Nature Wins. All The Time

“Oh people of the earth
Listen to the warning the seer he said
Beware the storm that gathers here
Listen to the wise man…” (Brian May, 1975)

For the first time in my life I, like a million others who had access to the internet, watched in real time a storm brew and spew its wrath on everything along its path.  What is comfortable to note is that the loss of lives now is far lower than what we got last year at about this time.  Thank you, Sendong for a powerful lesson.  What we failed to teach each other nature did. 

After we pray and cry for the dead it’s time to transcend the self-pity and the ranting.  All human effort to wax eloquent about disaster preparedness and response only went so far.  Pablo (shouldn’t his international name be Blopa?!) knew that it was time for a practicum.    From cyberspace he looked majestic, strong, powerful.  It was easy for him to spot those who skipped classes, some subjects or entire courses in the aftermath.

The warnings came late last week; and until Monday evening all that Cotabato City got was a not so sunny but very hot weather.  Odd.  Some friends joked that there must be something wrong with the advisory.  I felt there was nothing wrong with being prepared.  Ok, Mindanao was once marketed as Typhoon-Free so why not set up shop here. 

But there’s a catch: before Pablo, Mindanao may have been typhoon-free but what was always unspoken was that it is disaster-prone, and it’s all man-made.  C’mon.  The logs did not cut themselves; the nickel and the gold didn’t gouge itself out from the bowels of the earth; the African palms and bananas did not drill those gigantic pipes to quench its enormous thirst; the creeks did not gorge itself with plastic and the grasses did not spray itself with herbicide.             

We retired in the night after checking as many posts possible on social media and updates on cable tv; and making sure Gel in Bukidnon and Ram in Puerto Princesa have taken the necessary precautions.

There was nothing unusual with my 3 o’clock waking hour Tuesday morning, except that the blanket remained folded.  It must have been warm.  Pablo continued to creep overnight; and the raindrops came at exactly 4:30 and it’s more than 24 hours since.

Sr Erleen of HESED called that their culminating activity on December 5 where I was a resource person is cancelled.  The road to Tapian along the coast is impassable.  What a fitting way to reflect as the Mindanao Week of Peace ended with the theme “Together for Sustainable Peace in Mindanao”.  Many like-minded sectors would be talking among themselves on how to make it work while the usual culprits continue to make hay – bringing in unregulated imports, inviting external consultants, investing in capitalist financial structures – and still debate why durable solutions can’t be  had.

Who’s together?  What’s sustainable? Whose peace?  Development for whom? 

Sendong came last year.  Something that did not have a name so we just called it Habagat came in August.  Let’s brace for something stronger than Pablo and exponential after that until we remember, as Bryan May said, we are people of the earth.  There’s just no way we can mess up with nature.  It always wins. ##

Cotabato City

5 December 2012

Aveen Acuña-Gulo wrote an editorial column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006. She likes to challenge stereotypes.  “Don’t worry about my opinions,” she says.  “It won’t make a dent to the conventional.”  

In the name of what? Hill 224 and the cycle of oppression

This article appeared on MindaNews on August 16 2012 1:05 am

http://www.mindanews.com/mindaviews/2012/08/peacetalk-in-the-name-of-what-hill-224-and-the-cycle-of-oppression/

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COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/15 August) —  Several actors figure prominently in this recent armed conflict:
First and foremost is the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters or Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement who harassed military installations in the middle of Ramadhan allegedly to avenge the death of a comrade last June;
The military who, under the constraints of the current GPH-MILF peace talks maintains a defensive position considering that Camp Omar of the BIFF/BIFM is still technically an MILF camp; the government on all levels, whose access to the press and cyberspace seem to manifest that emergency relief assistance will already address a situation that repeats itself over the years.

In this week-old crisis, everybody who has something to say has already been given considerable time and space on radio, print, television and the internet despite the Habagat floods in Luzon.  The faces of suffering (with children as the easiest sympathy-generating tools), the inhumane living conditions in evacuation centers, the sights and sounds of guns and weapons of destruction, images of reporters with fancy gear in the battle zone, the humanitarian response of rice, medicines and photo ops, the illogical numbers of IDPs – are all the same; only the dates have changed.
Can we still learn?

In this light, may we call upon specifically the media to go beyond the usual reportage.  This should help initiatives, i.e. the privilege speech last July of ARMM Sectoral Rectoral Representative for IPs calling for a legislative inquiry into the real situation symbolized by Hill 224.  Statements issued by IP leaders (both men and women) to declare Mt Firis as a zone of peace still seem not to etch itself in the consciousness of decision-makers, much less the general public.

