ISA Hosts Conversation with Displaced Tribals

ISA worked with the Anawim Mission to hold “Conversations with Indigenous Peoples” on Friday, December 6, 2019 at the Teresa de Avila Building, New Manila, Quezon City. The next day ISA joined the open-air The World’s Big Sleep Out (WBSO), described as the biggest fundraising campaign in a generation to fight global homelessness.

ISA Executive Director Fr. Rico Ponce, O.Carm. welcomed speakers from the Manobo, Bilaan, Dumagat and Bontoc-Mountain Province tribes as well as members and friends of Anawim who work with indigenous peoples (IPs).

He took note of the interfaith prayer in the form of an original composition sang by Reds Pangkat Sining, two Redemptorist fathers who work with the Dumagats in Rizal Province.

He added, “In 2017 we in Anawim Mission marked the 500th year of Protestantism by expanding the meaning of the Biblical word for the poor – anawim, including widows and orphans –to include the urban poor, low-wage workers, victims of demolition and landlessness and the indigenous peoples.”

Fr. Ponce said, “We are not here to convert the poor but to partner with them. This is why we call our event today a conversation. Today we will listen to indigenous peoples tell us stories (kuwento) of their situation.”

Stories and life situation

Prof. Tito Loyola, co-moderator with Dr. Carmen Alviar also from Anawim Mission, introduced the first speaker, Prof. Marcela Octaviano from the Notre Dame de Marbel University. She has an M.A. in Development Studies degree from the University of East Anglia, UK and is majoring in Applied Cosmic Anthropology at the Asian Social Institute, Manila.

At the forum, Prof. Octaviano chose to share the importance of ancestral domain: “If you take away our land, we indigenous peoples lose our culture and our biodiversity – our plants, harvests, nests and communion with nature. We are thinking not just of our world but also of our children, our seas and the stones. This is the source of our unity.”

She pointed out; “Because you asked me to share stories, I talk about indigenous peoples being deprived of educational assistance, being courted by politicians who need their vote, being shown off as types of cultural preservation, being discussed in classrooms. But afterwards, nothing happens. Still, of course we thank the Church and priests who are insightful.”

Prof. Octaviano is also the executive director of GeoChris Foundation, Inc. and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Partners for First Peoples Foundation. She started her career at the Santa Cruz Mission Cultural Foundation in Zamboanga and was a community organizer in Palawan, Abra and South Cotabato. Born in South Cotabato, she is a Blaan-Tiboli.

The second speaker was from Northern Philippines (Bontoc) and her parents are from the Mountain Province which forms part of the Cordillera Administrative Region.

Maureen B. Loste became an advocate after being introduced by the late Archbishop Francisco Claver, SJ to the Episcopal Commission on Tribal Filipinos (ECTF), Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

“We worked up to Central Luzon because of the historical significance of the indigenous peoples. And on the fifth centenary of the Martin Luther’s work, it is fitting to look back why the Church came to be involved with the quest for precious gold and spices. And so, in the encounter with Iberian colonists, we came under the Regalian Doctrine that the State controls the utilization of natural resources. This is also in the Constitutions of 1935 and 1987.”

“But now, we see the limits of our Constitutions,” said the speaker. “From the Cordillera to Mindanao, we advocates for IP rights have seen plunder, oppression, discrimination, neglect of social service, and bypassing of the right to free, prior and informed consent embodied in national laws on mining and other natural resources.

She showed pictures, maps and charts to concretize the stories of militarization, bombings of schools, evacuation of pupils to Metro Manila, red tagging of human rights defenders by state security forces, a return to martial law, economic zones and military reservations, and the effects of the BUILD, BUILD, BUILD policy.

“To mark the impact of the proposed Kaliwa-Kanan Dam on tribal Filipinos, peasants, rice producers, local farmers, residents of Infanta and consumers of water, last month (November 2019) we had a Dumagat Day near the Agus River in Quezon Province,” she said.

Ecology will suffer, and that was also the theme of the song that closed this part of the conversation: No trespassing sa Dumagat/Hindi sa amin pero kami ang nagtanim (We don’t own what we had planted).”

