PAGBABAGO
Dr. Florangel Rosario-Braid
Perhaps the best way to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Month is to recall the story of Macli-ing Dulag and its relevance to current controversy on the construction of the Kaliwa Dam. For these stories truly capture the struggles of our 14 million indigenous peoples (IPs) and provide us an insight into their indomitable spirit.
While a hydroelectric dam was being planned to be constructed along Chico River in 1974, an elder of the Kalinga tribe, Macli-ing Dulag protested and said: “Those who need electric lights are not thinking of us who are bound to be destroyed. Should the need for electric power be a reason for our death?”
This call resonated not only among indigenous tribes but to millions of Filipinos throughout the country who joined the protest that led to the cancellation of the project that could have submerged rice terraces and displaced thousands of Kalinga and Bontoc peoples.
Today, a similar project, the construction of Kaliwa Dam in Sierra Madre, the ancestral land of the Dumagat-Remontado communities in Rizal and Quezon provinces is under consideration. It is one of the Duterte administration’s China-funded projects under its “Build, Build, Build” program.
But it needed the consent of the indigenous peoples in the area before its environmental compliance certificate can be acted upon. The Kaliwa Dam would reduce dependence on the Angat and Ipo dams. But it will submerge parts of the Sierra Madre in Tanay, Rizal, Gen. Nakar, and Infanta towns in Quezon. Groups that opposed the project said it would endanger more than 100,000 lives once the dam is built as it will be constructed within the zone of two active tectonic belts – the Philippine Fault Zone and the Valley Fault System. The government is now being asked to seek alternative water sources to address the water supply.
Despite a constitutional guarantee and passage of laws protecting their rights – the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA) and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the IPs still face discrimination that had limited their access to development. The intent was to empower IPs but IPRA failed to protect them. NCIP failed to seek consent from the IPs on development projects and there were difficulties in seeking certificates of ancestral domain.
Most of the 14 million IPs subdivided into some 110 linguistic groups, live in the northern part of Luzon and in southern Mindanao. Among the prominent groups are the Badjaos, B’laan, Bagobo, Mangyan, T’boli, and Teduray.
Many of them live in regions where there exists long-standing conflict – in land ownership, boundary tensions, and unresolved clan conflicts. Several mining projects had caused their displacement.
Many are concerned about becoming mere laborers in places where investors are allowed to initiate development projects.
The Bases Conversion Development Authority (BCDA, created in 1992) denied eviction of Aetas but researchers estimated that about 20,000 Aetas, and 15,000 farmers were displaced by the development.
Again, some 500 Aeta families were reportedly displaced to give way to the new Clark City, a 9,500-hectare development, the first smart and green metropolis. The project leaders say some were given jobs as construction workers.
Reports during the Duterte administration showed continuing brutal dispersal of protests by indigenous peoples. Lumads were harassed by the military during the Marawi siege and martial law.
Today, we join people in 90 countries where some 476 million indigenous people live, according to the United Nations, to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Month. Our indigenous peoples account to 6.2 percent of the global population. They continue to enrich our cultural diversity. But they also continue to live in extreme poverty, marginalization, and discrimination.
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