From: murthy@ssd.dl.nec.com (Vasudev Murthy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Article on Indigenous people
Date: 12 Aug 1992 13:49:29 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

I got this off NativeNet. Flames will be ignored.
 
--- Forwarded mail from nn.general%gnosys.svle.ma.us@tamvm1.tamu.edu

>From NATIVE-L@tamvm1.tamu.edu Wed Aug 12 13:42:07 1992
Date:         Tue, 11 Aug 1992 23:42:00 PDT
Reply-To: nn.general%gnosys.svle.ma.us@tamvm1.tamu.edu
              <NATIVE-L@TAMVM1.BITNET>
From: NativeNet%gnosys.svle.ma.us@tamvm1.tamu.edu
Subject:      Philippines indigenous peoples threatened
X-To:         nn.general@gnosys.svle.ma.us
To: Multiple recipients of list NATIVE-L <NATIVE-L@TAMVM1.BITNET>

Original-Sender: MAILER-DAEMON@web.apc.org

/* Written 11:35 pm  Aug 11, 1992 by act in web:gen.newsletters */
/* ---------- "The ACTivist July/August 92" ---------- */

CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

By May Primera
Special to The ACTivist

With my eyes closed, I could still feel the dust on my face as the "skylab"
roared through the scabrous path and past the verdant groves. "Skylab" was
the name the villagers had given the puny motorbike that could seat six
people -- one person in front of the driver, two behind him and two on each
side of the horizontal slab of wood tied tightly to its rear like an
outrigger. The unsuspecting bike could run more than 60 mph on the narrow
dirt roads and uncleared pathways. There are no traffic patrol guards this
side of Southern Philippines. Only armalite-toting men in faded fatigues.

I came from Manila where the dirt is less organic, to the far bucolic south,
to write a story about indigenous Filipinos who were driven away from their
ancestral lands by the private army of a rich Chinese-Filipino businessman.
I travelled for a day from Davao City to South Cotabato with two community
organizers, riding on skylabs, walking on a hanging bridge and crossing the
river on the back of a water buffalo. Our four-hour bus ride was interrupted
for 15 minutes by military men who searched the rusting vehicle and frisked
the male passengers. "Last week it was the NPAs (New People's Army, the
opposition guerrilla army) who were manning this checkpoint," the passengers
said, casually laughing away the constantly threatened 'peace and order
situation'.

I finally met the terrified indigenous T'bolis in a remote barrio building
makeshift huts from palm leaves and sharing with each other what little food
they could harvest from the land. They offered us delicious rice coffee and
boiled cassava, a staple for the hardworking farmers. Then the stories were
told.

The T'bolis have lived in South Cotabato since time immemorial.  It was they
who named some of the towns and barrios here. They are among the 4.5 million
members of some 40 indigenous communities living in the remote interiors of
Luzon, Mindanao, and some islands of Visayas. Like the rest of the
indigenous peoples, T'bolis have a distinct language and culture, having
been least influenced by Christianity and Hispanization. To escape
colonization, some of these tribal folks withdrew to the hinterlands while
others stood their ground successfully.

But their existence as distinct peoples of the Philippines continues to be
threatened by land-grabbing lowlanders, the encroachment of multinational
corporations, militarization, and so-called development projects of the
government.

The T'bolis I visited were among the casualties of the government's neglect
and lack of clearcut policies on ancestral land claims. They were victims of
the government's lack of political will to go after violators of human
rights, in this case the private army of a landowner created supposedly to
protect property from communist rebels, but in fact used against these
peaceable people.

The tribespeople told us how their straw houses were strafed five days
before we arrived. When the frightened T'bolis came out of their houses
clutching children and meagre belongings to their chests, the armed men
poured gasoline on the huts and told the people never to come back. "If you
come back, we will kill you all," one tribeswoman remembered the armed men
as saying. About 300 families were displaced as a result of the vicious
attack. Although no one was reported killed, many were wounded and at least
ten men were brutally beaten with armalite butts.

