Mindanao-Sulu. Naging Komisyoner noon ng Regional Consultative Commision sa siyang nagbuo ng draft organic law ng Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao noong 1988. Dalawang beses siyang naging miyembro ng GRP Peace Negotiating Panel. 1993-1996, pakikipag-usap sa Moro National Liberation (MNLF), at noong 2004-2008 sa pakikipag-negosasyon sa Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Naging visiting propesor sa Hiroshima University, Oktubre-Disyembre 2011. Nagretiro noong Oktubre 2007]

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews / 07 August) – Around 600 individuals fled two sitios bordering Cabanglasan town in Bukidnon and Kapalong town in Davao del Norte after government troops clashed with suspected New People’s Army guerrillas on Friday last week.

Cabanglasan Mayor Renante Inocando, in an interview Friday with dxDB-Malaybalay said some evacuees stayed in Barangay Mandahikan, Cabanglasan and others at the municipal gymnasium.

Inocando, however, said the evacuees had returned to their homes on Monday.

He said one rebel was killed in the encounter with the 88th Infantry Battalion.

He said soldiers carrying the rebel’s body arrived in Cabanglasan three days after the encounter.

He added the fatality was a Lumad from Barangay Cawayan, San Fernando, Bukidnon.

“We no longer had the body embalmed because it was already decomposing. We just injected it with formalin before turning it over to the local government of Cawayan,” Inocando told dxDB.

The mayor said the evacuees expressed fears and anxiety, but he assured the incident was isolated.

Also in an interview with dxDB on Friday, 88IB commander Lt Col Franklin Fabic identified the slain guerrilla as alias Dodong, reportedly a squad leader of the rebel group.

Fabic said his men recovered an M16 rifle, mobile phones, personal belongings and documents at the encounter site.

He said the rebels retreated towards Agusan del Sur. (H. Marcos C. Mordeno/MindaNews)

KORONADAL CITY (MindaNews / 13 August) – Sagittarius Mines, Inc. (SMI), operator of the US$5.9-billion Tampakan project, Southeast Asia’s largest known undeveloped copper-gold minefield, will rent the ancestral lands of Lumads or indigenous peoples (IPs) for P160,000 per hectare for 25 years, or P6,400 a year or P533.33 a month, the town’s chief executive disclosed.

Mayor Leonard Escobillo revealed the amount was part of the negotiations for the free prior and informed consent (FPIC), one of the requirements that the company needs to acquire from the Lumads to operate in their ancestral lands.

“I believe there’s no justice in that. You rent one hectare of land and you’ll use it for 25 years, that’s only P500 a month. How will a family live with such (amount)?” Escobillo said on Wednesday during the Network Briefing News anchored by Secretary Martin Andanar of the Presidential Communications Operations Office aired live over state-owned Radyo Pilipinas.

The mayor said he believed that the lumads, mostly belonging to the Blaan tribe, “had already consented to the rental rate.”

MindaNews sought SMI officials for comments on Thursday but in vain.

Escobillo said he raised the rental rate issue with SMI but his concern was allegedly disregarded since the firm asserted that the local government unit (LGU) “has no authority over the FPIC.”

The FPIC process is under the turf of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples and is enshrined in Republic Act 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997.

Lawyer Wilfredo Moncano, national director of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), said during the same broadcast that he does not know if both sides have already agreed on the rental rate.

“Supposedly, they should execute a memorandum of agreement. They should agree on what’s acceptable to the community, what’s acceptable to the company. The role of the LGU is to arbitrate when the IPs and the mining company disagree,” Moncano said.

Escobillo said that “being the father of the town, the tribe is also my people, and their welfare is also my interest. I will do everything to protect my people.”

The mayor said that SMI is gearing up to start the construction of facilities needed to support the mining phase.

Road rehabilitation in the Tampakan mining tenement, which straddles the provinces of South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Davao del Sur, has been ongoing and power lines have already been put in place in the area.

Escobillo said the Tampakan LGU wants to reach an updated comprehensive agreement with SMI, since the existing agreement was inked in 2009 or 11 years ago.

In a cryptic message posted on his Facebook wall on Tuesday, the neophyte mayor, who succeeded his father Leonardo, a staunch supporter of the Tampakan project, said he will “never allow big companies to exploit the people of Tampakan. Not during my watch.”

“Responsible & international standard mn kaya… Dividing its people & turn them against their own government,” he added.

SMI had pointed out on many occasions that it will employ responsible mining on par with world-class standards.

The firm had announced that open-pit mining is the most viable method to extract the massive deposits for the Tampakan project, so named because the minefield is located in Tampakan, South Cotabato.

However, the South Cotabato provincial government has banned  the open-pit mining method since 2010. The prohibition is contained in its Environment Code, which pro-mining supporters challenged in a local court here.

If allowed to proceed, the Tampakan project has the potential to yield an average of 375,000 tons of copper and 360,000 ounces of gold in concentrate per annum in the 17-year-life of the mine, a company briefer said.

The national government granted SMI a 25-year Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) that was to expire on March 21, 2020.

The FTAA is subject for renewal for another 25 years, but long before its expiry, SMI sought and was granted a 12-year extension of the original FTAA on June 8, 2016.

Felizardo Gacad Jr., MGB – Region 12 director, confirmed the 12-year extension of SMI’s FTAA, or until March 21, 2032, in January this year.

Also, the firm has already “reacquired” the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) canceled by the late Environment Secretary Gina Lopez in February 2017.

Omar Saikol, Environmental Management Bureau – Region 12 director, disclosed last month in a press conference here that the ECC of SMI has been “restored” by the Office of the President.

“The ECC of SMI was reinstated by the Office of the President on May 6, 2019,” Saikol, reading from a prepared document, told reporters on July 9.

Escobillo acknowledged that the mining project in the mountains poses environmental hazards and poses danger to lives and properties.

SMI had vowed to institute “best mining practices” to mitigate the environmental and social impacts of the project should they go into commercial production. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews / 25 Aug) – Cotabato Governor Nancy Catamco has ordered a thorough probe of the brutal slay of an indigenous peoples (IP) leader in Magpet town on Monday.

Catamco, in a statement, said that no one should take one’s life, much more a woman IP leader whose task was to help improve the lives of other tribes people.

Major Jujie Barotas, chief of Magpet municipal police station, identified the victim as Bae Milda Ansabo of Sitio Tagaytay, Barangay Mahongkog.

Barotas said Ansabo was first hacked by a still unidentified suspect before she was shot to death while on her way home.

Ansabo, as an IP leader, used to cooperate with the local government unit (LGU) in Magpet and worked with the Army and PNP in their quest for peace in the area.

The IP leader’s killing came more than a week after authorities in Magpet arrested a 61-year-old grandmother said to have links with the New Peoples’ Army (NPA). She was slapped with charges of illegal possession of explosives and ammunition.

Meantime, Cotabato Provincial IP coordinator Leah Labrador told investigators that Ansabo was also active in her fight against illegal logging in her village.

Barotas, however, has yet to determine if these cases were related. (Malu Cadelina Manar / MindaNews)

KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews / 27 August) – Three of the four suspects in the murder of a Manobo tribal leader in Magpet town were arrested in two separate areas in North Cotabato, a police officer said.

Police Major Jujie Barotas, chief of the Magpet municipal police station, identified the suspects as Jerry Ansabo Sales of Sitio Kiapat, Barangay Ganatan in Arakan town, Rey Pasayao Ansabo and Junnel Ansabo Rubino, both residents of Kabacan town.

Barotas said the suspects were nieces of the victim identified as Bae Milda Ansabo, 50, of Purok 2-B, Sitio Tagaytay, Barangay Mahongkog.

He said witnesses identified a certain Rufino Rubilito of Arakan town as the triggerman. Considered the mastermind, he has remained at large.

Rubilito’s wife is an Ansabo, also a relative of the victim.

Sales was arrested in Barangay Mahongkog proper in Magpet on August 25, and Rubino and Ansabo in Kabacan town on August 26 by elements of the Magpet police and intelligence operatives of the Regional Intelligence Unit of the Police Regional Office in Region 12. They were turned over to the Magpet police.

The victim’s daughter, a key witness to the killing, positively identified the suspects when they were presented to her on August 27.

The arrests came two days after Cotabato Governor Nancy Catamco, also a Manobo, ordered a thorough probe of the incident and the arrest of the suspects.

Barotas said their investigation showed the killing could have stemmed either from a land conflict or a “power struggle” among members of the Ansabo clan.

A member of the clan was allegedly interested in Bae Milda’s position. But Barotas said this has yet to be validated.

On August 23, the victim and her pregnant daughter were walking home in Sitio Tagaytay when the suspects blocked their path.

The daughter told police that she ran away upon seeing that the suspects were carrying a shotgun and a long knife. Minutes later, she heard shots.

Autopsy results showed that aside from gunshot wounds the victim also sustained hack wounds in different parts of her body.

Barotas said he considered the case closed with the arrest of three of the suspects and filing of a murder complaint against them and Rubilito. (Malu Cadeliña-Manar/MindaNews)

“In the South they are convinced that they are capable of having bloodied their land with history.” — Joan Didion, South and West: From A Notebook (2017)

CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews / 25 September) – Not too long ago, in my time as a high school and college student, there was never a subject, a book chapter, or even a day’s lesson dedicated solely to Mindanaoan history. And looking at the new courses brought about by the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 (“K-12”), I’m sure History’s curricular landscape remains the same, or worse. (Was the subject even scrapped from the college curricula?)

So just like the generations who came before me, I learned, or the more fitting verb is memorized, world history, Asian history, Philippine history, and the life (details more at home in showbiz talk), works, and writings of Rizal as mandated by law. To be fair, I did truly learn world history from volumes of Britannica and Grolier’s Encyclopedia and compact discs of Microsoft Encarta which were status symbols for helicopter parents in the late 90s and later on, have somehow appreciated Asian history, but with a fictional slant, through Korean period dramas and cable channel Arirang TV.

Of course, when historians Gregorio F. Zaide and Teodoro Agoncillo and their textbooks discuss “Philippine” history and all their events, dates, names, all rote learning galore, they mean the establishment of the Katipunan, the Fall of Bataan, the arrival of MacArthur in Leyte, martial law in Manila, and so on, as if history never happens in the south. The narrative remains the same for the heroes: it starts with Lapu-lapu of Cebu and ends with Ninoy Aquino of Tarlac.

This is the linear formula of “national” history.

Mindanao, as if an afterthought, will only be mentioned twice, like a bitter taste in the tongue: first, as the third island group, the second largest, in the country, and second, as the unexplored terrain down south, terra incognita, where barbarians and savages roam the lands and seas.

Case in point: In a bus tour with fellow delegates at a government-sponsored event in Bohol in the pre-quarantine days, a tour guide, who also teaches Tourism courses at a university in the island province, would say, “The raiders and pirates feared by the early Boholanos come from Mindanao,” followed by an Islamophobic remark. Even in the Visayas, this is the prevailing story. So I gave her a death glare and sent an email of complaint to the offices on provincial tourism and of the provincial governor. The next day, an annoying bald man who is a better fit to a carnival replaced her. I was given the seat with the best view and discount coupons to some pasalubong centers. My hotel room was also filled with more toothpaste bottles, soap bars, and more toothpaste bottles.

The Zaide and Agoncillo textbooks, at least as of their 2010 editions, did not mention that Mindanao’s original inhabitants—the Moro (the Islamized natives) and the Lumad (the non-Islamized natives)—were displaced from the coastal areas to the mountainous hinterlands by the Spaniards, the Americans, and the Christianized settlers from Visayas (Cebuano and Ilonggo) and Luzon (Ilocano) who were promised by the colonizers with a land to till. These settlers then formed state-funded paramilitary groups to counter the resistance of Moro—named so by the Spaniards after the “Mohammedan Moors” from northern Africa who, for some time, occupied southern Spain—who were defending their ancestral lands with more success. Mindanao as the “land of promise” is a rhetoric of colonial invasion and land-grabbing.

