ALL OVER the Philippines IP communities are under attack from military forces, which connive with foreign corporations interested in exploiting the rich natural resources in the country. Aside from the harassments, vilifications, strafing of schools and community structures, lumads are being pitted against each other, as tribe members are recruited into paramilitary groups that turn one’s kinsman against another. Government institutions supposed to give voice and other forms of aid to the affected IP communities remain silent, if not incapable, in addressing the problems of the lumads. This has been the longstanding situation here in Mindanao, where ancestral lands rich with natural resources turn into militarized zones, posing a danger to the local cultures of the people and to the environment.
You, Ma’am, or Bae, or whatever you wish to be called, have been elected into an office that has the ability to shift the tide in favor of the lumads. In your acceptance of your position, you have said a lot of things, all of which echoing the same sentiment: that you will go amongst the ranks of the poor IP’s in the mountains, listen to their qualms, and uphold their rights. I don’t know if you can do what you claim you will, but I am sure that you can only represent the IP people if you would have also experienced their plight. That you, at some point, have seen the fascist face of the military, which in many ways has displayed its evil character against the Lumads for a long time now; you met the same marginalization that many people with a direct IP ancestry have been through, of being laughed at by people who have no idea of how it difficult it is to live under fear in the mountains and of scorn here in the city; that you are a victim of the state’s negligence to provide basic social services towards the IP people, the intent for such lack of service seems to be to keep IP’s ignorant and incapable of discerning the effects of intrusion of foreign corporations into their ancestral lands, and how it would erode their culture.
You need not look as far as the BBL to see the pains of the people. A quick scan of the IP communities in this city will show you the rough experiences of the people that most people with seats in the city council will never survive against. Many people are waiting for your next move. Many people are in need of you making the right move. In the news, areas like Paquibato are stationed with nine soldiers per sitio, as the civilian population are accused of supporting rebel groups. In Marilog, 40 Klata-Bagobo families are being pushed out of their homes and farms, after a popular religious figure with connections to both politicians and military sought to expand even further his holy land. These are the only few people who I doubt have heard about you, but deserve to be given your utmost attention.
The question of the environment is also one that you must answer. Of what use is living for IP’s if the mountains and forests where their culture is built is turned into a pile of earth, for minerals resources that they give so little about. What is your stand on the mining issue, and how do you think we can address the poverty of this nation while preserving the remaining ecological health of the country.
If you truly are of the Lumad people, you will understand that for so long the NCIP and the IPRA law, which has created the said office, does not truly serve the IP groups in the country. But knowing the power and influence that the state can afford you in your position right now, it can also play a part in the construction of a better tomorrow for thousands of lumads. I only hope that you do not forget that the rights to ancestral domain are not something that the state can give. It is something that has been with the lumads ever since, even when many of them have been driven out of their lands. I hope you know that to be an IP representative is not too busy oneself with the needs of 6 tribes within the region of Davao City. To be a true IP representative means to stand for the entire IP population, regardless of the state’s socio-geographic demarcations, to go beyond the boundaries of cities and to embrace the whole spirit of IP representation by accepting the common denominator among IP communities: state oppression. Therefore, I will wish that you can say something regarding the deaths of the Martir Couple under the hands of the paramilitary group Alamara in Kapalong, and the death of a father and son before the said case. Contrary to what politicians say, you will not see a rainbow. It will only be black, red, and white: two forces in struggle, bloodshed in the middle.
I await your next move.
Tony Santos (Senior policy researcher, Peoples’ Environmentalist Caucus in Mindanao)
(ariosdumas@gmail.com)
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