Thoughts on IP Month

As October draws to a close, it behooves us to be reminded that October is National Indigenous Peoples (IP) Month.

I am not an anthropologist, but a number of my major magazine feature articles and written works, an award-winning book among them, have to do with IPs, not as scholarly research outputs but as human interest stories based on my encounters as a journalist with them through the decades. This involved listening, learning about their myths and creation stories, their displacement experiences, threats to their ancestral domains and the environment they protect with their lives, facing nature’s wrath, their struggle for land rights, and to be in step with societal changes.

Last time I counted, I thought I could do an anthology of my IP stories only, not mixed with other topics in my other books. These would be on the Kalinga/Igorot, Aeta, Alangan Mangyan, Tadyawan Mangyan, B’laan, T’boli, Tinggian, and Dumagat communities, etc. But not to forget the non-IP persons and groups working with them, the life-threatening issues they face, like being suspected as rebels and being caught in the crossfire. Yes, the nuns, priests, and laypersons immersed among the IPs are stories in themselves. They are saints and heroes in my book. They neither proselytize nor preach. They integrate in order to understand and be of service. I had watched them up close.

Let me randomly pick just one item of importance. I have in my keeping a Yakan-English dictionary by a Filipino Franciscan friar who was based in Basilan for many years. That was a hardship post in his time. I interviewed him and did a column piece on his work many years ago before he died. The dictionary had been typewritten (obviously on an old typewriter) and hardbound the old way. (Where do I donate this?)

The month of October is declared under Presidential Proclamation No. 1906 to honor, protect, and recognize the rights and heritage of indigenous cultural communities. This year is the 29th anniversary of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997 that promotes the rights of indigenous cultural communities and indigenous peoples. This means the rights to ancestral domains, self-governance and empowerment, social justice and human rights, and cultural integrity.

Church communities also observe the same, with the Catholic Church in the Philippines observing the second Sunday of October as IP Sunday. This year’s theme is “Pakikipaglakbay sa mga Katutubo: Pagpaparangal sa Nilikha ng Diyos at Karapatan ng Kalikasan” (Journeying with IPs: Honoring God’s Creation and Nature’s Rights). The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has a Commission for Indigenous Peoples which, in decades past, was the Episcopal Commission on Tribal Filipinos (ECTF). I remember clearly how my first foray into the Kalinga mountain fastness in the 1980s was made possible by an ECTF fact-finding team.

Cordillera groups recently held gatherings in Baguio and elsewhere. The Religious of the Good Shepherd had a big event for their scholars and coworkers. Wish I were there! I read somewhere that this Sunday, Oct. 25, the Archdiocese of Jaro (Iloilo) will have a gathering of Panay Bukidnon and Ati (Aeta) groups to highlight the year’s CBCP theme.

An aside: It is good to see hand-embroidered Bukidnon/Suludnon/Tumandok wearables (notice the zigzag appliques) making it in the ethnic fashion scene. Quite pricey, I must say, but something I’d rather see than those cardboard-stiff butterfly terno sleeves worn by the Who’s Who in politics on the State of the Nation Address red carpet. On Filipiniana occasions, make mine beaded T’boli or woven Igorot as topper. Or an intricate Yakan sash from Basilan.

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines will have its liturgical gathering with the theme “Breaking the Shroud of Oppression: Gathering at the Banquet of Life and Ancestral Land.”

Grave issues loom ahead. There is the threat of El Niño, a forthcoming environmental challenge that IPs—as well as urban and rural dwellers—must face. How prepared are they? How prepared are we who depend on our food producers, the IPs among them? How is the government—local and national—handling the worldwide challenge? What are we, as individuals, citizens of Planet Earth, doing in our little spheres?

Mining and deforestation have changed the IP landscape. Must there be more of these so-called inconvenient truths?

Not a doomsday thought, but I imagine with trepidation that in the end, in a cataclysm of man’s own making, it will be the forest dwellers, those who know how to harness earth, wind, water, and fire by using only their hands and indigenous knowledge, who will survive without debts and threats of foreclosure and bankruptcy. Just saying it softly. In extremis.

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