I got a request from Al-Qalam Institute of the Ateneo de Davao University to write an article for an upcoming book that is a "special publication on matters concerning the Bangsamoro and the peace process. It is primarily designed to complement the mission of ADDU by disseminating its advocacies for peace in Mindanao."
* * * * *
(This
article will try to translate existing information into everyday language,
keeping technical terms to a minimum. It
is hoped that the general public will have in their consciousness the
Indigenous Peoples in the ARMM; and through time, enable all of us to have
better understanding on the issue.
Consequently, those who will become duty holders in the long run, will
make more appropriate responses, far better than my generation did).
Background:
The story of the Indigenous Peoples
in the ARMM deserves a second and third look – and better yet, a thorough
scrutiny.
First, not much is known about them:
who they are, how many are they, where they live, how they live, what are their
needs, beliefs and aspirations. Conflicting
accounts of their numbers during, say for example, disaster-induced
displacement, lead to humanitarian aid for individuals who are nowhere to be
found; thus landing on unscrupulous hands.
The same is true for development
interventions where decision-makers generally create market-driven needs
instead of finding out the actual needs of the IPs. Projects end up functioning only for six
months, one year for a lot of reasons – could be low literacy coupled with
local government units who are concerned mainly with high-visibility-low-impact
(HVLI) projects, among others.
Oral accounts on the lives of the IPs
are abundant as it is colourful; and the need to have their indigenous skills,
system and practices (IKSPs) written down becomes imperative as their ancestral
domains are continuously reduced due to unabated encroachment – encroachment
that is sometimes sponsored or tolerated by the duty-holder itself: the state
at all levels.
As is its nature, oral accounts come in
different versions. The most telling of
which is the story of Mamalu and Tabunaway[1], siblings who could either
be brothers, brother and/or sister, older or younger, Islamized or non-Islamized,
depending on which tribe is telling the story.
The story of the siblinghood is often invoked so that the aggrieved
party will just keep quiet and wait for his rightful shares which have yet to
materialize despite assurances[2].
Researches on several aspects of
their societies are also rare and relatively unknown, if available.
Information
Gaps
These are some of the questions that the IPDEV[3] Project wanted to
answer. Survey[4] findings showed that there
four major IP groups in Mainland ARMM (Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur). These are the Teduray, Lambangian, Dulangan
Manobo and Higaonon. There 117,189
IP Individuals[5]
in 80 barangays within the ancestral domain claim (self-delineated) of 309,720[6]
hectares which includes coastal waters.
A proper delineation of boundaries that only the
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) can conduct will only mean two
things: that the claim will be increased or reduced. In indigenous wisdom, boundaries are points
of cooperation. Since government has yet to join their acts together to
recognize these boundaries, it is in effect the main factor that cooperation
cannot materialize.
While the Teduray, Lambangian, Dulangan Manobo are
indigenous to the area, the Higaonon are migrant IP workers to Wao, Lanao del
Sur along with 17 other IP groups.
To the IPs, land is life. It is the same land that is connected to the
air and the forests which in turn nurture the plants, the animals and
everything else that sustains life. It
is their source of food, their school, their pharmacy, their place of worship[7]. Take away the land from the IP and you take
away their life. To the IP, land is
owned by the tribe and cannot be owned by individuals or groups of individuals,
and that the only time one measures land is when he will be buried in it[8].
Recommendations
The points that I put here are based on experiences
while implementing the IPDEV Project.
Some of it are reflections of my own; and I know time will prove or
disprove what I have written here. I take sole responsibility for whatever
inaccuracies that are in here.
I have also observed that one thing is missing in many
of the dialogues: time. Most of us have
the tendency to mix the past, the present and the future altogether. What was applicable during immemorial times
may not be the case today or in the future.
Maybe it would be good to factor in time as we talk about
recommendations; along with values of compassion, sharing, respect for nature
which transcend time.
IPRA is
a Peace Agreement. Let
us not forget that Republic Act 8371 is the peace agreement of the Philippine
Government with the Indigenous Peoples. It
is a peace agreement that was forged after 11 years not through a united armed
confrontation with government but on the battleground of congress. Passed in 1997, it was hoped to address the
historical injustices committed against the indigenous peoples, to address violations
against their four bundles of rights[9].
Political
Will. If there’s a
will, there’s a way. IPRA as a national
law applies to all regions in the Philippines, including the ARMM. While it was applied in Basilan, it was not
applied in Maguindanao. What made it
possible in Basilan that was not made possible in Maguindanao is also an issue
that needs political will to resolve. And
even if IPRA has defects, all peoples in the ARMM regardless of tribe and
religious affiliation are citizens of the Republic of the Philippines thus
should be given the same basic services such as education and health accorded
to other, more dominant societies.
Governance,
Transparency & Accountability.
Governance can only be effective when there is wide participation among
peoples and not confined to a few families.
Those who are already in power can leave a legacy by making this crucial
piece of information known to and understood by its constituents with the best peace-building
strategy known: education.
As governance cannot be separated from transparency
and accountability, transparency can only mean anything if the greater majority
know what to look for; and in the same breadth, accountability can also mean
anything if the greater majority also know how to count. In simple terms, those who are in government should
focus all their energies on making their people know how to read, write and
count. Preventing their people to learn
how to read, write and count is a sure-fire way of propagating confusion and
consequently produce more self-induced problems.
Government
as duty holders.
Government need not go around in circles trying to solve problems if it
is mindful of its duties. Relegating its
duties to non-government organizations, civil society organizations, churches and
donors is tantamount to abandonment of duty.
