Philippines' Aeta People

Coronation, grand finale PHILSOC-MSK holds for the most beautiful basic CPR at embassy Pinay set03 on Friday 04shelter www.kuwaittimes.net SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2015 Ai-Ai, Jose, Wally and Marian headline GMA’s upcoming program Sunday PinaSaya Page 06 7 killed, 2 missing in flash floods in southern Philippines MANILA: Flash floods caused by heavy rain have killed at least seven people, including four children, in the southern Philippines, officials said Wednesday. Two others remain missing. The regional Office of Civil Defense said the dead in southern Bukidnon province’s Valencia City includ- ed a 6-month-old girl and three other children aged 6 to 9. They drowned Tuesday but their bodies were retrieved Wednesday. Weather bureau official Esperanza Cayanan warned of possible landslides after two weeks of heavy rain in the central and southern regions. She said starting Wednesday, the southwest mon- soon will be enhanced by Typhoon Soudelor, trigger- ing strong to moderate rains. Soudelor is approach- ing the Philippines but is not expected to make land- fall. As of late Wednesday, Soudelor was 1,235 kilometers (767 miles) east of northern Calayan island, packing winds of 195 kilometers (121 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 230 kph (143 mph). Cayanan is moving at 20 kph (12 mph) and is expected to blow away by Saturday toward Taiwan. —AP US, China bicker over territorial claims in South China Sea KUALA LUMPUR: The United States and China clashed Wednesday over who is to blame for rising tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea with Washington demanding a halt to “problematic actions” in the area and Beijing telling foreign par- ties to keep out. SAPANG UWAK: File photos taken June 11, 2015, show, ‘aeta children’ and the daily struggles of ‘aetas’ at Sapang Uwak, which In blunt but diplomatic terms, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi means Crow Creek, in the foothills of the Pinatubo volcano about two hours’ drive from Manila. —AFP suggested that efforts to ease tensions over compet- ing claims remained a contentious work in progress despite hopes for movement on ways to resolve Philippines’ Aeta people ‘beggars’ in their own land them here at a Southeast Asian regional security SAPANG UWAK: Philippine bush man Edward Serrano known inhabitants. down as the deer, warthog and jungle fowl they hunt for forum. struck two rocks together and wrapped the faint spark in But after hunting and gathering for most of the past food are extirpated. Kerry urged China to end provocative land recla- wood shavings, building a fire in much the same way 40,000 years, their bushcraft is nearly forgotten, many of “We can no longer do many of the things that our mation projects in the South China Sea that have Stone Age man must have done two million years ago. their languages are all but extinct, and their way of life is ancestors took for granted,” said Serrano, a high-school ratcheted up tensions with its smaller neighbors in The short, Afro-ed jungle survival instructor is an Aeta, swiftly dying out. dropout who teaches soldiers and police how to make some of the world’s busiest commercial sea lanes. from one of the most unique ethnolinguistic peoples of Rapid urbanisation has turned tiny Aeta forest settle- fire without matches or lighters. Continued on Page 2 the Philippines, who are also the archipelago’s first ments into virtual islands, their nomadic lifestyle shut Continuned on Page 2 SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 2015 2 Philippines’ Aeta ... Continued from Page 1 He teaches them where look for water, should they get lost in the jungle, and which leaves, fruits and seeds are safe to eat — skills learnt from his father. Sapang Uwak, which means Crow Creek, his sun-baked village in the foothills of the Pinatubo volcano about two hours’ drive from Manila, showcases both the old way of life — and the disrup- tion of the new. Languid water buffaloes pull carts filled with bananas and taro along dirt roads, parched river beds and forests that the communi- ty of 1,700 people claim as their ancestral domain. But to leave their village to take their produce to market or find work as farmhands or construction workers, they have to pass through a giant private entertainment park. ‘Aliens in our own land’ A 1997 law recognised the rights of some 15 million ethnic minorities to their ancestral lands, and Sapang Uwak and nearby Aeta settlements have filed claims on a combined 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres). However, the government has yet to define the boundaries of many areas, fuelling fears of encroachment by private developers, said Roman King, leader of an association of Aeta communities. “We were the first peoples of the Philippines, but now we are aliens in our own country,” said King, a retired policeman from the nearby