Burnishing bona fides

In last Sunday’s Inquirer, columnist Randy David recalled the “Mang Pandoy” tragedy. In a 1992 TV show with 11 squabbling presidential  contenders, this dirt-poor gardener offered a startling swap: his life for cash. His kids could then finish their studies and break free of  poverty that sapped his own life.

The nation was haunted by the man “whose unspeakable despair stood as an indictment of the sharp inequalities and poverty in our society,” David wrote. President Fidel V. Ramos hired the gardener as his anti-poverty program icon. “Mang Pandoy’s circumstances never improved,” David said. He died as poor as he was before he was plucked from anonymity.

Multiply Mang Pandoy by thousands of Lumad. There are roughly 12 million    indigenous people in 19 provinces. Many of these 18 tribes cluster in conflict-torn Mindanao: from the B’laan in Davao del Sur and South Cotabato to the  Manobos in Agusan del Sur, Davao and Bukidnon and the Subanons in  Zamboanga peninsula.

There, they assert—or used to—native title over swathes of land as their “ancestral domain.” Waves of migrants, spurred by resettlement programs over the years, shoved the Lumad into eroded uplands with thin forest cover.

Their predicament is carved into Timbang Tungkay’s face. He heads a T’boli village of 14 families by the Allah River in South Cotabato. “Hunger defines our lives,” this father of 24 children told researchers from Environmental Science for Social Change at the Ateneo and the United Nations.

Many of  his children “died from coughs, fevers and bad stomachs,” he said in an interview for the book “Forest Faces: Hopes and Regrets of Philippine Forestry.” Before, there were “many months that we were hungry. Now, it is seasonal.”

Landless Hilongo migrants came to settle. “They did not have money, so the T’Bolis let them use the land—which the migrants now claim as their own… The T’Bolis were elbowed into plowing remaining areas not occupied by migrants.”

“The need is for children to go to school,” Timbang Tungkay says. How they continue as T’Bolis is not clear. There is need for our children to “be conscious they are T’Boli.”

Today, the Lumad find their future teetering again in the jerky peace talks process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“If and when a settlement is reached, thorny questions about protecting the (Lumad’s) distinct identity and land (must be) addressed,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group cautioned last week. Ignoring overlapping claims “will be a shaky foundation for peace” and stoke “further claims of injustice.”

The Lumad “will benefit from a political settlement that would end armed rebellion,” the MILF asserts. “On surface, it seems natural that  Moros and the Lumad would share common interest. Both were pushed off their land as Mindanao was incorporated into the Philippine state.”

This solidarity barely masks differences among tribes. Some see themselves as distinct. They resolutely oppose being included in an expanded Bangsamoro homeland. Others are resigned to their fate.

“In practice, relations are uneasy,” notes   Asia Report No. 213, released by the International Crisis Group’s Jakarta office. Tribal leaders recall enslavement by some Moros. Will the Lumad be better off under a Moro substate? Many doubt it, “especially if it will not respect existing land titles.” Other indigenous rights in national legislation could be curtailed.

“The Lumad are also frustrated by government’s flawed implementation of the 1997 Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act. In any case, the law does not apply in the sleaze-bugged Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao now  being overhauled by President Aquino.

Since P-Noy took office, the government and MILF have held consultations with Lumad leaders. “But these efforts have neither dispelled the fears of the Lumad. Nor have they reassured them that their rights will be guaranteed after a settlement.”

Both the government and the MILF “must address the issue of land because it is the bedrock of tribal identity and self-governance.” The Aquino administration ought to prioritize implementing indigenous rights in the ARMM.  “Applications for ancestral domain titles from tribes, who live in areas that may be included in an expanded Bangsamoro homeland, should be processed without further delay,” the International Crisis Group said.

The MILF should clarify “whether Ipra would apply in a Bangsamoro substate.” That would dispel suspicions. How will overlapping ancestral domain claims be resolved? The issues at stake cut to the heart of many concerns about how democratic a substate would be.

The Lumad never took up arms against the Philippine government. Is that why “they are not one of the parties at the GRP-MILF negotiating table”? Divisions within and between tribes make it also difficult for the Lumad to unify.

“The vast majority of Lumad are impoverished and marginalized.” The handful of leaders, who speak on their behalf, “struggle to be heard.” Thus, their grievances and problems are barely a blip on national radar screens. Out of sight, out of mind.

Mr. Aquino can burnish his bona fides for the Lumad by jump-starting the stalled probe into the assassination of Fr. Fausto Tentorio. The Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions priest, who served the Lumad of North Cotabato for 33 years, was gunned down last October, ironically Indigenous People’s Month.

Nailing Father Tentorio’s assassin sooner rather than later will not only strengthen P-Noy’s hand in the peace talks. It complies with his oath to do justice to vulnerable peacemakers.

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Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com