Thanking Ceres Doyo for giving voice to IPs

Since October is Indigenous Peoples’ month, we, Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit, thank the editors, staff, and columnists of Philippine Daily Inquirer for upholding the “unflinching commitment to truth for the Filipino people.” We thank Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, in particular, for “writing dangerously” for 40 years, with her first story on Macli-ing Dulag, the courageous indigenous leader in the Cordilleras.

Over 35 years, she gave a voice to harassed Mangyan communities of Oriental Mindoro. Having interviewed them in their communities, she wrote timely columns about their plight and their school, Tugdaan. The feature article, “Reclaiming a Lost Eden,” in the Sunday Magazine on April 3, 1988, made Environment Secretary Fulgencio S. Factoran Jr. finally address the 53-year-old issue.

The October 1998 column, “NPA should leave Mangyans alone,” publicized the people’s unanimous resolutions/policies that violate Mangyan culture and destroy the environment. Initiated by the people’s organization, Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Mangyan Alangan, the two-day meeting was held after the military attacked the NPA camp near the reservation.

“Illiterate Mangyans vs. DECS,” in December 1991, recounted the decades-long struggle of the Mangyan communities within the Mindoro Agricultural School then, now Mindoro State University (MSU). After 69 years, there is hope. The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) issued the certificate of recognition of ancestral domain claim on Aug. 1, 2022. Thanks to NCIP chair Allen A. Capuyan and the six other commissioners. Thanks, too, to Commission on Higher Education chair Dr. Prospero de Vera III and MSU president Levy Arago Jr. Most of all, special thanks to Ma. Ceres P. Doyo for her unflinching commitment to her vocation to passionately write the truth in love.

Sr. Victricia Pascasio, SSpS,

socio-pastoral worker;

Sr. Rosario Tayson, SSpS,

provincial leader,

Philippine North