Inquirer Mindanao
Land titles stir tribal communities
By Jeffrey M. Tupas
Mindanao Bureau
First Posted 00:19:00 04/20/2008
TRENTO, Agusan del Sur, Philippines—The faint motorcycle light struggled through the thick fog that swallowed the forests of Barangay Salvacion in Trento, Agusan del Sur. As it slithered down the slippery road to Sitio Cogonon, the sun suddenly emerged with such intensity that it felt like it was midday.
In this part of Mindanao, the weather is playing tricks with residents, but they do not mind. What’s important is that they get to work on their farms and foresee a good harvest.
Rudy Opelio, for instance, could not be stopped by the drizzle like most of the villagers. His wife Lucresia stayed at home to look after their backyard swine and their 15-year-old special child, Jemay.
In a smaller village called Alimot, where houses look almost identical, the people were busy tilling their upland farms of corn, bananas, fruits, cassava and other root crops. Save for the single battery-powered videoke machine and the occasional sayawan (dance), Alimot is stripped of the clatter that might corrupt their preoccupation and simple lives.
Here, television is a fortune as a transistor radio is a luxury.
During the night, the whole village is sent to sleep by the chill.
Salvacion, like most villages of Trento, is inhabited by both the indigenous Dibabawon and Bisaya (settlers). Theirs is a tested bond that saw how they were once ruled by the private army of a logging company.
‘Threat’ from outside
But the community is not at all sleepy as it seems. The people are now astir by an outside force that they see as potentially disastrous to their tightly knit relationship and to the generous mountains that surround the place.
Ironically, the “threat” took shape in Datu Carlito Chavez, also a “lumad” leader from the town of Monkayo in Compostela Valley, who went to Salvacion to tell the residents that their village is within his group’s ancestral domain. He showed a certificate of ancestral domain title (CADT) approved by the National Commission for the Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) on July 22, 2003.
Chavez confirmed that this early, a number of investors had already expressed interest in Salvacion and the nearby villages of New Visayas and Pangyan. A mining company, which he identified as Ozmetal, is willing to pour in money to operate in the villages while another group, Maharlika Foundation, wants to fund banana, rubber and oil palm plantations there.
Jerry Cortez, secretary of the Tabinguangan (Riverside) Farmers Association or Taguafa, said his group was wary about the repercussions of this development to the lives of the villagers. Chavez, he said, had urged him to organize a new group exclusively for the lumad and that if lumad residents of Cogonon could only unite and cooperate, development and money would be knocking on their doors.
Mineral deposits
“He told us that through this title, we will be able to invite in investors who are willing to develop our area as oil palm and rubber plantations. But we do suspect that Chavez and whoever is backing him up are interested with the rich copper deposit and other mineral reserves of our mountains,” said Cortez, a Dibabawon.
Chavez and his agents made a similar sales pitch when they entered Pangyan and Site 33 of New Visayas, but only added that their eviction was looming.
“We were told that we will certainly regret the time when we will be the ones chasing them for mercy. We were told that we will be kicked out of this village anytime that they want because this village is owned by the lumad,” said Fermin Ballos, a resident of Site 33. The village is four kilometers from Cogonon.
Opelio said her father was the first settler in Cogonon as he was a close friend of the respected lumad leader, Jose Artiza. The leader, she said, was the one who invited more settlers to live in Cogonon.
“Any attempt to uproot us will surely be welcomed by strong opposition. We have seen the worse in this area and certainly, the people here will become a solid bloc to reckon with,” Opelio said.
Datu Binagyohan Mendoza of Pangyan said he met with Chavez in 2005 after he was summoned to a meeting in a military camp in Monkayo. Chavez had told him to start organizing the lumad in Pangyan as it is included in his group’s claim.
“We do not own exclusively the village. And, in all decency, we cannot claim ownership of the land then hammer down this claim by having it titled through the CADT. If this is our land, then it is our land. We are worried about the CADT because of the bad fate it brought to other lumad communities,” said Mendoza, chair of the Kahugpungan sa Katribung Lumad sa Caraga.
Villagers’ action
Cortez, the Taguafa official, said his group did not want its area to be included in Chavez’s claim, knowing “the real color and intention of the titling.” Other lumad areas which were titled by the NCIP only ended up controlled by investors whose projects ruin and deplete their natural resources.
The people of Salvacion, New Visayas and Pangyan have already asked the municipal officials of Trento to intervene. On March 19, more than 100 of them filed a complaint against Chavez at the municipal hall. Chavez, who was invited by the officials to explain his side, did not appear.
The documents that Chavez showed to the villagers have only raised their suspicions. CADT No. R11-CADT-MON-0703-007 covers only Barangays Mt. Diwata, Casoon and San Isidro, and portions of Barangays Salvacion, Upper Ulip, Naboc, Tubo-Tubo, Pasian, Baylo, Rizal, Hamiguitan, Olaycon, San Jose, Banlag and Awas in Monkayo, Compostela Valley.
It also covers 31,000 hectares of land that 2,189 Mandaya, Manobo, Manguangan and Dibabawon people are claiming.
‘Lumad’ vs Bisaya?
Chavez has insisted that portions of Salvacion, New Visayas and Pangyan, although these are outside the political boundary of Monkayo, are still part of his group’s claim. He is a native of Salvacion, he said, and that his relatives are still living in the villages.
Only the settlers are against the development he is introducing, not the lumad members, he said. “The lumad there welcome this. The opposition comes from the Bisaya, but we assure them that they will not be evicted as they said they will be … however, it is inevitable that developments will really follow with this titling,” Chavez said.
However, Geroncio Agio, administrative officer of the NCIP in Southern Mindanao, said the three villages in Trento are outside of its coverage based on the approved CADT. “There is nothing to worry about because the claimed ancestral domain of the group of Chavez is only confined in the specified villages in Monkayo. Clearly, the CADT speaks it all,” Agio said.
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