So begins a long and violent (erasure in) history.

Almost a decade after my last history class, I came across “A Mountain of Difference: The Lumad in Early Colonial Mindanao” (Cornell University-Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2013) written by Cagayan de Oro-born anthropologist Oona Paredes, a professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, whom I met once in a national convention for anthropologists held at Capitol University. (As of 2019, Paredes is with the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures of the University of California, Los Angeles.)

Using techniques of narrative history in retelling historical accounts, interlaced with vignettes and ethnography, based on interviews conducted in and oral ethnohistory on Mindanao, archival researches in the United States and Spain, among others, Paredes cites the histories of the south of “las dychas islas” (literally, the aforementioned islands) later named Filipinas after Spain’s King Phillip II, and the rivalry between the Recoletos (Order of Augustinian Recollects) and the Jesuits (Society of Jesus).

The historical figures from northern Mindanao she mentions, which deserve their space in history textbooks, include Datu Salangsang who led the Kagayanon Lumad conversion to Christianity upon the entry of the Recoletos in 1622. Thus, breaking ties with Sultan Kudarat (“Corralat” in Spanish) of the Maguindanao sultanate, the Kagayanon’s former allies. Backed up with archival research from the Recoletos private archives in Marcilla and the Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos in Sevilla, both in Spain, Paredes provides a counternarrative against the more dominant historical version championed by Jesuit historian Francis Madigan, SJ’s “The Early History of Cagayan de Oro” (1963) published in the journal Philippine Studies.

In the nearby Tagoloán River lived another historical figure Apu Pabulusen, the chieftain of the Lumad settlement before 1744. Pabulusen, whose descendants were spread throughout the Misamis Province all the way to Sinakungan (present-day Agusan del Sur) was believed to be the biological, not mythical, ancestor of the Higaunon, Bukidnon, and Manobo people. Further east, a Karaga Lumad woman in the name of María Campan gained her a special attention not because of her crimes (her participation to the unsuccessful 1631 Karaga revolt was only minimal), but because she was a woman. This showed a stark contrast of worldview in terms of gender between the colonizers who were scandalized and those of the Lumad.

Paredes, a widely-published scholar with a specialization in Higaunon ethnohistory and editorial board member of Kinaadman: A Journal of the Southern Philippines, the flagship publication of Xavier University Press, also credits whom she calls the “often iconoclastic” scholars of Mindanao Studies who came before her, i.e. Rudy Buhay Rodil, Edvilla Talaroc, Bro. Karl Gaspar CSsR, Linda Montilla-Burton, Macario Tiu, Fr. Albert Alejo SJ, among others. She wrote the book I exactly needed when I was still learning local history, while most history professors, born and raised here, took Zaide and Agoncillo without questioning the dominant “national” narrative that affords only cursory attention to Mindanao. (To be fair, one of my favorite teachers, Sir Pete, was from the history department.)

In the essay “Imagining Regions,” Resil B. Mojares, one of the only two living national artists for literature that makes sense (the other one being Bienvenido Lumbera), reflects on “our pallid constructs of the nation-state.” Mojares adds, “What harkens to the regional is then perceived to be… for believers in ‘official’ nationalism… divisive and subversive.” To the sycophantic follower bereft of multiculturalism and multilingualism, anything outside the ultranationalist Tagalog-as-Filipino creed, is deemed rebellious. But if the (non-violent) rebellion of working outside the system, of questioning, of refusal, of unbecoming, is what it takes to be given attention, then, rebel we will: a kind of rebellion that does get recorded on any Philippine history textbook.

That, or we write our own. (J Sam Pantoja Young has been involved with international nonprofits concerned with the Bangsamoro peace process and Lumad sovereignty in Mindanao. She divides her time between the suburbs of Cagayan de Oro and the beaches of Baler.)

CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews / 05 October) — The alleged leader of the “Mangahat-Bagani” fighters, a paramilitary group allegedly responsible for the 2015 killing of an alternative school teacher and the burning of a Lumad school in Surigao del Sur, was killed along with two others in an ambush purportedly staged by the communist rebels on Sunday, the military said.

Lt. Kris Punzalan, 3rd Special Forces Battalion information officer, said that Hawudon Jomar Bucales, Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representative of Lianga town, Surigao del Sur, was killed by suspected New People’s Army rebels in the ambush in Sitio Mamsapranon, Barangay Banahao also in Lianga town.

Also killed in the ambush were Bucales’ companions identified as Alberto dela Peña and Artemio Muldez, he added.

Punzalan said that Bucales and six other companions were returning home after installing a Lumad leader in Barangay Banahao when the suspected rebels ambushed them.

”Bucales and his group fought back and were able to retreat but he went back to get his two (dead) companions. Unfortunately he was hit and died,” Punzalan said.

Bucales was tagged as the leader of the Mangahat-Bagani paramilitary group responsible for the killing of Emerito Samarca, 54, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Livelihood Development, and the burning of a Lumad school in Sitio Han-ayan, Diatagon town in Surigao del Sur on Sept 1, 2015.

The killing triggered a massive evacuation of Lumads, prompting Senator Aquilino Pimentel III and former Senator Teofisto Guingona III to conduct a two-day Senate investigation.

Pimentel and Guingona issued statements calling for the arrest of Bucales and another Lumad leader, Marcial Belandres, and the disbandment of the Mangahat-Bagani group whom they accused to have ties with the military.

Interviewed by MindaNews then, Bucales denied the accusation and offered a narrative to what had happened.

Bucales said that it started when his relatives led by a certain Bobby Tejero went back to the communist rebels, bringing with them five high-powered firearms from Datu Calpit Egua in October 2014.

He said Calpit, angered with the stolen rifles, armed the Lumads and ordered the burning of the Lumad school and the killing of Samarca.

Bucales said that Calpit, who is his uncle, is the richest among the datus (tribal chieftains), operating a gold mining site in the boundary of Barangay La Purisima in Prosperidad town and Barangay San Juan in Bayugan town, all in Agusan del Sur.

Part 3 of 7: Value of the RCC-MM as a Political Process

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews / 8 October) – As a political process the RCC-MM was a first in modern Philippine political life. To put it in proper perspective, however, it must be seen not only as a first but, perhaps, most especially as a part of a bigger political exercise.

From the time President Marcos consented to negotiate with the MNLF through the mediation of the Organization of Islamic Conference, more specifically the Quadripartite Commission which it created to attend to the Bangsamoro problem, up to the continuation of the same process in the Aquino administration, one will immediately see the bilateral character of the talks.

At the same time, one will also notice a consistent failure of the two parties to agree. The provisions of the Tripoli Agreement and the Jeddah Accord will reveal, on closer examination, a failure to agree on substantive matters.

But a most basic weakness of the bilateral process is the exclusion of the millions of people whose very lives happen to be the subject of negotiations.

In the Tripoli agreement, for instance, the second provision refers to the 13 provinces and all cities and villages therein as the areas of autonomy “for the Muslims in the Southern Philippines.”

And yet, one look at the 1970 census will show that the Muslim population constitutes only one-fourth of the total in the areas enumerated.

What would happen to three-fourths of the inhabitants?

And what about the Lumad groups which are equally in need of autonomy?

In the Jeddah accord, both parties agreed “to continue discussion of the proposal for the grant of autonomy to Mindanao, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Palawan subject to democratic processes.” If the exclusion of the rest of the population is noticeable in the first, it is even more so in the second.

And how were the areas of autonomy chosen? Why 23 provinces? Why not 20 or 15?  Why 13 provinces? Why not 12 or 11? Unfortunately, no negotiation documents have so far revealed any close scrutiny or discussion on the basis for selection of provinces and cities for the autonomy.

Just to emphasize the obvious, why where the two Zamboanga provinces and the province of Davao del Sur included in the Tripoli agreement?

Apparently, it never occurred to anyone to inquire from the Lumad groups whether it was they or the Muslims who have been numerically dominant in these areas.

The introduction of the Regional Consultative Commission in the Constitution and the specific instructions of R.A. 6649 for the commission to conduct public consultations constitute a radical departure from the bilateral approach.

As interpreted by the Office of the President and later confirmed in R.A. 6649 by Congress, each of the 27 congressional districts would be represented in the regional consultative commission, and these in turn were balanced with sectoral representatives.

And so, for the first time in Philippine modern political history, we have gathered together, representatives from Lumads, Muslims and Christians with a constitutional mandate to thresh out a modus vivendi among themselves in an autonomous region.

The public consultations they were bound by law to conduct prior to or as a pre-requisite to substantive deliberations further insured that popular sentiments would be heard and transmitted to the plenary deliberations.

Then from the RCC-MM, the work is passed to Congress for final enactment into law. As soon as the President signs the organic act into law, it is sent back to the people for judgment in a plebiscite.

The cycle from-the-people-to-the-people is completed.

The RCC-MM was in effect part of an entire cycle of a peacemaking process.

But then, people sympathetic to the MNLF would continue to object aloud: the Bangsamoro Fronts had no part in it, how can it be an instrument of peace? This question carries a mouthful of assumptions which are without solid foundations.

In the first place, there is the belief that the cause of lack of peace in the region are the Bangsamoro Fronts; for this reason, they are a necessary party to the restoration of peace. The existence of Muslim-Christian conflict within the area, specifically in Central Mindanao belies this.

Secondly, it is thought that the Fronts unquestionably speak for and in behalf of Bangsamoro inhabitants which by MNLF definition happens to include the Lumad population. Lumad groups generally refer to themselves as Lumad, Highlander, Tribal Filipinos, and the like depending on their orientation.

But seldom, if ever, do they call themselves Bangsamoro. Most often they use their ethnolinguistic names.

Finally, it is assumed that differences between the Fronts and the Government could be settled constitutionally. Although elements in the latter may claim to be so, it is more than obvious that whenever they meet at the negotiating table, they speak their own distinct languages over each other’s heads.

But how can anyone say the constitutional experiment was successful when the RCC-MM did not reach its goal, and whatever it finished was later supposedly mangled by Congress? And what Congress produced that was approved by the President was later soundly rejected by the majority of the voters during the plebiscite called for the purpose?

The equation seems logical enough. But there is a need to clarify a number of things.

First, the failure of the RCC-MM to attain its self-imposed goal is the ultimate result of a complex of issues that revolved around the controversy over “Muslim  Mindanao.”

It certainly had a direct role in maneuvers of its advocates to delay and postpone deliberations on the name to the last minute. The tensions that were created in the process raised other complications.

There were also administrative matters, indecisions included, that hampered rather than facilitated deliberations both at the Committee and at Commission levels. Altogether, finally, the issues reflect the very social dynamics obtaining in the region among the Lumad, Muslims and Christians which the Commission as a whole cannot claim to have overcome.

The failure of the RCC-MM to achieve its goal of a completed draft organic act should not mean a total failure to undertake its principal task of assisting Congress in drafting the organic act.

There was much substance in the final report; the will and sentiments of the people were generally reflected in the provisions. After the Mindanao Affairs Committee in the Senate and the Local Government Committee in the House heard from the Commission, the bills for the organic act filed in both Houses were faithful reflections of what RCC-MM had accomplished.

What was left of the original final report when both Houses passed the act must be considered in light of additional factors like the constitutionality of certain provisions, the contradictions among the provisions and others which the RCC-MM did not resolve by themselves in the first place. Insertions in Congress where no RCC-MM-made provision existed cannot possibly be regarded as a case of mangling. But we shall have space below for some internal analysis of the organic act.

The so-called rejection by the majority of voters in the region which is equated as the rejection of the constitutional approach and the Cory solution is a case of static and simplistic quantification.

It has been known in the proposed area of autonomy by those scholars from a consortium of Mindanao universities who did a study in 1987 about the acceptability of autonomy and came out with the results in March 1988 that those in favor were generally the five Muslim-dominated provinces.