For three days and three nights they stayed in the woods, near a creek where
the cows of the businessman drank. They were eventually found by the ranch
guards and chased away with gunfire. "Even our children were shot at," they
said. Cattle get better treatment here than human beings.

They dispersed in small groups and sought assistance from the church. Some
travelled on foot for days to reach their relatives' homes, homes of people
who have momentarily given up fighting for their land and have rebuilt in
other remote areas.

The land of the T'bolis, from which they were driven, is 5,000 hectares of
plains where hundreds of cattle graze. "As far as the eyes can see," Carlos
Blusan, the tribe spokesperson, described the land's vastness. Formerly
called Lacag, it was renamed ANSA Farms, after the names of the landowner
and his partner.

The strafing and burning of the T'bolis' houses in November, 1990, was, at
the time, the most violent of the series of demolitions since the beginning
of the 1980s when T'bolis started reoccupying the land they believe to be
theirs. Antonio Nocom, the businessman to whom the title of the land
belongs, was said to have duped the tribal elders into signing away their
land rights in the early 60s. The guileless tribesmen were made to believe
that the papers were just a permission for the businessman to raise a few
goats on their land. "A week later, cows were brought in and the lowlanders
started building fences. The fences grew bigger and bigger until our parents
came home from the farm one day to find their houses demolished and fenced
in," the dusky, strong-jawed Blusan related.

But the stubborn men and women were unfazed. They kept coming back and
rebuilding even as the keepers of the ranch kept destroying. The farmhands
would lead cattle to the Tbolis' farms to trample and graze on their corn
and other farm crops. They accused tribesmen of stealing cows and then beat
them up beyond recognition. The tribe told the story of a man named Alex,
whose flesh was sliced thinly with a bolo in front of his neighbours: "This
is the way to slice a cow's meat," a T'boli woman, Neneng, recalled the man
as saying while Alex screamed in agony.

The reality is, 20 per cent of the 60 million population of the Philippines
own 80 per cent of the lands. Philippine governments, which have a long
history of elitism, have been known to cater to the needs of the rich and
their visions of industrialization. Thus, it stands impotent as weathly and
powerful landgrabbers drive tribal families away from the lands they have
inhabited for centuries.

The survival of the indigenous peoples' culture and way of life is
imperilled by the government's inconsiderate policies of allowing the
construction of various "development" projects like hydroelectric dams,
without prior consultation with the local tribespeople. These projects,
which invade ancestral lands, do not serve to improve the lives of the
tribespeople. On the contrary, the structures have caused the destruction of
their traditional way of life.

A friend of mine who works for TABAK -- the Alliance of Advocates for
Indigenous Peoples' Rights -- wrote to me recently about the killing of one
of the tribal leaders of the Lacag T'bolis.  She also reported how the area
-- now declared by the military as a no-man's-land -- was bombed by the same
armed elements after the tenacious T'bolis tried to reoccupy it last year.

The creation of private armies is just one aspect of the militarization
going on in the Philippines. In 1987, when peace negotiations between the
government and the revolutionary group called the National Democratic Front
failed to result in a compromise, the government adopted a "Total War
Policy" aimed at wiping out insurgency by 1992. Thousands of troops were
deployed and continue to be sent into areas believed to be occupied by the
New Peoples' Army. Vigilante groups were formed including private armies to
quell dissent and silence the poor peasants who are asking for land rights.

Cause-oriented groups, the churches and people's organizations are one in
denouncing the senseless slaughter of the innocents caught in the crossfire
of this bitter conflict. Non-government organizations committed to working
towards genuine development for the people urge the international community
to pressure the Philippine government to negotiate anew with the NDF and
other rebelling forces for a just and lasting peace. It should be a peace
based on the resolution of the fundamental problems of Philippine society
that have spawned widespread social unrest. One that would take into
consideration the issues that presently confront women, children, the
environment and the indigenous peoples.

May Primera is a journalist from the Philippines, now based in Toronto.


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-- 
Vasudev Murthy             Any opinions expressed are strictly  
murthy@asl.dl.nec.com      my own  and have nothing to do with
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