The Lumad Equation 6
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KêtindêgISSN 2345-8461 Volume 3 Issue 2 * January, 2015 *56pages An official publication of the IPDEV Project, Empowering Indigenous Peoples in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao WHAT’S INSIDE? 3 - The Lumad equation 6 - Soldiers plant trees for IPs 8 - 2014 State of the IP Address 11 - Does the BBL offer more than the IPRA? 14 - Celebration, Solidarity & Hope 17 - Group eyes IPs’ peace agenda 18 - Already hurt and confused 20 - Awards for awesome wards 26 - Reliving and enriching Sulagad 28 - A return to those old ideal ways 30 - Festival in the truest sense 32 - Who are protecting the IP children and youth in the ARMM? 38 - Mining equates to IPs’ extinction 43 - “Don’t leave us” 44 - Prayer and ritual on World IP Day 50 - 10th Project Sounding Board 51 - Salamat po! Development Consultants Inc. D E V C O N THIS PROJECT IS SUPPORTED Recognition of the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for BY THE EUROPEAN UNION Empowerment and Sustainable Development (IPDEV) is a project implemented by the consortium: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung e.V., Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) and DEVCON Development Consultants Inc. Kêtindêg, in Teduray roughly means standing up for something, making one be seen and be felt among the many. The word is not far from the Cebuano, Tagalog or Maguindanao variations of tindog, tindig and tindeg respectively. It is a fitting title for a The Lumad regular publication that attempts to capture the experiences gathered in this journey of recognizing the rights of the Lumad in the ARMM. With this issue, we would like to equation thank everyone supporting the project’s aims, and acknowledge those who are always striving to make IPDEV as fruitful, meaningful and sustainable as possible. You make IPDEV a continously inspiring project. Fiyo teresang! To find out more about IPDEV: IF WE were to put a monetary value to each fully grown tree, which can absorb 50,000 gallons of water every rainfall; shed tons of leaves that are converted to rich fertilizer that nourishes plants that nourish other life forms; cools our facebook.com/ipdevarmm surroundings at the equivalent of 40 air conditioners at full blast; and multiply that by the number of trees in one square kilometre; and multiply that further by the number of years that we human beings get for free – would it ever be @ketind3g equal to the amount of money the number of board feet we will earn after say, five-ten-fifty years of relentless logging, environmental degradation? for IPDEV videos and Add to that the monetary value of food, dress, dances, rituals, weather radio recordings. forecasting (which now has a fancy-sounding name - ethnometeorology, governance & justice systems, flora, fauna, sacred places, lore & history. Deduct from that the same amount of money we spend on flood victims, Layout and visual concepts: ROMMEL G. REBOLLIDO landslide victims, health problems, rehabilitation and disease that resulted in coordination with IPDEV 3 Apr 5, 2014 Apr 6-7, 2014 Apr 20, 2014 May 5-7, 2014 May 19, 2014 MILESTONES Inputs on Indigenous Knowledge UNDP Consultations with IP leaders BTC IP Representative Froilyn Tenorio Exchange and 9th Project Sounding Systems and Practices (IKSPs) in on theBangsamoroDevelopment Mendoza signed the Bangsamoro Networking Meeting Board Meeting & EVENTS the Planning workshop for the Plan for theEnvironment Basic Law (BBL) with reservation for IP Organizations Bangsamoro Development Plan for the Environment from lack of nutritious food and fresh air that forests 241 – it was pronounced by the ARMM Government in peace agreement with the Indigenous Peoples. As pacts would have readily provided. Would the equation or the January of 2013 that there are no legal impediments in and agreements were forged orally in the ways of our sum or the dividend or the difference be all worth it? Do implementing the IPRA in the ARMM. forefathers, manifestation of this Word of Honor is the we even have the numbers right now in our heads? Moreover, the National Commission on Indigenous issuance of the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title With that value that is mind-boggling to compute, one Peoples (NCIP) now has a Mindanawon Chair, an IP, a (CADT) and the full implementation of the law. researcher said, “No government can afford to lose its lawyer and a lady at that, and brings with her an awareness In many of our roundtable discussions it is often asked own cultures and if I may add, the forests that go with it.” and consciousness level unique to our context. why the IP development agenda is not highlighted. The The journey for Lumad recognition in the ARMM did not In January this year, the NCIP issued an En Banc answer may be just lying around and we who are in start yesterday, last year nor in the last decade. Like many Resolution reiterating their commitment to exercise their the