Participants in the public consultations have warned of the same result and these were those who advised that the RCC should stop wasting its time with places that do not want to be part of autonomy.

In short, those who were generally opposed to autonomy remained so from beginning to end; and those who were in favor remained in favor. There were no noticeable substantial deviations except in the latter with the no vote prevailing in Basilan and Marawi City.

And the reasons given in the study were substantially the same reasons repeated in the consultations and, later, in the information drive.

It was the Muslims who have fought for autonomy and it was naturally they who favor its establishment.

Non-Muslims, whether Christians or Lumad, were quite consistent in their perception that autonomy was for the Muslims and not for them. Put negatively, they say that they do not want to be dominated by the Muslims. One personal experience is worth recalling here.

One week before the November 19, 1989 plebiscite, I inquired from my four classes in History (History of the Moro people and the Lumad groups of Mindanao) whether they have heard of autonomy in Muslim Mindanao and the organic act and the plebiscite. They answered YES.

These students came from all over Mindanao. I also asked them if they wanted to have their place as part of the autonomous region. Ninety-four percent said NO.

Asked why, the most common reason given was they did not want to be dominated by the Muslims.

Then I gave them a copy each of the organic act and together we looked for provisions saying that Muslims would dominate the Christians. They found none, as indeed there was none.

Instead there were a number on equality. Also, the overall impression was that there was nothing in the act that would prejudice the Christians. There were also advantages for those which would become part of the autonomy.

Yet, when a second round of voting was done, the same ninety-four percent voted NO – obviously, responding by the heart, from all appearances.

Tomorrow: Judging the Product: Reviewing Certain Points in R.A. 6734 – An Act Providing for an Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao

[Si Prof. Rudy Buhay Rodil ay aktibong historyan ng Mindanao, tagapasulong ng kalinaw (Bisaya sa kapayapaan). Kilala siyang espesyalista sa paghusay ng mga gusot sa Mindanao-Sulu. Naging Komisyoner noon ng Regional Consultative Commision sa siyang nagbuo ng draft organic law ng Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao noong 1988. Dalawang beses siyang naging miyembro ng GRP Peace Negotiating Panel. 1993-1996, pakikipag-usap sa Moro National Liberation (MNLF), at noong 2004-2008 sa pakikipag-negosasyon sa Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Naging visiting propesor sa Hiroshima University, Oktubre-Disyembre 2011. Nagretiro noong Oktubre 2007.]

16^th of 18 parts

Part XVI

Chapter 7. It is Time for New Relationships

To complete the story of the formal peace process, it would have been fitting to also provide an account of the progress of implementation of the Peace Agreement. But until the plebiscite on the revised Organic Act of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanaw is duly held and the results officially proclaimed, the process is not deemed complete and any account will be hanging and inconclusive. Our option is to merely give an overview of the status of implementation and proceed to the discussion of the other important dimensions of the peace process as a whole.

Status of Implementation

As of this writing, House Bill No. 7883 has been passed (in July 1999) in the House of Representatives and has been filed in turn in the Senate. It has undergone first reading and is presently being processed by the Committee on Local Government. While we cannot tell when the new legislation will be enacted by Congress and signed into law by the President, we are assured that all this will be accomplished before the local elections of May 2001.

The integration of the 7,500 MNLF mujahideen into the AFP and the PNP is, as of March 2000, 91% completed. A total of 5,250 MNLF members have been integrated into the Armed Forces. By the end of year 2000, the full integration of the MNLF elements shall have been attained. A total of 1,250 former MNLF elements have been integrated with the Philippine National Police (PNP). The remaining 250 took their oath last March 2000.[1]

The Office of the President issued E.O. 371 proclaiming a Special Zone Of Peace And Development (SZOPAD) in   the southern Philippines, and creating the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD) and the Consultative Assembly (CA). The performance of the SPCPD and the CA has been full of controversy. The government claims that it has fulfilled its part to the letter; the MNLF counters that the government has never provided sufficient funds and guidelines to enable it to succeed. This matter constitutes an entirely new subject for research. We are attaching here a copy of the Joint Monitoring Committee Report. (Appendix F). Let us now move on to other important dimensions of the peace process.

Where Stand the Lumad in the GRP-MNLF Peace Process?

A quick look at the population figures of the 14 provinces covered in the territory of the autonomous region will indicate that there are at least 12 Lumad ethno-linguistic groups which constitute 5.37 percent of the total population. They are the Subanen in the Zamboanga peninsula; the Higaunon in Iligan City; the Teduray in Maguindanao, the B’laan in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato and Davao del Sur; the Bagobo of Davao del Sur; the Tagakaolo of Davao del Sur; the T’boli of South Cotabato; the Manobo of Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao; the Batak, Tagbanua and Tau’t Bato in Palawan. If we include the non-Muslim segments of the Palawani in Palawan and the Kalagan in Davao del Sur, the total is twelve. The Muslims are only 26.89 percent and the Christian settlers make up the balance of nearly 70 percent.[2]

The MNLF-led Bangsamoro struggle have always touched the Lumad communities in similar ways that the Moro sultanates did. In the time of the sultanates, many of them were subjects and tributaries of the sultanates. Now, in the implementation of the GRP-MNLF Peace Agreement, they are also bound to be affected. While it is true that the autonomous region is designed purposely “for the Muslims of Southern Philippines,”[3] from whose ranks emerged the MNLF that fought the war of liberation,” it cannot be denied that both GRP and MNLF must also acknowledge and make room for 75% of the population, the Lumad and the Christian settlers, respectively, in the life and governance of the autonomy.

As citizens of the region, they are enjoined by law to take part in the plebiscite on the revised organic act. Whether or not they will become part of the autonomous region, the Lumad will continue to coexist with the Muslims. The same goes for the Christian settlers.

The Oil Connection; Government Response to Energy Crisis

At the height of the AFP-MNLF war in October 1973, which we have already discussed in Chapter 1, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) imposed an oil embargo on all countries supportive of Israel. The realization that the Philippines is almost wholly dependent on two Arab countries for its oil requirements compelled President Marcos to launch an ambitious energy development program designed to harness the country’s natural energy resources, specifically hydro and geothermal power. The search for oil was also done in earnest. The strategic end in view was obviously to increase our domestic energy capability and reduce our dependence on imported oil. But these moves would hit the indigenous peoples where it hurts most. These meant further displacement of the latter in their own lands.

In the Cordillera, the government launched, apparently without the benefit of extensive consultation with the people on the Chico River Dam project, and drew probably the biggest opposition ever to a government development project. In Mindanaw, the government implemented a series of power generation projects in quick succession. The massive hydroelectric plants Agus I to VII along the length of Agus river from Marawi City to Iligan City was probably the biggest with their combined capacity of 944 megawatts. The six dams along the Pulangi (river) which flows from Bukidnon to Cotabato City generate a total of 1,003 megawatts and service irrigation systems came next. Other smaller projects followed with their combined capacity of 714 megawatts. The 22 sites, excluding the geothermal plants, in Mindanaw are expected to generate a total of 3,006 Megawatts. The biggest sources of geothermal energy is Mt. Apo, calculated to sustain 170 wells that will provide steam to four power plants and turn out 220 megawatts of electricity.[4] The latter attracted enormous opposition from the Lumad inhabitants around the mountain which in their belief and tradition is as sacred as a cathedral is to Catholics. Today, as a result of these successful tapping of hydro, geothermal and other local energy resources, we are told that the country’s dependence on foreign oil has been reduced by at least 43 percent.[5] If properly substantiated, the most recent discovery of additional gas reserves as well as oil in commercial quantities at the Camago-Malampaya deep-water gas field off Palawan could provide, President Estrada said, another 15 percent of the country’s oil needs.[6]

Requirements of Development

Industrialization is inevitable and strategic for the development of Mindanaw. It is possible only with a continuous flow of electrical energy. From the sources of energy to the distribution of electricity, we can feel a very intimate interconnection between the peace process and the economic development.

Water, the source of power that turns the giant generators are dependent on the integrity of the watersheds. Keeping watersheds alive require the nurturing care of people, people who share a common desire to keep the water flowing for the common welfare.

The most strategic watersheds are located in the lands of the Moro inhabitants and the Lumad communities. This is accentuated by the current reality that our primary forest cover is down to 18.3 percent, far below the minimum required for a sound and sustainable ecology. This brings into sharp focus the fundamental necessity of reforestation. Maintaining the watersheds and undertaking forest regeneration activities will mean not only preserving the water resources in all lakes and major river systems, it will also provide a sustained supply of water for agriculture, another strategic component of Mindanaw economic development. The best illustrations of the latter are the cases of the Agusan and Cotabato river basins. Sustained effort from a diverse population will only be possible if they are unified by a common dream.

What this all boils down to is that peace in Moroland is as vital a component as a requirement for the restoration and preservation of the watershed areas that will, in turn, assure us of the continuous flow of electricity. This for its part will fuel the industries. The cycle can continue ad infinitum.

The interests of Moro and Lumad communities that are mostly occupying watershed areas, too, where they have been driven to by population movements from the lowlands in the last 100 years, cannot be detached from the interests of lowland rice farmers who are dependent on irrigation systems, which are in turn dependent on water flowing from these watershed areas.

The cycle we have presented here may not be complete but the concept suggests that we view Mindanaw peace and development as an organic whole, not in separate little pieces.

This brings us to the Tri-people approach.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. A peace specialist, Rudy Buhay Rodil is an active Mindanao historian and peace advocate)

TOMORROW: The Tri-People Approach: Citizens’ Participation in Creating a Culture of Peace 

[1]Status Of Implementation Of The 1996 GRP-MNLF Peace Agreement (as of March 2000). Office Of The Presidential Adviser On The Peace Process. p. 1.

[2] Taken from Table 10. Household Population by Mother tongue, Sex and City/Municipality, 1990 Census of Population and Housing, Republic of the Philippines, National Statistics Office, Manila, June 1992.

[3] Tripoli Agreement, Second paragraph.

[4] Struggle Against Development Aggression, A Tabak Publication (Quezon City: 1990), pp. 39-43.

[5] Manila Bulletin, 10 March 2000.

[6] Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6 May 2000

Done in 1992 at Iligan City, published initially as two versions. First as the abbreviated edition published by The Minority Rights Group, London entitled The Lumad and Moro of Mindanaw, July 1993. The Philippine edition carrying the full draft was printed by AFRIM in Davao City 1994. This was later updated in 2003, summarized in an epilogue. This is the third revision, now with an expanded Epilogue.

Part 1

THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE PHILIPPINES: An Overview

The indigenous peoples in the Philippines, now also known officially as indigenous cultural communities (ICC), are said to constitute ten per cent of the estimated total national population of 60 million, per Census 1990. They are more popularly referred to as cultural minorities.

Once the masters of their own lives, now the majority of them are poor and landless. In the old days, many of them lived in the plains. But as a result of population pressures and resettlement programs from among the majority, they have moved to the forest areas. Now, their forests are devastated and their cultures are threatened.

And so, they have learned to fight for survival. Their voices reverberate from north to South, from the Cordillera to the Lumads to the Muslims (or Bangsamoro) of Mindanaw and Sulu.

They demand recognition of their right to self-determination; they demand respect for and protection of their ancestral domains, of their cultures, of their very lives. Within the last twenty years, one group after another of the ICCs have launched their struggles for self-determination, upholding as the most crucial issue their fundamental human right to their ancestral domain.

Interpretation on the meaning of “self-determination” differs. The Moro National Liberation Front consistently takes it to mean independence for the Bangsamoro from the clutches of what they regard as Filipino colonialism, although its leaders agreed to reduce this to regional autonomy in the Tripoli agreement of December 1976.

Advocates in the Cordillera and among the Lumad, however, emphasize their demand for genuine autonomy. But what they all have in common is the conscious realization that their collective happiness must come principally from their own efforts, not from the State.