“The key thing to remember is that donors need [government] more that
[government] needs them. That is a
reality and once government realizes that, it can start to get the best from
them. Donors will never coordinate
themselves. It is like asking a group of
poachers to arrange a set of rules for hunting.
The referee has to be government; and once government understands that
it really does have the power, and backs it up with a clear strategy, [it] will
get the best out of the donors. Actually,
lo and behold, the donors will start to behave[10].”
In the context of the ARMM, the proliferation of NGOs,
CSOs, donors and faith-based organizations filling in the gaps on basic
services is an indicator that government has not been in control, much less, fulfilling
its duties for a long time.
Loyalty of Members of Government. Apparently the loyalty of government has
shifted from the common good (citizenry which include the IPs) towards his own
good or that of his immediate family. This
lack of concern for collective good always translated to a turnover of
government officials & public servants who will make personal use of
resources that are not theirs in the first place.
Culture
cannot be legislated.
Our country has a penchant for not implementing laws passed in previous
administrations. It is also notorious
for implementing good laws badly; then pass more laws to address bad
implementation. In recent history[11],
this is probably what happened to the Tripoli Agreement, then the law creating
the ARMM, then the expanded ARMM, then the Final Peace Agreement, and now the
Bangsamoro Basic Law.
The case of the IPs in the ARMM is a case of both
victims of war and victims of peace. The
distrust on whether government will be able to fulfill what it has written into
law is not without basis. IPs were the
faceless recruits into both rebel groups and government troops who were sent to
the frontlines and if they came back alive, did not get anything from the
spoils of war.
After 38,000 hectares of prime forests on IP ancestral
lands was logged with the signing of the 1996 GRP-MNLF Peace Agreement, the IPs
did not receive any protection from its own local government units or even from
the Armed Forces of the Philippines – they were left to fend for themselves. After IPs were driven out of their ancestral
lands in all-out-wars, they had no place to go back to as these had already
been converted to sugar, banana, rubber or african palm plantations.
The
peace talks as an excuse not to implement existing laws. It is public knowledge that Conflict-Affected
Mindanao (CAM) is also a hotbed for crimes ranging from gun-running, drugs,
smuggling, timber poaching, cattle rustling, land markets, human
trafficking. Many line agencies continue
to exist waiting to function only once the new political entity will be in
place.
With no major industry to boast of, Cotabato City is
host to one of only three Central Banks in Mindanao. Foreign aid is still to be accounted for and
the lure of foreign investment on contested lands is already dividing
fragmented communities some more.
Isolation
as Insulation. The
non-implementation of IPRA in the ARMM in a way also insulated the IPs in the
ARMM from the bad implementation in non-ARMM areas. Bad implementation include issuance of
permits for extractive industries such as logging, mining, monocrop plantations
without the benefit of Free Prior Informed Consent (FPIC); non-IPs getting
certificates that they are IPs so that they can avail of scholarships or enlistment
to the military; IP leaders exchanging their lands for millions in royalties
that are misspent due to lack of financial management skills; among others. The opening up of ancestral lands belly up to
foreign utilization may be an anti-thesis to self-determination.
The Philippines
is a signatory to UNDRIP.
Again our country is an active member in the family of nations. How this all translates to justice for all on
the ground may not be seen in the next decade or two. Will the duty-holders who made life difficult
for lost generations be there to answer for their lack of wisdom? Will a national apology suffice by the time
the consciousness reaches the minds of policy makers and implementers?
As only the strong can admit its weakness, I hope that
we are brave enough to face these questions and prove that another law and
another political entity is not another failed experiment; nor another lost
opportunity.
Cotabato City
11 November 2014
_ _ _ _
Aveen Acuña-Gulo has worked with the United Nations under different
programs since 1998 (IOM, UN-MDP, UN Volunteers, UN-World Food
Programme). When this was written, she was the Project Manager of IPDEV, a three-year
EU-assisted 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.
She wrote a column “The Voice” for the Mindanao Cross from 1991-2006; she also worked as a DJ on DXOL-FM and has a musical range from rock to classical.
She likes to
challenge stereotypes.
“Don’t worry about my opinions,” she says. “It won’t make a dent to the conventional."
[1]
Hilario, 2013.
[2]
IPDEV, RTD 2013.
[3] Recognition of the Rights of the Indigenous
Peoples in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for their Empowerment and
Sustainable Development, an three-year EU assisted capacity-building project
implemented by a consortium of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG),
Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) and Development Consultants (DEVCON)
[4]
Conducted from August 2012 – February 2013.
See http://www.iag.org.ph/index.php/ipdevnews/538-read-the-indigenous-peoples-of-mainland-armm
[6] Broken down as follows:
Teduray - 183,899 hectares, Lambangian - 25,967 hectares, and Dulangan -
6,075 hectares. The Higaonon have no
ancestral domain claim in Wao, Lanao del Sur having migrated from the province
of Bukidnon.
[8]
RTD, IPDEV, 2013
[9] Right to Ancestral Domains; Right
to Cultural Right to
Self-Governance; and Right to Social Justice & Human Rights
[10] "Beware
of Donors" - Nigel Robert, Author, 2013 World Development Report (Topic:
International Perspectives on the Economics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction);
delivered during the High Summit on Security Sector Transformation at the
Ateneo de Davao, Sept 25, 2013
[11]
Minoritization of the IPs in the Philippines can be traced back to colonization.
You may also want to see: http://www.scribd.com/doc/121775772/Rodil-1994-Minoritization-of-Indigenous-Communities-MindanaoSulu-pdf