The rampage that started in the Mt Firis Complex is more than the current peace talks.  It is a case of land-grabbing, neo-colonialism, development aggression and annihilation of culture rolled into one.  While it is true that IDPs now start to languish in lowland evacuation centers and truly deserve help, the media can generate action with their sense of fairness and nationhood by covering the plight of the indigenous peoples.  Do we really have to wait for the IPs to shed their non-confrontational nature for them to earn precious air time or newspaper space?  Accounts are replete with how IP names were used several times by different sectors either for election purposes or in order to avail of humanitarian and development assistance.  Whether it changed their lives for the better is another story.

The Indigenous Peoples (Teduray, Lambangian and Dulangan Manobo or TLaD) know that their ancestral land covers 189,534 hectares with a perimeter of 211 kilometers in Maguindanao alone. [The 289,286 hectares documented by Cotabato-based Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) already covers parts of Sultan Kudarat Province].   This indigenous knowledge has been passed through  centuries through oral tradition using natural markers like rivers, rocks, trees among others.  The IP concept of ancestral domain is “private land owned by a community,” and community in this case refers to the three IP groups.

IAG further states that “…between 2002-2006, various Muslim Mindanao Acts created new municipalities carved out from Mt Firis: Datu Unsay, Datu Saudi, Guindulungan, Shariff Aguak and Talayan which were inevitably ruled by Maguindanao Mayors.  Recent regional laws also removed 12 coastal barangays of Upi to form the Datu Blah Sinsuat municipality, and renamed the Teduray ancestral domain portions of Dinaig town into the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipality.”

Faced with the challenge of the Regalian Doctrine where “all lands not otherwise clearly appearing to be privately-owned are presumed to belong to the State” the TLaD have united themselves to have what is left of ancestral domain be given a title on which, under the present IPRA law can only be issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

Interestingly, the ARMM chose not to be covered by the IPRA law when it was passed in 1997.  Assurances were made that being autonomous, it can take care of its own IPs who comprise around half a million, or 20% of its population at that time.  Though excruciatingly slow, efforts are underway to have an NCIP or its equivalent in the ARMM.

Not known to engage in armed confrontations to resolve conflict, the IPs retreat to what they think are safer grounds every time they are harassed. What they consider as ancestral land have now been made either camps by revolutionary groups, or subdivided into municipalities, and titled to be their own by political families.  Calls to let them move to evacuation camps which are near the highway are met with the uncertainty that the land that they will return to will already have become logging sites, camps or plantations as what happened in the past.

We appeal to the media to interview the mayors of the affected municipalities and ask why they allowed these atrocities to flourish; what are their political plans and how they intend to finance it.  It would be good to see what type of businesses flourish every time displacements occur.  If the answers are incomprehensible, maybe the questions are not precise.   If things are better left unsaid, it is understandable that someone’s life may be at stake – or maybe documents can talk.

We call on the Mindanao Humanitarian Team who has the collective capacity and expertise to triangulate data submitted by local government units.  Let it not be said that spoilers of the peace have higher intelligence quotients in terms of numbers.

And to the consumers of news, a spectator public that has expanded exponentially through social media, may there be more discernment in what is read or heard.  May we not be multipliers of lies and half-truths as, according to Socrates, slander becomes the tool of the losing debater.

While all issues and discussions will not fit into this one article, it is clear that self-pity will not solve the crisis symbolized by Hill 224 either.  Let us help duty-bearers, policy-makers and each other come up with research-based and informed actions.  Only proactive response will do justice to the faceless indigenous peoples who have long been marginalized.

In the name of peace.

(PeaceTalk is open to anyone who wishes to share his/her piece on peace in Mindanao. Aveen Acuna-Gulo is the Project Manager of IPDEV, an EU-funded project for the recognition and empowerment of indigenous peoples in the ARMM.  IPDEV is implemented by the consortium of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Institute for Autonomy and Governance and Development Consultants.  The views expressed here are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU, KAS, IAG and DEVCON)

Food security: Tatay-style

This article appeared on MindaNews May 4 2008 12:27 am

A couple of weekends ago I visited him in Bukidnon.  Now slightly bent in his 68 yr-old farmer’s gait, he showed me a new bamboo-slat barn he was making.  He would store his newly harvested corn on one end; and some chickens on the other.  It is not unusual for me to see unmilled corn (in cobs, and sometimes with husks) in any corner of the house – - even the sala, and bedrooms, mind you – - and of course above the wood-fueled stove.