Who are the Indigenous Cultural Communities?

Created in 1957, the Commission on National Integration (CNI) made an official listing of the National Cultural Minorities (NCM). Note in the Table I below that Luzon and the Visayas have 19 groups, and Mindanaw has 27, which can be further subdivided into 10 Moro and 17 Lumad [for the origin of the name “Lumad”, see Chapter 2]. In the 1960 census, four years after the establishment of the CNI, the NCMs numbered 2,887,526 or approximately ten percent of the national population. The matter of names and number is not a settled issue in the Philippines, which will explain the existence of such names as Kulaman in Mindanaw, which is just another denomination for Manobo in that part of Davao del Sur and two other places in Cotabato called Kulaman, and the addition of more later on. The census itself has never been consistent in its denominations.

Table 1

CNI Official Listing of National Cultural Minorities

It is generally known that the Bangsamoro people are made up of 13 ethno-linguistic groups. An explanation is in order why the above list shows only ten. Two of these groups are to be found in Palawan, namely, the Panimusa and the Molbog (Melebugnon or Molbuganon). A third, the Kalagan in Davao del Sur are partly Muslim and partly non-Muslim. The Panimusa, too, are partly Muslim and partly not. Finally, the Badjaw (they prefer Sama Dilaut) are generally not Muslims but because of their identification within the realm of the ancient Sulu sultanate, they have often been regarded as part of the Islamic scene in the Sulu archipelago.

The present majority-minority situation is a product of western colonialism that has been carried over to the present. In the time of Spanish colonialism, it was more an unintended product of colonial order. In the time of the Americans, it was the result both of colonial order and colonial design.

When the Republic of the Philippines assumed sovereign authority, the various administrations not only carried over whatever the Americans had left behind, they also institutionalized the status of cultural minority within Philippine society. In this section we seek to retrace our steps and see how the whole process came about. We start with a broad picture of our current linguistic situation.

Current Linguistic Situation

Inhabiting an archipelago of 7,100 islands which are divided into three broad geographic zones called Luzon, Visayas and Mindanaw, the Philippine population is, according to a linguistic expert, linguistically diverse, distributed, conservatively speaking, into between 100 and 150 languages. However, the expert clarifies, “one should not exaggerate this diversity, since the vast majority of the Filipinos at present are speakers of one of the eight `major languages’ — Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray, Bikol, Iloko, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan  — while 3 percent of the population comprise the speakers of the rest of these languages — the so-called `minor languages’ — most of whom are pagans or Muslims.”  Of the eight, five, namely, Tagalog, Bikol, Iloko, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan inhabit the Luzon area, and  three, namely,  Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Waray belong to the Visayan region.

The linguistic diversity is not, however, reflected in their skin. Complexion-wise, the majority of the Filipino natives are Malay brown; a much smaller percentage are dark like the Negritos or Aeta of Luzon, the Batak of Palawan and the Mamanwa of Mindanaw.

Linguistic studies have further reduced this diversity with their common conclusion that all Philippine languages “belong to the Austronesian language family”, also known as Malayo-Polynesian. Some of these languages are mutually intelligible, but most are not.

Social Situation at Spanish Contact

Using the situation at the end of the Spanish regime as a frame of reference, the various communities in the Philippine Archipelago may roughly be divided into two broad groupings, those who were colonized, and those who were not.

Those who were colonized generally belong to the barangay communities which composed the eight major groups cited above.

And those who were not may further be subdivided into those who fought and were not subjugated, and those who successfully evaded contact with Spanish forces thereby escaping colonization. Either way they remained free throughout the period of Spanish colonization. The first sub-group consisted of the Muslims of Mindanaw and Sulu and the Igorots of the Cordillera.

The second sub-group were those who are presently known as Tribal Filipinos. By an ironic twist of history it was the unconquered and uncolonized who were later to become the cultural minorities of the twentieth century. But before we go into the broad details of how this happened, let us first look at their social situation at the time of Spanish contact.

We start with the barangays, to be followed by the Muslims, then by those which have been characterized by Dr. William Henry Scott,  a well-known scholar of Philippine history, as the warrior societies, the petty plutocracies and the classless societies.

Tomorrow: The Barangay Communities

(Done in 1992 at Iligan City, published initially as two versions. First as the abbreviated edition published by The Minority Rights Group, London entitled The Lumad and Moro of Mindanaw, July 1993. The Philippine edition carrying the full draft was printed by AFRIM in Davao City, 1994. This was later updated in 2003, summarized in an epilogue. This is the third revision, now with an expanded epilogue.)

6th of 16 parts

Chapter 2 Part VI First Foreign Intrusion: The Spanish Challenge

The Spanish colonizers represented the first serious challenge to Moro dominance not only in Mindanaw but also in the entire archipelago. Armed clashes between them begun from the very first year of Spanish presence in 1565. The Moros contested their colonial ambition up to 1898. Part of the overall Spanish strategy in Mindanaw was to establish bases there, especially in areas where Moro influence was weakest. Mainly through missionary efforts, Spain succeeded as early as the first half of the 17th century in establishing footholds in the eastern, northern and western parts of Mindanaw.

The total number of Christians, 191,493 in 1892 who were largely converts from the indigenous population, represent the success of the Spanish in putting a large portion of Mindanaw within their jurisdiction. Did this affect the state of indigenous occupancy?

In a very real sense, no. The visible change was in the expansion of Spanish state domain and the contraction of Moro, either Magindanaw or Sulu, sultanate jurisdiction. Needless to say, this formed part of the Spanish basis for claiming the entire archipelago and ceding the same to the United States in 1898.

Resettlement Programs of the Government

The real displacement process started during the American colonial period. Between the years 1903 and 1935, colonial government records estimated between 15,000 and 20,000 Moro dead as a consequence of Moro resistance to the American presence.

Some of the recorded battles in Sulu, particularly the battles of Bud Dajo in 1906 and Bud Bagsak in 1912 were actual massacres, one-sided battles that they were.

Next to the actual destruction of the lives of the people, it can be said that as great a damage, if not more, was done by the resettlement programs.

These wreaked havoc on the Lumad and Moro ancestral domains in such an unprecedented scale that they literally overturned the lives of the indigenous peoples. A broad account will show that the government, colonial or otherwise, must somehow bear the responsibility for this turn of events.

Initiated by the American colonial government as early as l9l3, it was sustained and intensified during the Commonwealth period, and picked up momentum in the post-World War II years. Altogether, there were a number of resettlement programs.

Severe drought in Sulu and Zamboanga and grasshopper infestation in Davao in 1911-1912 adversely affected rice supply in the Moro Province and this gave General John Pershing, who was then Governor of the Moro Province, the excuse to call “for the importation of homesteaders from the overpopulated Philippine areas.”

The year 1913 saw the passage by the Philippine Commission of Act No. 2254 creating agricultural colonies aimed, officially, at enhancing the rice production effort already started in the Cotabato Valley.

The actual campaign for settlers into the first agricultural colony in the Cotabato Valley started in earnest in Cebu where corn has been the staple food. Knowing the Cebuano weakness for corn, their staple food in Cebu, the American colonial government paraded around Cebu a cornstalk, thirteen feet tall, propped up with a bamboo stick, to convince the people of the fertility and productivity of the soil. But in addition to being farmers, the volunteers had also to be skilled in arnis, an indigenous form of martial arts. Fifty persons responded.

Specific sites selected were Pikit, Silik, Ginatilan, Paidu Pulangi and Pagalungan, the very heart of Magindanaw dominion in the upper Cotabato Valley, and Glan at the southernmost coast of the present South Cotabato province.

In its supposed attempt to integrate the various sectors of the population, distinct population groups were purposely mixed in the colonial sites. In Colony No. 2, for example, composed of Manaulanan, Pamalian, Silik, Tapodok and Langayen, Cebuano settlers and Maguindanaw natives lived together. Strangely, the settlers were allotted 16 hectares each while the Maguindanawon were given only eight hectares each.

The government provided initial capital and some farm tools on loan basis. They were also assured of eventually owning homesteads.

There were American soldiers married to Filipinas who did not wish to return to the United States. They were provided for through Act 2280 with the opening the following year of the Momungan Agricultural Colony in what is now Balo-i, Lanao del Norte. There were signs that this project ultimately failed when in 1927 the governor opened the area for sale or lease to anyone under the terms of the Public Land Act.

Unable to further finance the opening of more colonies, the Manila government passed Act 2206 in 1919 which authorized Provincial Boards to manage colonies themselves at their expense. Lamitan in Basilan was thus opened by the Zamboanga province, Tawi-Tawi by Sulu, Marilog by Bukidnon, and Salunayan and Maganoy by Cotabato between 1919 and 1926.

No significant government resettlements were organized until 1935. Settlers nevertheless migrated either on their own or through the Inter-island Migration Division of the Bureau of Labor. As a result, aside from already existing settlement areas like that in the Cotabato Valley, or in Lamitan in Basilan and Labangan in Zamboanga del Sur, and Momungan in Lanao, we also see several in Davao, specifically in the towns of Kapalong, Guianga, Tagum, Lupon and Baganga; also, in Cabadbaran, Butuan and Buenavista in Agusan, and Kapatagan Valley in Lanao.

The next big initiative was the Quirino-Recto Colonization Act or Act No. 4197 of 12 February 1935 which aimed at sending settlers into any part of the country but with special reference to Mindanaw, that is, as a solution to the Mindanaw problem, as their peace and order problem with the Moros was called.

But before any implementation could be attempted, the Commonwealth government came into existence and it decided to concentrate on opening inter-provincial roads instead.

The National Land Settlement Administration (NLSA) created by Commonwealth Act No. 441 in 1939 introduced new dimensions into resettlement.

Aside from the usual objectives, there was the item providing military trainees an opportunity to own farms upon completion of their military training. The Japanese menace was strongly felt in the Philippines at this time and this particular offer was an attempt by the government to strengthen national security.

Under the NLSA, three major resettlement areas were opened in the country: Mallig Plains in Isabela, and two in Cotabato, namely, Koronadal Valley made up of Lagao, Tupi, Marbel and Polomolok and Ala (now spelled Allah) Valley consisting of Banga, Norallah and Surallah. By the time the NLSA was abolished in 1950, a total of 8,300 families had been resettled.

The Rice and Corn Production Administration (RCPA) of 1949 was meant to increase rice and corn production but was also involved in resettlement. It was responsible for opening Buluan in Cotabato, and Maramag and Wao at the Bukidnon-Lanao border.

Before the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Administration (NARRA) came into existence in 1954, the short-lived Land Settlement Development Administration or LASEDECO took over from NLSA and RCPA. It was able to open Tacurong, Isulan, Bagumbayan, part of Buluan, Sultan sa Barongis and Ampatuan, all in Cotabato.

NARRA administered a total of 23 resettlement areas: nine were in Mindanaw; one in Palawan; five in the Visayas; one in Mindoro; and seven in mainland Luzon.

A product of the Land Reform Code, Land Authority took over from NARRA in 1963. For the first time, resettlement became a part of the land reform program. The creation of the Department of Agrarian Reform in 1971 also brought about the existence of the Bureau of Resettlement whose function was to implement the program of resettlement.

Moreover, the Economic Development Corps (EDCOR), a special program of the government to counter the upsurge of the Huk rebellion — a brainchild of Ramon Magsaysay, then Secretary of National Defense under President Elpidio Quirino — must also be mentioned. This program was responsible for opening resettlement areas for surrendered or captured Huks (insurgents) in such areas as Isabela, Quezon, Lanao del Norte, North Cotabato and Maguindanaw. Those in Mindanaw were carved out in the heart of Magindanao and Meranaw ancestral territories.

The formal resettlement programs spawned the spontaneous influx of migrants who came on their own. It is estimated that more people came this way than through organized channels.

To be able to appreciate the process of displacement among the indigenous groups, one can do a comparative study of the population balance in the provinces of Cotabato, Zamboanga, and Bukidnon over several census years.