settlement of Inararo. “If we lose our lands we have nowhere else to go... You’ll see more of us begging in the streets,” he said. Most of the Philippines’ estimated seven million Aetas live in tiny, isolated communities, engaged in slash-and-burn farming — clearing forests for fields — moving with the seasons and with lim- ited contact with the outside world. Aside from Sapang Uwak, three other Pinatubo Aeta communities have won titles to 39,000 hectares, giving the families steady cash from land leased to quarries, golf courses, and tourist resorts. But it is a cumbersome process and typically takes years to complete, said Jonathan Adaci, director of the ancestral domains office at the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. SAPANG UWAK: The village of Sapang Uwak, on the foothills of Pinatubo volcano. —AFP A mere 180 titles have been handed out nationwide, with some five million other claims still being processed, Adaci said. By law ancestral domains cannot be bought nor sold, but this has not stopped outsiders from mysteriously obtaining titles. US, China ... “At times there are some powerful people in government involved,” he told AFP, declining to give names. Continued from Page 1 “We want to send a clear message to the international com- Unscrupulous people talk uneducated Aetas into parting with munity that China and ASEAN have the capability and wisdom their land inheritance for a pittance, said Cynthia Zayas, a Wang, meanwhile, sent a strong message that those without to resolve this specific issue between us,” he told a news confer- University of the Philippines anthropologist. claims, such as the United States, should allow China and the oth- ence. “We shouldn’t allow the South China Sea region to be “Private developers are eating up their land. The way it’s turning er claimants to deal with them on their own. destabilized.” out, they could become squatters in their own land,” Zayas added. Kerry told foreign ministers of members of the Association of He said that China is committed to a peaceful solution The Aetas of Sapang Uwak are dismayed at the delays, but feel Southeast Asian Nations that the U.S. shares their desire “to ensure through “rules and mechanisms already in place.” He also the security of critical sea lanes and fishing grounds, and we want pledged that China will uphold freedom of navigation and over- helpless, said survival instructor Serrano, a father of seven in his to see that disputes in the area are managed peacefully and on flight at sea. “There has not, and will not be any problem in this late 30s. the basis of international law.” A senior U.S. official said Kerry made regard,” he said. “We’ve been pushed out in the past. We do not want that to the case for easing tensions in a closed-door meeting with Wang. However, ASEAN members have complained that although happen to us again,” he told AFP. In his meeting with Wang, Kerry reiterated U.S. concerns about China has pledged to start substantive negotiations with them - ‘They never fight back’ - the rising tensions and “China’s large-scale reclamation, construc- on a code of conduct governing behavior in the resource-rich Philippine minorities have been progressively elbowed out tion, and militarization of features,” according to the senior U.S. and busy waterways, there is a gap between its pledge and the since the late 16th century as first Spain and later the United States official. situation on the ground. colonised the islands, introducing the concept of property titles, The official said Kerry had “encouraged” China, and the other China, Taiwan and several ASEAN members - the Philippines, Zayas said. claimants, “to halt problematic actions in order to create space for Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei - have wrangled over ownership “They never fight back... The Aeta will just run to the mountains. diplomacy.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because and control of the South China Sea in a conflict that has flared They’re a passive people and they don’t like violence,” she added. he was not authorized to speak publicly about the private meet- on and off for decades. For the Pinatubo Aetas, the 1991 volcanic eruption that killed ing. Tensions rose last year when China began building artificial more than 600 people only made their plight worse. Chinese land reclamation in contested waters has irked islands in the Spratly Islands, which the U.S. and Beijing’s rival Deprived of their farms as well as game to hunt, about 35,000 Southeast Asian nations who, like the U.S., want China to stop. claimant countries fear could impede freedom of navigation Aetas moved to shelters clustered close to the main towns, accord- Washington is calling for a halt to aggressive actions by China and and overflights in a major transit area for the world’s oil and ing to government data.

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