TRUE to his nature, he quietly joined Magbabaya last Wednesday at the ripe age of 84 inside his highland abode on the foothills of Mount Apo in Kapatagan, Davao del Sur. Even if his death clearly left a void in the struggle for the defense of their ancestral lands, the legacy of Bagobo Chieftain Datu Tomas Ito casts a big shadow not only in the Davao Region but in the entire island of Mindanao.
Also known as Datu Birang, the soft-spoken Datu was thrust into the public eye when he led the 1989 D?yandi, a solidarity pact among nine Lumad tribes in Mindanao resisting the government?s geothermal project in Mt. Apo, a United Nations-declared national park and equivalent reserve and a Heritage Site of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). The 1989 D?yandi effectively transformed the Bagobo peace ritual into a multi-tribal solidarity pact among the indigenous communities that inhabit the 76,000-hectare of Mount Apo. The 1989 D?yandi was the first ritual held since the last pact made in the 13th century.
Soon thereafter, Datu Birang became the face of the campaign to defend Mt. Apo, touted as the country?s highest peak at 10,300 feet above sea level but which the Lumads revered as a sacred land called Apo Sandawa, the core of an elaborate belief system held by more than half a million Lumads of Mindanao. His wisdom and deep understanding of the ?connectedness of things? captivated even the so-called doubting Thomases.
Despite the widespread opposition?both locally and internationally?in 1992, the government, through the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), succeeded in putting up a geothermal plant on Mt. Apo. Soon after, President Corazon Aquino signed an edict designating a 701-hectare area of the Mt. Apo National Park as a geothermal reservation and drillings in the so-called ?Pearl of Mindanao? went full blast, acts that were considered by Datu Birang and his people as desecration of the ?sacredness of Apo Sandawa.?
?God, in our history of spirituality, is the creation itself. We consider Mt. Apo as our cathedral, the land and the pristine waters in its forests the symbols of our faith like the Christian?s cross? If we speak of sacredness, nature?the environment?is first in the order of things, second is the people because the people [are] part of nature,? said Datu Birang, who also served as chair of the Pasaka Confederation of Lumads in Southern Mindanao.
In an open letter addressed to the young Lumads, Datu Birang left this instructive charge: ?The defense of our ancestral domain is the biggest challenge to the survival of the Lumads. Our ancestral domain covers not only those land clearings that we can see, but, even the ravines, the forests and all those that can be found within ? The bright rays of the sun, the whispers of the wind, the darkness of the night, the glitters of the stars and the moon that can be observed from within?all these are part, too, of our ancestral domain ? Only nature can nurture the people and only the people can defend and protect Mother nature ... We must protect, without ever retreating, the land of our forebears, until the very last drop of our blood if it is needed.?
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?I cried and pleaded for them to provide the health center with the needed medicines,? Dr. Emmanuel Johann Obańa, a youthful ?doctor-to-the-barrio? assigned in Caraga, Davao Oriental, tearfully related to Mindanao Agenda, an investigative TV program of the GMA network in Davao City aired last Saturday.
Reporter John Paul Saniel showed how the young doctor?known simply as Doc Eman by his patients?tried to divide a bottle of paracetamol among several patients or how he used a single thermometer that had seen better days or how he had to cross a river on a banca to reach his patients only to be frustrated again because he cannot provide them with the needed medicines, even the basic ones.
Doc Eman?s cherubic face failed to conceal the woe?probably, even anger?that an idealistic public servant like him experienced in battling local traditional politicos, if only to provide much-needed medical services to the poor in far-flung places, like Caraga, the so-called ?Land of the Rising Sun,? located in the easternmost part of the Davao Region.
Yet, in contrast, Saniel reported, Caraga Mayor Alice Mori has several stacks of government-issued medicine supplies in her possession, though not placed in the health center nor in the municipio, but in her own house. Mori claimed that the medicines in her house will be used for medical missions. She, however, refused Saniel?s request that video footage be taken of the medicines saying she feared that it may be used as propaganda by her political opponents.
Before the program was over, Doc Eman already said a mouthful that not only described his frustrations but even aptly indicted the skewed priorities of the government?s health program. Doc Eman is one of only two ?doctors-to-the-barrios? assigned in far-flung areas of Southern Mindanao. ?Ginawa ko na lahat ? mahirap talaga kung ikaw lang mag-isa,? said Doc Eman, who hails from a poor family in Cavite.
Unfortunately, last Wednesday?before Mindanao Agenda was shown on local TV?Doc Eman was pulled out by the Department of Health from Caraga, Davao Oriental. He received death threats via text messages on his mobile phone two days after Saniel did an interview on him and Mayor Mori. Yes, Doc Eman, impunity metamorphoses into many faces. But, it will still end. Soon.