Population Shifts Resulting From Resettlements

As a result of the heavy influx of settlers from Luzon and the Visayas, the existing balance of population among the indigenous Moro, Lumad and Christian inhabitants underwent serious changes. An examination of the population shifts, based on the censuses of 1918, 1939 and 1970, in the empire province of Cotabato, clearly indicates the process by which the indigenous population gave way to the migrants.

Add to this the cases of Zamboanga and Bukidnon and one will readily see how imbalances in the population led to imbalances in the distribution of political power as well as of cultivable lands and other natural and economic resources. These three give us concrete glimpses into the pattern of events in the entire region. The sole exceptions were those places which did not become resettlement areas.

Cotabato has been the traditional center of the Magindanaw Sultanate. Aside from the Magindanawon, its Moro population also include Iranun and Sangil. It is also the traditional habitat of several Lumad tribes like the Manobo, the Teduray, the Dulangan (Manobo), the Ubo, the T’boli and the Bla-an. It is, at the same time, the focus of very heavy stream of settlers from the north.

As a matter of fact, it was no accident that the American colonial government made it the site of the first agricultural colonies. It had all the markings of a present day counter-insurgency operation which at that time was Moro armed resistance to American rule.

Zamboanga was also the traditional habitat of the Magindanawon where the Sultanate dominated the original Subanen inhabitants, especially in the southern portions. Sama, known as Lutao during the Spanish period, Iranun, Tausug and Subanen converts to Islam known as Kalibugan or Kolibugan composed the other Moro populations. Aside from its indigenous Christian population who were converts during the many years of Spanish missionary effort and the few Chavacanos who were Ternateños brought in from the Moluccas Islands during the 17th century, the bulk of its Christian population came from numerous migrations in the twentieth century.

Bukidnon had been the traditional territory of the Manobo and the Bukidnon (also known as Talaandig and/or Higaunon). Its having been integrated into the special province of Agusan was an affirmation of the dominance of the Lumad population there during the first decade of the twentieth century. Its handful of Bangsamoro population are generally Meranaw to be found in the towns, especially Talakag, bordering Lanao del Sur. The census also registered a heavy inflow of migrants, mostly from the Visayas.

The Case of Cotabato

In 1918, what used to be known as the empire province of Cotabato (now subdivided into Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sarangani, Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanaw) had a total of 171,978 inhabitants distributed in 36 municipalities and municipal districts. The 1939 census registered a total population of 298,935 distributed in 33 towns.

And, finally, the 1970 figures showed a total population of 1,602,117. The fantastic leaps in population increase cannot be explained by natural growth, only by the rapidity of the migration process. How did this affect the balance of population?

In 1918, the Muslims were the majority in 20 towns, the Lumad in 5, and the migrants in none. Not much change was revealed in the 1939 census; the Muslims continued to be the majority in 20 towns, the Lumad increased to nine as a result of political subdivisions, and the migrants had three. The 1970 figures indicated an unbelievable leap. Now, the Muslims had only 10 towns to their name; not a single one was left to the Lumad — although it showed 31 towns with Lumad population of less than ten per cent, and the migrants now dominated in 38 towns.

The history of population shift in Cotabato was reflected throughout Mindanaw, revealing a pattern consistently unfavorable to the indigenous population. Total Islamized population was placed at 39.29 per cent in 1903; this was down to 20.17 percent in 1975. Lumad population was 22.11 percent in 1903; it fell to 6.86 percent in 1975.

More specifically, what particular areas had Muslim majority? Or Lumad majority? By the census of 1980, the Muslims had only five provinces, and 13 towns in other provinces. And the Lumad had only seven towns.

Role of Big Business in the Displacement Process

Mindanaw teemed with natural wealth. Both American military commanders and government administrators saw this very early in their stay in Mindanaw. No less than Leonard Wood (1903-1906), the first governor of the Moro Province and John Pershing, his successor, acknowledged this. Wood, as a matter of fact, was recorded as having remarked that “it is difficult to imagine a richer country or one out of which more can be made than the island of Mindanaw.”

Both officials tried to influence amendments to the existing land laws in order to induce investors into the region. The American dominated Zamboanga Chamber of Commerce tried, not once but twice, “to have Mindanaw and the adjacent islands become a territory of the United States.”

In 1926, a U.S. Congressman introduced a bill seeking the separation of Mindanaw and Sulu from the rest of the Philippines. This was part of a larger effort to transform the region into a huge rubber plantation. The great number of investors in Davao, both individual and corporate planters, the most famous of which being the Japanese corporations which transformed Davao into an abaca province represent the most visible example of large scale efforts during the colonial period to cash in on the region’s natural resources.

During the post-World War era, timber concessions may have delivered the penultimate blow to the already precarious indigenous hold over their ancestral territory. Logging became widespread in the region in the early 1960s. As a result of resettlement, indigenous populations naturally receded from their habitat in the plains upward into the forest areas. Logging caught up with them there, too. In 1979 alone, there were 164 logging concessionaires, mostly corporate, in Mindanaw with a total concession area of 5,029,340 hectares, virtually leaving no room in the forest for the tribal peoples.

It should be pointed out that the region’s total commercial forest was estimated to be 3.92 million hectares! To ensure smooth operations, logging companies were known to have hired indigenous datus as chief forest concession guards.

Pasture lands covered also by 25-year leases come as a poor second to logging with 296 lessees in 1972-73 for a total of 179,011.6 hectares.

How have these affected the indigenous peoples? No less than the Philippine Constabulary Chief Brigadier General Eduardo Garcia reported to the 1971 Senate Committee investigating the deteriorating peace and order conditions in Cotabato that the “grant of forest concessions without previous provisions or measures undertaken to protect the rights of cultural minorities and other inhabitants within the forest concession areas is one of the principal causes of dissatisfaction among the cultural minorities.”

A Magindanawon datu from Cotabato, Congressman Salipada Pendatun, cited the same government failure to “provide precautionary measures in the grant of concessions and pasture leases as contributory to the problem.”

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. A peace specialist, Rudy Buhay Rodil is an active Mindanao historian and peace advocate.)

Tomorrow: (Part VII) Contradiction Between Government Development Projects and Indigenous Interests

7th of 16 parts

(Done in 1992 at Iligan City, published initially as two versions. First as the abbreviated edition published by The Minority Rights Group, London entitled The Lumad and Moro of Mindanaw, July 1993. The Philippine edition carrying the full draft was printed by AFRIM in Davao City, 1994. This was later updated in 2003, summarized in an epilogue. This is the third revision, now with an expanded epilogue.)

Part VII Contradiction Between Government Development Projects and Indigenous Interests

As a result of the government’s attempt to reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil, both administrations from President Marcos to Aquino have undertaken energy development projects tapping both water and geothermal resources.

Famous among these projects, made so by determined indigenous opposition to them, were the Chico Dam project in the Cordillera, the Agus Hydroelectric projects along the Agus River in Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte, the Pulangi River projects and the Lake Sebu dam project, all of which are located in the heart of the territories of indigenous cultural communities.

And now, there is the Mt. Apo geothermal project.

Consequences Upon the Lumad and the Moro of the State System of Landownership and Land Use

It is important to note here that no Lumad ethno-linguistic group has ever reached the level of a centralized socio-political system such as that attained by the Moro people. At the turn of the century, their communities were mostly clan-size, and they were mostly dependent on swidden farms, hunting and gathering for their livelihood, and not much has changed since.

This would therefore explain the high vulnerability of the Lumad communities to external intrusion. The net effect of successful external intrusions was that individual communities ceased to be masters in their own ancestral lands and of their own lives; they had lost their self-determination. How do they feel about this? Let us hear from them and from the people who have worked with them or have done extensive studies about them.

Recorded in the “Santa Cruz Mission Report” of l973 were these accounts by a Magindanawon and a Bla-an (South Cotabato).

The Magindanawon said: “I want to tell you what I am feeling. Many years ago, the Christians came here to our place. They made many promises and encouraged us to join them, to unite and cooperate with them. They paid money to the Datu and they claimed our land. I hope you can understand. Our lands are all sold or mortgaged to the Christians. Now we do not have any land on which to work.”

The Bla-an added: “I want to tell you about our people as they were before the settlers came. We are the largest number of people then. We lived in the wide plains of Allah and Koronadal Valleys. It is true that we were not educated but then we were happy; we made our own lives, we lived in our own way.

“Then the settlers came, our lives became unhappy. We ran to the mountains because we were afraid of settlers. Even today, the Bla-an people are scared of the government officials. Our lands were taken away because of our ignorance. Now we are suffering. We have been forced to live in the Roxas and General Santos mountain ranges.

“Now we have only a few hectares of flat land to grow our food. And even with this little land, the government is running after us and they tell us that land is not ours. It is the government’s. They say the lands belong to the forestry. They will put us to jail. Truly we do not think that we are part of the government.”

The Senate Committee on National Minorities reported in l963: “Among the provinces visited, the most pressing land problems were reported in the provinces of Davao, Cotabato, Bukidnon and the island of Basilan.

“Natives in these provinces complained that they were being driven away by “influential persons and big companies” who have been awarded rights to lands which have long been occupied and improved by the members of the cultural minorities.”

A Teduray from Nangi, Upi (now North Upi), Maguindanao, had a similar story to tell: “Years ago, our ancestors inhabited the land now called Awang, a few kilometers away from Cotabato City. Settlers came waving in front of them a piece of paper called land title. They (our ancestors) did not understand it. Like most of us now, they were illiterate. But they did not want trouble and the mountains were still vast and unoccupied.

“And so, they fled up, bringing their families along and leaving precious and sacred roots behind… We have nowhere else to go now. The time has come for us to stop running and assert our land right to the legacy of our ancestors. If they want land titles, we will apply for it. Since we are illiterate, God knows how we will do it. That is why we are trying our best to learn many things around us. By then, we will no longer be deceived and lowland Christians can be stopped from further encroaching on our land.”

Dr. Stuart Schlegel who took down this account made additional observations: “The Teduray’s accommodation of the increasing number of lowlanders from elsewhere, the settlers’ acquisition of the ancestral lands, as well as the entry of logging corporations in the area were the beginning of the loss of Teduray lands, and eventually, the loss of their livelihood. When the settlers came, they only cultivated a parcel of Teduray land. Today, the Teduray can only cultivate a small portion of the settlers’ lands.

“Since most of the farm lands are now owned by the settlers, the landless Teduray hire themselves as tenants of the lands…”

Dr. E. Arsenio Manuel who did extensive work on the people he called Manuvu’ shared his equally revealing observations: “Just at the time that the Manuvu’ people were achieving tribal consciousness and unity (late 50’s), other forces were at work that were going to shape their destiny. These outside forces can be identified as coming from three sources: the government, private organizations and individuals.

“The pressure from the City Government of Davao to bring people under its wings is much felt in its tax collecting activities, and threats from the police. Private organizations, mainly logging companies, ranchers, and religious groups are penetrating deep into the interior since after the l950’s.

“With the construction of loggers’ roads, the opening up of central Mindanaw to settlement has come to pass. Christian land-seekers and adventurers have come from three directions: from the north on the Bukidnon side, from the west on the Cotabato side, and from the south on the Davao and Cotabato side….”

Zeroing in on the effects of government laws, Dr. Manuel continues: “Actual abridgement of customary practices has come from another direction, the national laws. The cutting of trees so necessary in making a clearing is against forestry laws, the enforcement of which is performed by forest rangers or guards. Logging companies, to protect their interests have taken the initiative of employing guards who are deputized to enforce the forest laws. So enforcement of the same runs counter to native practices so basic to the economy system of the Manuvu’. The datus are helpless in this respect.”

Many  Christian land-seekers who usually followed the path  of the loggers purchased tribal lands for a pittance. The datus, even if they were able to control the membership of barrio councils in their areas, could do nothing to annul such sales which normally were contrary to tribal laws.

