Indigenous aspiration in Bangsamoro

THE “WALIYAN” (main ritualist) is the man garbed in an all-white outfit with headgear. PHOTO COURTESY OF INITIATIVES FOR INTERNATIONAL DIALOGUES

DAVAO CITY, Philippines–Before sunrise on Wednesday, the “waliyan,” priests of the Erumanen Manuvu indigenous communities in Bukidnon province and Carmen town, North Cotabato province, held a synchronized ritual to implore the gods that their appeal to President Aquino for respect of their rights will finally be heard in the Bangsamoro governance setup.

In the ritual called “pined redsa ne pengeni ngeni,” Datu Al Saliling of the Erumanen Manuvu in Eruman, Carmen, voiced out the anxiety felt by indigenous peoples (IP) that in the proposed Bangsamoro territory, their rights to the land—where their identity as a people begins and ends—would be glossed over.

“We are not rejecting the peace pact between the government and  MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front). In fact, we are supporting it,” Saliling said. “But as much as possible, we should not be part of the Bangsamoro identity because we have quite an identity of our own.”

Recognition

The indigenous peoples want recognition of their territorial rights to be put in writing in the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which will be passed by the Congress.

Their experiences in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which will be supplanted by the Bangsamoro, made them wary over the fate of their ancestral domain. Since the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (Ipra), or Republic Act No. 8371, was signed into law in October 1997, no certificate of ancestral domain title (CADT) has been issued in the ARMM despite applications filed by the Teduray, Lambangian, Dulangan Manobo and Erumanen Manuvu.

Saliling said the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) had failed to issue any CADT in the ARMM in the last 17 years because all of the tribal concerns in the region were handled by the Office for Southern Cultural Communities (OSCC), an agency under the ARMM. Unlike the NCIP, the OSCC has no mandate to issue the titles.

It was only after the NCIP came up with an en banc resolution in January that the legalities over the issuance of CADTs were resolved, and the Teduray, Lambangian and Dulangan Manobo tribes in Central Mindanao started delineation proceedings over their ancestral domain claim, covering an area of 201,850 hectares, in the ARMM.

But Timuay Alim Bandara, head of an ancestral domain claimant organization in Central Mindanao, said his people were at the beginning of a long process that would include social preparation and actual land survey. “We’re still at the first stage of a three-stage process, the fastest of which will take about an entire year to finish,” he said.

Bandara remained hopeful despite funding problems and an OSCC statement questioning the NCIP move that the latter had overlapped its jurisdiction in the ARMM.

Timuay Macapantao Manamba, chair of the NCIP provincial delineation team, said his office intended to finish the delineation proceedings as fast as it could. He said that for the first time in 17 years, the NCIP finally showed the political will to implement the Ipra within the ARMM.

Earlier, indigenous peoples living in areas covered by the proposed Bangsamoro had asked the President why the Ipra, or the law that ensures the recognition and protection of IP rights in the country, was not mentioned in the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and other documents signed in the peace pact with MILF.

Leaders of the Teduray, Lambangian, Dulangan and other tribes appealed to the President in a letter to interfere in what they called the “problematic” implementation of the Ipra in the ARMM.

“We believe that our rights won’t be significantly entrenched in the BBL  since the Ipra, which is supposed to be a national law and thereby set as the minimum standard for any legal reforms, has obviously been put aside,” they said.

Their assertion of their territories within the proposed Bangsamoro area is only an affirmation of their kinship to Mamalu, the ancestor of the Tedurays and other non-Islamized tribes, they said. Mamalu  made a sacred pact over the delineation of their land with Tabunaway, his brother, who had converted into Islam and became an ancestor of the Islamized tribes of Central Mindanao.

Peace

That pact  also allowed them to live in peace and harmony in the land.

“The sacred pact was made and sealed by the highest form of ritual called the ‘safa,’” Timuay Bandara said.

“Although they (MILF and the government) actually signed the peace pact, we are actually already living it, day after day, for years,” Saliling said.

In their open letter to the President, the IP leaders said the government and MILF talks also touched on their very own ancestral domains, natural resources and people.

“When this latter phase all started, something we felt was already missing and wrong,” the letter said. “The framework and final agreements may have answered consensus points for the Moro people, but it raised a lot of crucial questions for us indigenous peoples.”

By not including the Ipra in the agreement, they said, the government seemed to have “surrendered our rights to a political entity, which has yet to prove its mantle to govern.”

“Isn’t it that by empowering and providing us our rights to govern our own territory, exercise our culture, and recognizing that we are distinct peoples part of the overall peace process?” they asked. “But where are we in the entire picture? Are we talking about a different peace in the Bangsamoro?”