The next speakers were Dumagat themselves: Danny (no last name given) and Tata Rosendo, an elder of the tribe driven (napadpad) from their homes in Rizal and other parts of Southern Luzon to Bulacan Province in Central Luzon.

Their stories: “Mas maganda noon. Life was better then. And we now have tuberculosis and UTI but our sick will die walking to town. And now we have no boat (banca) and so, we must walk three hours down (pababa). We have no rights to fish in Angat Dam. We cannot extract yantok wood without permits from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Bawal sirahin ang kahoy. We cannot harvest fruits.

They had to wake up 4 AM to be on time for the conversation with ANAWIM but they exuded dignity in their loincloth, headdress, feathers and other body ornaments. According to their companion, Gaspar Afable, Jr, the myth that Dumagats are shy is indeed only a myth.

“They are seen as mapagbigay (generous), ayaw ng gulo (acquiescent just to keep the peace) and willing to accept three or four cans of sardines for their land. Matiyaga ang katutubo (tribals are patient) but their leader, Nicandro de los Santos, was killed in opposing Laiban Dam. And so, they are not shy (hindi mahiyain) in the broad strokes of history.”

Afable is an ex-seminarian who has stayed for three years with the Dumagats on the provinces of Rizal and Quezon in the Protect the Sierra Madre Mountain Movement.

Church response

What else is the Church response to landlessness, landgrabbing and firearms?

At the conversation hosted by ISA, Liza Adamos-Corter of the United Methodist Church reported that UMC Philippines is joining the fight to protect (huwag galawin) Ka Angie, an urban poor leader in her eighties who is threatened with arrest.

“We also voiced concern about the sedition charges against Sr. Ellen Belando, RGS,” she said. “And we have called for action (panawagan) against the liberalization of rice tariff. The situation of the society we have is clear. No one is safe, including our indigenous peoples. I saw their helplessness. They should not be, we have said to them. They knew the land before we did. We hope we can get outside our churches and live and struggle with them”

On the part of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC), Pastor Butch Ongkiko reported about a project in social enterprise for Mindanao coffee, just like the well-know Kalinga coffee of the Cordilleras.

“It is a micro-enterprise but it provides a space for us and for the indigenous peoples,” he pointed out. “Evangelicals are new to this but we are striving to be incarnational, integrated and connected to God in working with others and with our brothers. Please pray for us.” ”

For the Iglesia Independiente Filipina (IFI), Christy Mae Quimno spoke of a new initiative in the Year of Witness and Service for Human Dignity for the aba, api (lowly and oppressed), indigenous peoples and the LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders) sector.

She explained, “Our ministry is for oppressed, and we have had three leaders massacred in front of their community In 2011 we had an accompaniment program with the lumads (local term for IPs) as part of our ministry of presence. This was in Mindanao and now, we have opened it at the national level.”

The IFI, she said in conclusion, has not converted the IPs “because we believe we are all equal” – a thought shared by Bishop Artemio Luaton of the Rukha Yaohu Eparchy of the Ancient Church of the East Philippine Diaspora.

“We have small churches, as in Antipolo,” said the bishop. “We try to be of the people and we serve communities not served by the others. Our mission is in the Philippines. We create churches coming from the roots.”

Challenge

Grow where you are and live with the people, said Prof. Loyola as he took off from the mission of Bishop Luaton’s mission to the Philippine from the ancient church of the East.

The moderator of the forum also asked, “Supporting the IPs in their struggle and fight for self-determination – are we ready for this? Can we take the pump boat to Angat Dam for three hours? We help them go back to their communities but leave them to those who kill.”

Prof. Loyola reminded the Anawim member organizations: of the dangers involved.

“Remember, we are under attack while we help. Are we ready for charges of subversives or illegal possession of explosives? It is a big challenge for Church to have a conversation on our communal responses to helping the government change economic policies which do not favor the IPs next to the big commercial oligarchs. I hope that the awakening of Evangelical Christians will also awaken all of the Church.”

Perla Aragon-Choudhury