Tribal land is not the only casualty in the displacement process. Even native ways, laws and institutions tend to be replaced by new ones.

The Moro fared only slightly better than the Lumad in that they were able to retain more territory in their hands by comparison. But as the figures will indicate, they, too, despite longer experience in centralized leadership, lost substantial territory.

To sum up, where once the Lumad exercised control over a substantial territorial area encompassed in the present day’s l7 provinces, now they only constitute, according to the l980 census, the majority in only seven municipalities. And where once the Moros had jurisdictional control over an area covered in the present day’s 15 provinces and seven cities, now they are left with only five provinces and 13 municipalities.

Present Status and Gains of the Lumad Struggle

Among the Lumad, much work has been done to influence recent legislations that would benefit them and the cultural communities as a whole. The process has also strengthened people’s organizations.

For the first time in Philippine constitutional history, the l973 Constitution of the Philippines carried  a sympathetic acknowledgment of the unique character of the tribal peoples of the country in a single provision, as follows: “The State shall consider the customs, traditions, beliefs, and interests of national cultural communities in the formulation and implementation of state policies.”

But this provision, however, was more of a concession rather than a genuine recognition of their fundamental group rights. As a matter of fact, a Presidential Decree (no. 410) was issued in l974 purportedly to protect the ancestral lands, yet no implementation took place because no Letter of Implementation was ever issued.

The nation-wide protests against the dictatorship of the Marcos regime affected the Lumad. The reverberations of the bitter Cordillera fight against the Chico dam project was felt in Mindanaw. The T’boli, for instance, had to contend with the Lake Sebu dam project. The Manobos of Bukidnon had to bear the terrible prospects of one day seeing the water overflowing the banks of the Pulangi river into their fields as a result of the Pulangi river dam project in the heart of Bukidnon.

Thus, when President Marcos was thrown out of power and President Corazon Aquino was installed, a Constitutional Commission was created to draft a new democratic Constitution. The various Lumad organizations took active part in the public consultations held during the drafting of the Charter. Lumad-Mindanaw was an active member of the AdHoc Coordinating Body for the Campaign on the Inclusion of National Minority Peoples Rights in the Constitution. When it was established in 1986, it was made up of 78 local and regional Lumad organizations.

It was mainly through their joint initiative, as well as other groups advocating indigenous people’s rights, supported by sympathetic advocates in the Constitutional Commission that the l987 Constitution  incorporated vital provisions directly addressed to the Bangsamoro and tribal communities all over the country.

Two significant sections may be cited here as examples of legal provisions that are considerably closer to that sought by the Lumads representing a radical departure from the aforecited provisions of the Constitution of l973. Article XII, Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution states: “The State, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national development policies and programs, shall protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social and cultural well-being.

“The Congress may provide for the applicability of customary laws governing property rights or relations in determining the ownership and extent of ancestral domain”.

The other provision is Article XIV Education, Science and Technology, Arts, Culture and Sports), Section l7, as follows: “The State shall recognize, respect, and protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions, and institutions. It shall consider these rights in the formulation of national plans and policies.”

For the Teduray group which alone was included in the autonomous region in Muslim Mindanaw, the gains are to be found, for the moment, in the provisions of the Organic Act. For example, the Organic Act for Muslim Mindanaw carries one full article on Ancestral Domain. At the same time, Tribal customary laws shall at last be codified and become part of the law of the land.

The names “Lumad” and “Bangsamoro” have at last been accepted in the legal dictionary of the country. Along with this, an exemption from agrarian reform was granted by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law of l988 (Chapter II, Sec. 9) “to ancestral lands of each indigenous cultural community”.

These gains must, however, be placed within realistic perspective. It is true that they represent a substantial advance from the provision of the 1973 Constitution. But whether or not they can deliver what the indigenous people really want is another matter.

Within the same Charter may be found, for example, a provision that can easily nullify the intention of the state recognition of ancestral lands. Section 2, Article XII (National Economy and Patrimony), clearly states that “all lands of the public domain, waters, minerals, coal, petroleum, and other mineral oils, all forces of potential energy, fisheries, forests or timber, wildlife, flora and fauna, and other natural resources are owned by the State. With the exception of agricultural lands, all other natural resources shall not be alienated.”

This nullifying effect has been concretely illustrated in the definition of ancestral domain and ancestral lands in the Organic Act for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanaw (Sec. 1, Article XI) where the beautifully packaged definition of ancestral domain in the first part of the paragraph is neatly cut down in the latter part of the same paragraph, just as soon as the State asserts its possessory right.

Tomorrow:The Journey Towards Moro Self-Determination

8th of 16 parts

(Done in 1992 at Iligan City, published initially as two versions. First as the abbreviated edition published by The Minority Rights Group, London entitled The Lumad and Moro of Mindanaw, July 1993. The Philippine edition carrying the full draft was printed by AFRIM in Davao City, 1994. This was later updated in 2003, summarized in an epilogue. This is the third revision, now with an expanded epilogue.)

Part VIII

Chapter 3. THE JOURNEY TOWARDS MORO SELF-DETERMINATION

Aside from their being Muslims, the Moro people are especially proud of two other accomplishments in history. First, long before the Spanish colonizers arrived in the Philippine archipelago, they have enjoyed a high level of centralized social system as exemplified by the Sulu Sultanate which dated back to 1450, and the Magindanaw Sultanate which although born only in 1619 was preceded by the two powerful principalities of Magindanaw and Buayan at the Pulangi valley. And two, by their singular success in maintaining their freedom against repeated Spanish attempts to subjugate them for three hundred thirty-three years.

Triumph of Western Colonialism

But like the rest of the inhabitants of the archipelago, they, too, became victims of the machinations of two colonial powers at the turn of the century. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris, or, with one stroke of the pen, figuratively speaking, all inhabitants of the islands without exception — the Moros no less — became colonial subjects of the United States of America. Subsequent American moves were designed to clear away all forms of opposition to the assertion of American rights of possession and the establishment of American colonial rule. In the case of the Moro people, the direction was towards assimilation with the general body politic which in this instance was oriented around the Filipino identity.

Thus began a radical turn in Moro life which quickly cleared the way for their minoritization. Moro leaders’ recognition and acknowledgement of American sovereignty shifted centers of authority from them to American officials and institutions. Control over land and its disposition became the sole prerogative of the state authority. Private property prevailed over communal ownership, and usufruct lost its institutional base. Police power became the exclusive domain of police institutions, more specifically the Philippine Constabulary.

Moro Resistance

There was widespread armed resistance against the American presence during the first fifteen years, despite compromises by their leaders, notably the Sultan of Sulu, Datu Piang of Maguindanaw and Datu Mandi of Zamboanga. Between 1903 and 1936, Moro lives lost from the fighting were estimated by the Americans to be between 15,000 to 20,000 dead. In the words of an American officer, “no one dreamed that the Constabulary was to engage in hundreds of “cotta” (fort) fights and to quell twenty-six uprisings of sufficient seriousness to be listed as `campaigns’ before it turned over the task of establishing law and order, still uncompleted, to the Philippine Army in 1936.” Most notorious or most famous of the encounters, depending on one’s point of view, were the battles of Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak in Sulu; the struggle of Datu Ali in Magindanaw, and the Lake town campaigns in Lanao.

American success in arms were effectively balanced with equally determined efforts in civil affairs, more specifically, tapping the datus for key roles in colonial government, educating their children, and exposure programs for the more obstinate datus to make them more cooperative in the more subtle ways.

Datu Participation in Colonial Government

Formerly prime minister to the Sultan of Sulu, Hadji Butu was chosen Special Assistant to the American Governor of the Moro Province in 1904. He was Senator representing Mindanaw and Sulu from 1915 to 1920. Acknowledged as a top leader of the  Maguindanawons in the Cotabato Valley, Datu Piang started his service as third member of the Provincial Board of Cotabato in 1915, then became a member of the House of Representatives in 1916 representing Cotabato. A ranking datu in Lanao, Datu Benito represented Lanao in the same House. Other datus served in various capacities a good number of them starting as third member of their respective provincial boards. These personalities all actively supported the educational program of the Americans.

Education, A Tool of Pacification

American officials never underestimated the efficacy of education as a tool of conquest. A military veteran of the Mindanaw campaigns, Col. Harold H. Elarth, made this observation: “With the older generation held in check by armed force and the younger being trained in these schools, civilization and a semblance of law and order began to spread over Moroland.” General Arthur McArthur who for a while in 1901  headed American troops in the Philippines felt that there was “nothing in the department of administration that can contribute more in behalf of pacification than the immediate institutions of a comprehensive system of education  and saw education as “so closely allied to the exercise of military force in these islands”. Thus, while tapping Moro leaders for important roles in the colonial government, special arrangements were made to enable sons and daughters of these leaders to obtain education.

The case of Sulu was instructive. A girls’ dormitory managed by a Christian Filipino matron and financed by American ladies in New York was established in 1916 in Jolo. This contributed substantially in breaking down Moro prejudice against sending their daughters to school. The pupils were selected from the leading Tausug families, among them Princess Indataas, the daughter of Datu Tambuyong, one of the principal datus of the Sulu Sultanate; Princess Intan, the sister of Datu Tahil. Even then, Datu Tambuyong played safe; he required the American authorities to sign a long document which promised that his daughter would not be allowed to dance or talk with men, among others. The support given by the leading datus certainly made the dormitory a great success. At the same time, it inspired some of the girls to become teachers.

American success among the general Moro population may be gauged from the enrolment figures themselves. In 1900, we are told that “in the Moro areas of Mindanaw some 25 schools were opened the first year with more than 2,000 pupils attending.” In the school at Jolo, very few of the 200 pupils were Moros because their parents suspected that “American schools would try to convert their children from Islam to Christianity.”

Three years after, “52 schools are now in operation in the Moro province… with a total enrollment of 2,114, of which number 1,289 are boys and 825 are girls. One thousand seven hundred and sixty-four of the students enrolled are Christians, 240 are Mohammedans and 110 pagan Bagobos.

In 1906, Act No. 167 (20 June 1906) on compulsory education for children of school age, not less than 7 and not older than 13, was implemented in the Moro Province.

In 1913, 1,825 Moros and 525 pagans were enrolled in the public schools of the Moro Province. In 1918 the enrollment of the Moros in the five provinces (of Sulu, Zamboanga, Cotabato, Lanao, Davao) had increased to 8,421 and pagan pupils to 3,129.

By 1919 the Director of Public Education boasted that “six of the highest ranking Mohammedan princesses of the Sultanate of Sulu were teaching in the public schools, one of them a niece of the Sultan.”

Exposure Tours

Inviting independent-minded Moro leaders into exposing themselves to “high civilization” was called education trips designed to soften resistance to colonial policy. Usually selected to receive these invitations were Moro datus and other headmen who were loud in their objections to political and or social union with Christian Filipinos. Datu Alamada and Datu Ampatuan of Cotabato were two of those datus who as a result of these trips were transformed into avid supporters of colonial policy. Datu Alamada, in particular, was reportedly insistent in his requests for schools, homestead surveys, and colony organization for his people.

These devices, among others, proved to be most effective in redirecting the proud Moro spirit from active armed resistance to acquiescence. Like all others in the same category throughout the islands, Moro loss is twofold. They lost control of their own destiny and resources. They became a people, neatly labeled, first as wild or non-Christian Tribes in American times, then through R.A. 1888 in 1957 as national cultural minorities who were to be prepared towards eventual integration with the mainstream of the Philippine body politic. They ceased to exercise their right to self-determination. How did they feel about this situation?

Tomorrow:

Part IX: Early Moves Towards Recovery of Self-Determination

14th of 16 parts

Rudy Buhay Rodil

(Done in 1992 at Iligan City, published initially as two versions. First as the abbreviated edition published by The Minority Rights Group, London entitled The Lumad and Moro of Mindanaw, July 1993. The Philippine edition carrying the full draft was printed by AFRIM in Davao City 1994. This was later updated in 2003, summarized in an epilogue. This is the third revision, now with an expanded Epilogue.)