“How do you manage the weevils?” I ask.

His reply: “The weevils can't consume everything.”  Ah ok.  (I remember someone told me that Ilocano neighbors were spraying something like water steeped in tobacco leaves around their kamalig or barn.  I suppose this was to minimize insects).  

Knowing how high rice prices had become, Tatay let me bring home one sack of yellow corn grits; but I can only manage transporting 25 kilograms 220 kilometers back to Cotabato City.  Why, some markets here already sell corn grits at P28!  This would surely last for a month with my family of 5. 

Tatay’s corn-eating lifestyle comes from his Sugbu-anon (Cebuano) roots.  He looked for greener pastures in Mindanao in the 1950s because the limestone soil in Cebu was difficult to till only corn would grow, and sparsely at that.  He relates further that they were so poor that having chicken or beef was already a luxury.  He said, “Bukidnon soil will grow anything if you just plant something on it.  I wanted to eat chicken, so I raised chickens.  I wanted to eat beef, so I raised cows.”  And so on and so forth.

He tells us, "Pobre ta pero wa ta maglisod" (we are poor but we are not hard-up).  It wasn’t easy sending all of us seven children to school, but his concept of being hard up is when “wa na juy lung-agon (when you do not have anything more to cook).”

According to him, his folks always said that "Kinahanglan mag-abot ang imong abot".  The first 'abot' – accent on the first syllable, meaning meet; the second 'abot' – accent on the second syllable, meaning harvest.  Roughly translated, it means “Your harvests should meet.” 

In the early 1970s, Tatay stacked up 80 sacks of palay, unmilled upland rice (dinorado) to see how long it would last considering it was sun-dried properly.  But the long dry spell hit Mindanao (El Nino wasn’t the name then) he had no choice but to mill his palay.  While the rest of our neighbors grudgingly had corn, we had rice.  Sometimes we exchanged the rice for the neighbors’ corn.    This was the time when I also learned that the volume of the boiled rice (or corn) could be expanded by adding cubes of camote (sweet potatoes) or unripe saba bananas which I think is called “sinaksak”.  Up to today, he also stacks up on palay, just enough when he needs it, with all of his children already grown up and on their own.

Tatay tried modernizing, too: mono-crops, chemical fertilizers, test tube planting materials, hybrid seeds.  He also wanted to test the claims of science and technology and huge profits versus time-honored wisdom.  But it seems he was always disappointed every time.  With the lure of huge loans, his fellow farmers become more debt-ridden than ever.  Was it because the loan for the yellow corn became a yellow car?  Seeds and other agricultural inputs grew mansions?  The sugar industry raised a whole structure of oppression?  Agents and middlemen shaved commissions from agricultural inputs one layer after the other?  Behind the commercial chicken- and swine- feeds were hormones that created disease-prone offspring?  Behind the animal dispersals were ghost recipients?

As Tatay put it, “Let the others loan as much as they want.  I’m happy.  Wala ko’y utang (I’m not in debt).”  But he has corn anytime he likes.  All the vegetables he loves are just growing around his house: bamboo shoots,malunggay leaves, kulitis (spinach), saluyot (Philippine spinach), kudyapa (wild spinach).

Bottom line:  Investing so much for nothing.  Why bother with self-induced stress?  Tatay seems happy with his plow and the smell of the freshly upturned earth; even plowing at 3am when the moon is shining (“I could rest at 8am when the sun gets hot”).    

As one observer put it, “Filipinos are always in a hurry but are always late.”  With the country’s present rice crisis and chronic indebtedness, modern technology and modern financing schemes may have to take a back seat for now because the value of building on what we have has already been forgotten.  As a nation we have become culturally unstable to handle resources that are readily available from commercial companies (don’t forget the ‘multinational’ part. It seems we have changed its context to ‘investors’).

For us to claim to be an agri-based economy and people are hungry, it’s a shame.  We don’t need elaborate, confusing, thus corruption-prone schemes.  Our national dignity depends on food security down to the household level. 

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Aveen Acuña-Gulo wrote an editorial column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006.  She is not stating full names of people and institutions to protect their identities.  “Don’t worry about my opinions,” she says.  “It won’t make a dent to the conventional.”)