mainstream have yet to see it. For many of us, the of its fellow Lumads in Mindanao, it has suffered, again in mandate under the IPRA and things are cranking off to a resources that we can make millions from are individual the words of researchers – minoritization – with the entry relatively good start. logs; cubic meters of rock, gravel and sand; ores of gold, of settlers and their different versions of development. Though long in coming, these two developments provide copper, manganese; vast tracks of forested land that can Many policies, mostly conflicting ones, have been passed a glimmer of hope in the journey of the Lumads. It is be levelled for pineapples, bananas and African palm that but remain wanting to be fully implemented, because they hoped that the endless passing around of the Lumads in are actually foreigners to local soil. But to the indigenous have been conflicting in the first place. the ARMM, marginalized as they are, would finally come eye, the forest is the resource. Many days are celebrated in honor and in the name of to a stop. It’s the same forest that protects us from warm weather, the IPs – World IP Day, IPRA Day, UNDRIP Day – there’s The ongoing theme for World IP Day is: “Indigenous the same forest that protects us from flooding, landslides, almost always something to celebrate any day. Peoples Building Alliances: Honouring Treaties, Agreements disease. How can we just eradicate forests whose services But there are glimmers of hope. Twenty-seven years and other Constructive Arrangements”. we have always had for free? Only a mind with distorted after EDSA Revolution, sixteen years after the passing of We support the call of the Lumads in the ARMM mathematics would justify sense and logic in such an IPRA, ten years after Resolution 269, five years after MMAA for all of us to look at IPRA again as the government’s equation. The Lumads in the ARMM – Teduray, Lambangian, Dulangan Manobo and Higaonon – need all the support they can get. From us who are in privileged positions, let this be a call. Remember that we, too, at certain points in our respective histories, also suffered oppression from the powerful and the mighty. Let us not be the oppressors of today by depriving the Lumads of what are rightfully theirs. As one IP leader put it, “You can consult us anytime on sustainable development. We have been doing it for thousands of years.” [] This article was written by Aveen Acuña-Gulo, project manager of IPDEV, a three-year EU-assisted project for the recognition and empowerment of Indigenous Peoples in the ARMM. 4 5 May 20, 2014 May 21, 2014 May 30, 2014 June 3, 2014 June 4-5, 2014 June 6-7, 2014 Memorandum of Agreement 22 Rotary Peace Students Fact-finding mission with Information Education Natural Resources Utilization Presentation of IP Perspectives Signing IPDEV-UNDP-LGU South from Chulalongkorn Teduray mother whose Campaign forLGUs on and Management Planning on Development / International Upi on Solar Electrification for University visit IPDEV premature baby died in a the Ancestral Domain Training / Polomolok, South Peace Conference organized by the four (4) barangays hospital after falling from Delineation Cotabato Archdiocese of Cotabato / Notre delivery table Dame University Soldiers plant trees for IPs SOLDIERS of the 6th Infantry Division (6ID) of the Philippine Army went out of their way to plant trees on 9 August 2014, to celebrate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. This is in line with IPDEV’s activities on Building Forests. Forests are very important to the lives of Indigenous Peoples. Forests protect everyone from climate change, landslides, floods. Watershed. Unregulated logging, mining, IPDEV planted two bamboo generation. quarrying, chemical farming seedlings along a gully, symbolic of They plan to have another round of contribute to the environmental the pliant nature and versatile use of tree planting event before the year disasters in Maguindanao, a province the world’s tallest grass, along with its ends. which is home to three Indigenous capacity to protect riverbanks. Aveen Acuna-Gulo, IPDEV Project Peoples: Teduray, Lambangian, and The planting site was a two-hour Manager, expressed her appreciation Dulangan Manobo; and Lanao del Sur, walk uphill from the Metro Cotabato to the 6ID for putting into action their where Higaonons also live. Water District Pump Station. motto of “protecting the people and Together with members of the Major General Edmundo Pangilinan, securing the land” by helping build Armed Forces of the Philippines and 6ID commander, hopes that with forests. civilian employees of the 6th Infantry a very conservative estimate of 25 “The good energies of the Teduray, Division, participants estimated to percent survival rate of the planted Lambangian, Dulangan Manobo and be around 500, planted some 1000 seedlings, this first initiative will leave Higaonon tribes will also be with you,” mahogany seedlings in the Dimapatoy a legacy of 250 trees to the next she said.