Chapter 6. Prospects for Problem Resolution and Peace

Let us start by asking basic questions. What do the indigenous communities want? The Moro people?  The Lumad? What they seek is that they be recognized as they are, with their distinct cultural identities, with their own traditional territories, and that these are basic to their survival and dignity.

What the Moro People Want

Speaking for the Moro people, the MNLF originally wanted an independent Bangsamoro Republik whose territory shall be the entirety of Mindanaw, the Sulu Archipelago and Palawan or simply Minsupala. 

For reasons not yet so clear, they agreed to modify this to regional autonomy starting with the Tripoli agreement covering only a territory of 13 provinces and nine cities. Due to failure to agree on details, this agreement was never fully consummated.

In another round of negotiation, this time with the Aquino government, the MNLF shifted to full autonomy in the same Minsupala region. The ratification of the 1987 Constitution with its own provisions on regional autonomy got in the way and the talks collapsed again.

This revolutionary organization has consistently rejected the Constitution as the basis for any talks. Presently, there are occasional cries for the implementation of the Tripoli agreement.

Other revolutionary groups, like the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have consistently demanded the implementation of the Tripoli agreement. The MNLF allegedly keeps trying to get full membership status at the Organization of Islamic Conference. The MILF has consistently advocated implementation of the Tripoli agreement.

And the MNLF-Reformist Group has apparently shifted to purely parliamentary activities; its leader was appointed director of the Office of Muslim Affairs in the Aquino government and he continues to serve in the government service. 

In the meantime, the constitutionally created Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanaw is in place in the four provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

But what is to be  done with thousands of other Muslims outside the autonomous region?

What the Lumads Desire

Through Lumad Mindanaw, the Lumads have said that they want the government to recognize their ancestral lands. They desire genuine self-determination within the territorial integrity and under the sovereignty of the Republic of the Philippines. They prefer self-government within their ancestral lands, in accordance with their customary laws. What concrete form this will take within the government structure, however, remains to be seen.

They have their immediate concerns, too. They want the return of all lands taken from them through deceit, harassment, illegal manipulations, or simply grabbed. Also, lands within tribal territories which have been mortgaged, confiscated and declared public lands because of loans for commercial trees like falcatta, rubber and ipil-ipil.

They want the government to revoke permits secured by individuals and companies operating logging, mining, pastures, rattan gathering and other agri-based industries within tribal territories. They may operate within areas of ancestral domain only with the permission of individual tribes through their legitimate organizations.

The migration of settlers into the ancestral domain of the tribal people must be controlled.

Having seen their indigenous culture laughed at by those of the majority, having observed how their children’s indigenous culture has been eroded year after year within the school system, they also feel the need to keep alive and uphold their own dances, songs, material culture, history, and their own system of workshop, and healing the sick. 

These, many of them believe, should be learned, respected and taught as part of the DECS (Department of Education and Sports). This way their children will be educated and still remain indigenous in identity.

The government should disband paramilitary units and stop militarization in Lumad territories. Stop giving support to fanatic groups which have caused our dispersal. Halt recruitment of Lumads into paramilitary units. Stop the incorrect application of the Lumad pangayaw (revenge raids).

The government should cease recognizing fake Lumad organizations and fake datus which have become standard practice not only to foil or diffuse legitimate Lumad aspirations but also to advance selfish interests among government officials and their influential friends, not the least of which being the acquisition of Lumad ancestral lands.

Lessons From the Past

There are at least two sides to the problem, the government and the indigenous cultural communities. And for this reason, both sides must also be responsible for the solution.

What lessons can be drawn from the Lumad and Moro experiences? 

First, there is no concealing  the fact that it was and has been the machinery of the state that has been responsible for the minoritization of the indigenous peoples. There is no need to harp on whether said machinery of state was colonial or otherwise. The reality is that the policies and laws which brought misfortune to the indigenous communities were initiated indeed by the colonizers, first by the Spaniards and then by the Americans. But the greater misfortune is that the Philippine government continued the same policies and laws which multiplied ICC misfortunes. And now that the western colonizers are gone, only the Philippine government is left to resolve mountains of accumulated  problems.

Second, there is also no denying that the weaknesses manifest in these communities made them fair game for the so-called majority, highly vulnerable, easily manipulable. Indigenous communities have their own numerous documented accounts of how they were deceived into parting with their lands.

Third, there were not lacking those elements of the majority who had no scruples pursuing selfish gains at the expense of the former, as there was also a good number of individual members of the ICC who held positions of traditional leadership and broke custom law to dispose of ancestral lands for selfish gain, thus further weakening their own people’s defenses. The more contemporary phenomenon is the emergence of fake datus who are in turn encouraged and supported by government for purposes other than for the benefit of the ICCs. 

Fourth, now,  as a result of all these, the ICCs, especially the Lumad, find themselves at the receiving end, so far, of two distinct but inseparable contradictions, both seemingly irresolvable, the two conflicting systems of property: (a) public domain vs. ancestral land; (b) Western-oriented property law vs. indigenous custom. 

Fifth, now the ICCs must hold on to their respective ancestral lands as they would to their own dear lives for there is so little that is left. Genuine self-determination seems to be the best option. But they have no illusions that this is going to be easy work. Unity within their own ranks have to be improved.

Prospects of Legislative Reforms?

Responsive legislative reforms, especially where it involves the present demands of the Indigenous Cultural Communities, leaves much to be desired. A quick review of some related legislations will illustrate how painfully slow it was for the state machinery to extricate itself from the colonial past.

There is a grave need for a well-studied national policy on the Indigenous peoples. However, despite a number of favorable provisions found in the 1987 Constitution, Congress failed to pass the two bills on ancestral domain. The legislators missed a golden opportunity to break away from the orientation advanced by the Commission on National Integration. This is not an isolated situation.

In the crucial sphere of land laws, provisions affecting the ICCs remained essentially the same from 1903 to contemporary times. It even worsened with the introduction of the 18 percent limit for mountain slopes set by President Marcos classifying those above as forest lands, and therefore inalienable.

It can be said that the root of the present land problem is the Regalian doctrine. It has been at the heart of the Philippine property system since the arrival of the Spanish colonizers to the present — at the expense of indigenous institutions. The natural resource classification has been a sacred provision, carried over from the American-made Philippine Bill of 1902, integrated into the 1935 Constitution, embedded in the 1973 Charter, and is very much a part of the 1987 Basic Law of the land. Forest and mineral lands or lands of the public domain are non-disposable and inalienable. Only agricultural public lands may be privately owned.

The 1987 Constitution in the first paragraph of section 3, Article XII, provides: “Lands of the public domain are classified into agricultural forest or timber, mineral lands, and national parks. Agricultural lands of the public domain may be further classified by law according to the uses to which they may be devoted.

Alienable lands of the public domain shall be limited to agricultural lands.

Private corporations or associations may not hold such alienable lands of the public domain except by lease, for a period not exceeding twenty-five years, renewable for not more than twenty-five years, and not to exceed one thousand hectares in area.

Citizens of the Philippines may lease not more than five hundred hectares, or acquire not more than twelve hectares thereof by purchase, homestead or grant.”

“Taking into account the requirements of conservation, ecology, and development, and subject to the requirements of agrarian reform, the Congress shall determine, by law, the size of lands of the public domain which may be acquired, developed, held, or leased and the conditions therefor.”

What happens to the indigenous occupant? He becomes a squatter in his own land. All proceedings under the Public Land Act are based on the assumption that the land is, or at least used to be, part of the public domain. By applying the Public Land Act even to ancestral lands occupied since time immemorial, it is assumed that even these lands are held from the State.

It did not matter that the ownership of the indigenous occupants to their ancestral lands predated the advent of the Republic of the Philippines or even its predecessor the Spanish Regalia, from whom all claims to land are supposed to originate.

Making the Regalian doctrine an even more bitter pill to swallow is the fact that ancestral land has never come under the effective control of Spanish colonial government. “Ownership, therefore, to ancestral land has long been vested and, in most cases, was never interrupted”. 

But under the Regalian doctrine, such claim of original ownership has no legal standing.

In the past, the classification of lands into timber and mineral automatically converted ancestral lands into inalienable public domain.

As if these were not enough, and after they have been driven to the forest areas by the pressure of settlers, the Marcos regime introduced through the Revised Forestry Code and the 1976 Ancestral decree a detail that lands on 18 percent mountain slope are automatically declared forest and, hence, inalienable, and those below the 18 percent slope mark may further be declared as inalienable public land by the mere expedient of declaring them as public reservation areas.

Given the constitutional shield on the Regalian doctrine, it seems certain that any major change in the property system will have to be premised on a constitutional amendment. Until then, what are the prospects of legislative reform? Or of the government recognition of ancestral lands? Much will depend on the state of enlightenment of the next Congress to understand the nature of the problem and manifest political will in favor of the indigenous peoples.

However, the outlook is bright for consolidation activities among the indigenous peoples. There are also other fields of endeavor which do not require legislative action. Intervention from the Executive branch of government will suffice.

It is a well-known fact, for example, that government-approved Social Studies textbooks in Philippine grade schools carry a lot of distortions of facts, or simply omissions on matters related to the Lumads or Moros. If this is immediately remedied, a lot of negative sentiments about them can be eliminated from the minds of young children.

Government-recognition of fake datus which has caused a lot of confusion and demoralization among the people can easily be withdrawn and rectified.

Consolidation of Forces Among the Indigenous Communities

Inner transformation within the ranks of the ICCs has been going on for some time now. The Bangsamoro are visibly the more militant, given their long and extensive experience in centralized activities and in confronting external enemies, but even they must face divisiveness from within.

The split of the MNLF which led to the establishment of other factions like the MILF and the MNLF-Reformist Group are more than eloquent proofs of this.

The Lumad tend to be more gentle. But both are experiencing a fast pace in the awakening process.

Among the Lumad, events unfolded fast from the time of the church-initiated first inter-tribal assembly in 1977, which only had a handful of participants, then churchily called “Tribal Filipinos”, to the founding congress of Lumad Mindanaw in 1986.  Lumad-Mindanaw was constituted by a coalition of, initially, 78 local and regional all-Lumad organizations. 

The name “Lumad” was born by consensus from the realization of a need by people who discovered from the similarities of their marginalized situation a common cause and a common destiny.

The coalition was born in the context of the Marcos dictatorial regime, in an atmosphere of militarization, human rights violations, poverty, land-grabbing, undue intrusions by multinational corporations, and government neglect. And the aspiration and struggle for self-determination was seen both as a desirable process and an ultimate goal.

Processes in their assemblies followed traditional custom. Sharing and analysis of problems and finding solutions to these were consciously consultative, participatory, and consensus oriented. No one is left out. And growth in consciousness is more or less even.

In the recent past, too, a good number of support groups emerged to help the Lumad out in their struggle, the most active being KADUMA-Lumad. Their number have also multiplied. More public forums like the Second Ancestral Land Congress where public officials were deliberately invited can be held.

Their local and regional organizations, but more especially Lumad Mindanaw itself, will play significant roles in pressuring government to recognize their ancestral lands, or in bringing about the acceptable resolution of the contradiction between public domain and ancestral land. At the same time, similar experiences of the Moro peoples somehow point towards the same directions.

Undoubtedly, it is not easy at this point to gauge how the MNLF or the MILF will move forward in its struggle. At present the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanaw is in place. The revolutionary organizations seem to be inactive but MNLF leaders are reported every year  to be following up their application for membership in the Organization of Islamic Conference. There is occasional cry for the implementation of the Tripoli agreement but there continues a search for political processes that can truly respond to their legitimate demand for a more genuine autonomy.

Meanwhile, the indigenous peoples in Mindanaw pursue their quest for an authentic peace — where sustainable development takes place as a social process, initiated, activated and sustained by themselves, the very people who seek it. It can be the process of self-government initiated, activated and sustained by the people themselves in accordance with customary laws and with due respect a corded their ancestral lands.

Indeed, it will take time. As their struggles have taken much time. But the Bangsamoro and the Lumads of Mindanaw have long exhibited incomparable patience and  tenacity and there is no reason why these virtues will not serve them well until they obtain their just due: a life of peace and prosperity.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. A peace specialist, Rudy Buhay Rodil is an active Mindanao historian and peace advocate.)

Tomorrow: Part XV: Selected Bibliography

16 of 16 parts
Epilogue 1

(Done in 1992 at Iligan City, published initially as two versions. First as the abbreviated edition published by The Minority Rights Group, London entitled The Lumad and Moro of Mindanaw, July 1993. The Philippine edition carrying the full draft was printed by AFRIM in Davao City 1994. This was later updated in 2003, summarized in an epilogue. This is the third revision, now with an expanded Epilogue.)

Part XVI. Updated Epilogue-I

In the Bangsamoro front. 

The first big event was the signing of the Final Peace Agreement between the GRP and the MNLF on September 2, 1996. After nearly five years of intensive negotiations both in Jakarta and in the Philippines, from exploratory to talks proper,  the GRP and the MNLF finally came to terms on the implementation of the 20-year old Tripoli Agreement of 1976. The two parties agreed to have a transition mechanism called Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD) while the amendment of the Organic Act of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) was being processed through Congress, and 7,500 MNLF combatants were to be integrated into the government, 5,750 into the Armed Forces of the Philippines and 1,750 into the Philippine National Police.

The implementation was a bit stormy in certain places but the tempest blew over in time. An uproar, mainly from the Christian population, was generated by the transition mechanism called the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development but when the opposing population realized that their interest was not really compromised, they simmered down.  MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari who refused to vacate his seat as ARMM Governor for reasons not yet fully clear up to now led an abortive rebellion, escaped to Malaysia, was arrested there by the Malaysian government and handed over to the Philippine government. He subsequently landed in jail; he is still there as of this writing. The Organic Act became a law in 2001; a plebiscite was held in August 2001 and Basilan and Marawi City became the new additions to the territory of the ARMM, and a new batch of ARMM officials was elected into office.   By the first quarter of 2003, the last batch of the 7,500 MNLF combatants who were trained and integrated into the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police was deemed completed.

The second big event was the all-out war against the MILF declared by President Joseph Estrada. Negotiations with the MILF followed immediately after the signing of the Peace Agreement in 1996 but this was marred by several major encounters between the MILF forces and the AFP, until finally, in March 2000, after the military re-captured the town hall of Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte from the MILF, President Estrada thought it best to declare an all-out war against the former. A full-scale war raged for more than three months, leading to the military capture of 46 MILF camps.  More than one million residents, Muslims, Lumad and Christian inhabitants were dislocated. MILF forces  may have suffered humiliation but remained basically intact. Estrada has been impeached, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took over as the new president, the peace talks have inched forward a little with two major agreements on security and rehabilitation but is far from done. Ancestral Domain, a critical item in the agenda, has yet to be discussed.  A new round of fighting broke out in February 2003 which spilled over as far as Lanao del Norte.  Meanwhile,  Salamat Hashim  had passed away in July 2003, and Vice Chairman for Military Affairs Al Haj Murad Ebrahim has assumed the chairmanship of the organization. There is a lull in the fighting.  A resumption of  negotiation was scheduled for the first week of October but it is now December and there is no concrete indication that a date has been  fixed. The presidential election is only a few months away. Doubts have been expressed from the MILF end, albeit unofficial, that a peace agreement would be signed  with the Arroyo administration. This is where things stand at the moment.

In the Lumad front

The third big event was the enactment into law of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) in October 1997. This is the first law in the 20^th century that reversed the effects of PCA 718 of April 1903 which, as we will recall, declared as void all land grants made by traditional leaders, if done without consent from government. With IPRA, ancestral lands may be titled.

Prior to the enactment of IPRA, the government already initiated positive efforts towards providing security to ancestral domain claims of the Indigenous Peoples. It is a bit late in coming, still short of what the Indigenous Peoples really want, but it is definitely a step forward. It started with DAO 2 (short for Department Administrative Order No. 2) issued by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in January 1993. Its title is self-explanatory: Rules and Regulations for the Identification, Delineation and Recognition of Ancestral Land and Domain Claims.  After complying with the procedures, claimants would be awarded a certificate of ancestral domain claim.

Since that time up to June 6, 1998, a total of 181 Certificates of Ancestral Domain Claims (CADC) have been issued totaling 2,546,036 hectares, nearly 500,000 hectares shy of the three million hectares originally targeted by the Order for its five-year effectivity.

Of the total of 85 CADCs that have been issued to the Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao,  the largest is the Matigsalug Manobo claim with an area of  77,143 hectares.  .

With the enactment of IPRA, authority to issue titles, not just certificates to ancestral domain claims have been turned over to the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP). Not too long ago, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo awarded Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), granted through the NCIP,  to three indigenous tribes in Mindanao during the culmination of the two-day Mindanao Indigenous Peoples congress on October 30, 2003. These are  the Matigsalug-Manobo from the municipalities of Kitaotao, Kibawe, and Quezon in Bukidnon; Talaandig from  Talakag, Bukidnon; and Arumanen-Manobo from the municipalities of Carmen,  Aleosan, Alamada, and Libungan, in Cotabato.

The fourth significant event was the Mindanao Indigenous Peoples Peace Forum organized by Panagtagbo at Camp Alano, Toril, Davao City on 17-19 January 2001. This assembly issued a manifesto (See full text in Appendix N ) which made several important assertions, one of them being a reiteration of their desire for self-governance within their respective ancestral domains in accordance with their customary laws, and the other – and this is new – the creation of their own autonomous region, apart from the ARMM. For the first time, too, Panagtagbo succeeded in getting the Lumad position heard in the GRP Panel that is conducting peace talks with the MILF through the membership of Datu Al Saliling as member of the Technical Working Group on Ancestral Domain. They had wanted full panel membership but only a seat in the working group was available. They have also been able not only to present their position to the MILF but also to conduct dialogues with local units of the MILF to remind them of traditional pacts – called dyandi and pakang — with Maguindanao Moro leaders in the past with respect to ancestral domain boundaries. This mode of assertion of Lumad rights is unprecedented and bears monitoring.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. A peace specialist, Rudy Buhay Rodil is an active Mindanao historian and peace advocate)

TOMORROW: Update Epilogue II A Mindanao Historian’s Views; Quick Recalls on the Basic Issues of the GRP-MILF Peace Process

16 of 16 parts
Epilogue 3

(Done in 1992 at Iligan City, published initially as two versions. First as the abbreviated edition published by The Minority Rights Group, London entitled The Lumad and Moro of Mindanaw, July 1993. The Philippine edition carrying the full draft was printed by AFRIM in Davao City 1994. This was later updated in 2003, summarized in an epilogue. This is the third revision, now with an expanded Epilogue.)

Part XVIII

Update 2020 Epilogue – III: Panagtagbo A  One Big Event 2004 to 2020

BARMM is historic!

Not only for Bangsamoro.

Also for Mindanaw-Sulu

Definitely for the Republic of the Philippines.

After seven presidents (Ferdinand Marcos, Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Benigno “Pnoy” Aquino, Digong Duterte – still in place)…

After 19 Government Negotiating Panels (from 1975 to 2014) talking with the Bangsamoro Fronts, mainly the MNLF and the MILF…

After the Tripoli Agreement, the Final Peace Agreement, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro unto BARMM (the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao)…

After three decades of experience with the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM)…

Viewing the quick sequences of Ten Decisions in April 2012,  Framework Agreement in October 2012, then Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro  in 2014. Finally, the BARMM in 2018, … ratified in a plebiscite on 21 January 2019 and 6 February 2019… 

My sensing… as a Mindanawon historian, as part of the negotiation process part of the way… as an advocate… the peace talks’ responses to painful conflicts, every step, including backward step and forward step, there are no failures, not even MOA-AD in my experience, the SAF-44 at Mamasapano, Maguindanao… there are always positive learnings. The emergence of our humanity comes at its own time. Call it ripening. Call it realization.

In the 44 years of peace negotiations, 21 years from January 1975 to 2 September 1996;  22 years from January 1997 to 27 March 2014, followed by the Bangsamoro Organic Law  processing by Congress and signed by President Digong Duterte on 27 July 2018, and ratified in a plebiscite on 21 January and 6 February 2019 …  still ongoing … 

It took both parties to agree on what is the problem they were trying to solve. Technically the disagreements were always between the Constitution and the dream of self-determination among the Bangsamoro.  But in reality, there other emotions we try to hold back to give way to rationality. The small pieces, the agreements, step by step, came into place, despite disruptions, including armed engagements, sometimes called impasses.  Then, forward again… and the final agreements.

Feel the global dimensions… recall…The GRP-MNLF was always with the participation of the OIC via the Quadripartite Ministerial Committee, started with four, then expanded to six. Libya and Indonesia played crucial roles. The GRP/GPH-MILF peace talks was always done in Malaysia…. Which expanded with the participation of other states, mainly the International Monitoring Team (IMT) led by Malaysia, followed by Brunei Darussalam,  then Indonesia, Japan, Libya, Norway and the European Union.

Looking Forward via Education

Education is naturally an integral part of the mission of BARMM.  Hitting the creation of the new generation at the heart… This is reflected in the PROPOSED BANGSAMORO EDUCATION CODE (draft as of 18 September 2020, already filed in October 2020 as a bill for deliberation in the parliament) for the establishment of a complete integrated system within the Bangsamoro. It accurately reflects the seeds of the new Bangsamoro Organic Law.

I am particularly touched by the sensitiveness of the leaders…grounded indeed … it is wholistic but there is this conscious focus on the curriculum of the indigenous peoples… and it is being futuristic…

·      operate around indigenous culture, knowledge, systems, and practices existing in the Bangsamoro region… include mental and psychological and environmental contexts of the learners.

·      Language medium. Teaching and learning shall be the mother tongue for Kindergarten and Grade 1 to 3 learners. Primary medium of instruction and learning beginning Grade 4, shall be English…Filipino and mother tongue may also be used

·      Ministry support for the creation of a tribal university system to address the higher educational needs of non-Moro indigenous peoples.

Peace Education

Peace education for all shall also be an integral part of the Basic Education Curriculum of the learners nurturing them in the life of nonviolent culture, social justice, and respect for human rights, freedom, and inclusivity.

Among the Lumad

I was there and felt deeply this event of Re-affirmation of Kinship of the Moro and Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao at Talaandig Ancestral Territory at Tulugan, Sungko, Lantapan, Bukidnon, 7-8 March 2012, participated by delegates from the tri-peoples. I call this another peace process in itself (more indigenous to use the word husay), a panagtagbo, a convergence of those affected by conflict.  This was this message, embossed in bronze, prominently displayed:

KINSHIP COVENANT

The Indigenous Peoples and the Moro of Mindanao hereby acknowledge the following principles and doctrines of Kinship as basis of their cooperation, understanding and unity as descendants of the early inhabitants in the island of Mindanao:

Principle 1. Kilalaha (Mutual Recognition and Respect)

Principle 2. Sayuda (Mutual Sharing of Information)

Principle 3. Buliga (Cooperation)

Principle 4. Uyaga (Mutual Protection & Preservation of Life)

Principle 5. Pabatunbatuna (Mutual Obligation to Help the Needy)

Signed this 8^th day of March 2012 in the heart of the Talaandig Ancestral Territory

at Tulugan, Sungko, Lantapan, Bukidnon.

Now we are ready for a new chapter. Together.

Husay and panagsuon.

Kalinaw Mindanaw!     

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. A peace specialist, Rudy Buhay Rodil is an active Mindanao historian and peace advocate)