Trouble on the lake

right Taal Lake, where mechanised fishing and fish-pens have reduced the catch of artisanal fishers.

aguna Lake, the largest freshwater To the south of Laguna is Taal Lake. Lbody in the Philippines, is slowly Roughly oval in shape with an island dying. Bordering on Metro Manila, it volcano, still active, at its heart, Taal is one has been used for decades as a repository of the most beautiful sights in southern for industrial waste. A government Luzon. Its north and eastern shores are survey in 1979 declared that 90 per cent in places densely populated and easy of of the 424 industrial establishments on the access — 70,000 people live in the ten shore were 'highly pollutive'. By then municipalities around the lake — while another factor was also threatening the many of the villages in the south are well lake's ecosystem: fish-pen culture, which off the beaten track and unaffected by began in the early 1970s. By 1983 there industrial or other developments. were 1,034 pens covering 34,000 hectares, To reach Don Juan you must either take or 40 per cent of the lake. That year seven a banca from San Nicolas, on the other side fishermen were killed in the escalating of the lake, or make the knee-wobbling conflict between the fish-pen owners, who descent down 1500 stone steps that zigzag employed armed guards, and the through the orchards and palm groves traditional fishers, whose share of the which clothe the lower flanks of Mount catch had plummeted. Not only were the Maculot. The fortunate visitor may be fish-pens depriving them of water they invited to eat tawiles, one of 25 species of once fished, they had increased competition fish endemic to Taal, in the shade of the among the fish for the lake's food mango trees at the water's edge. resources. As a result of industrial Don Juan has a population of 3,000 and pollution and fish culture 23 species the breadwinners in most families make of fish have become extinct in the lake. a living as gill-net and hook-and-line

26 fishers. Some supplement their income their influence to circumvent laws which by working in the orchards and palm are supposed to regulate their activities. groves. The story the fishers have to tell A quarter of an hour by banca from is little different from the one you hear on Don Juan is the village of Lunang Lipa. the coast. In the 1970s,' explains Virgilio According to Nelson Manalo, a barangay Roxas over a lunch of tawiles and fruit, councillor and a ring-net owner, life for 'we used to catch at least 15 kilos of the villagers is full of hardship. milkfish on each trip. Now we get The ring-netters do at least provide work, between one and five kilos at the most.' says Nelson Manalo. It takes 100 people to The reasons for the declining catch are operate the nets and profits from the catch, various. Purse-seiners, motorised push- which might be as high as 100 gallons of netters and ring-netters have been partly fish a night, are divided between the responsible. These three forms of fishing owner, the boatmen, the pushers, and the are far more efficient, in terms of hauling lamp-holders, each taking a quarter. fish out of the water, than the traditional 'You can't stop people making a living,' methods used by artisanal fishers, who explains Nelson. 'We have no land, no jobs either use a hook and line or small gill- — all we can do is fish. If ring-net fishing nets. Purse- seiners, in contrast, employ was banned, we'd have no livelihood.' massive nets which are set and hauled by In the next village, an articulate old trawlers; in one night a purse-seiner can man rails against all forms of commercial catch as many fish as a gill-netter will in fishing in the lake. He says that the a month. Ring-netting and push-netting government makes laws, but fails to also involve a capital-intensive approach, enforce them as the people who own the although both require more manpower purse-seiners and the push-nets have than purse-seining. friends and relatives in high places. 'What Fish-pens have also affected the catch we need is a revolution,' he suggests. 'We of artisanal fishers. Most are sited at the need a new system. The whole country mouth of the Pancipit River, which flows depends on peasants and fishers for food.' towards Balayan Bay. According to the The artisanal fishers of Lake Taal are artisanal fishers, the use of artificial feed also worried about the impact of in the pens has led to eutrophication: the CALABARZON projects. Industrial nutrient input increases algal growth, which development, water extraction, road causes a decrease in oxygen, especially in improvements, and new tourist sites still water. The use of pesticides in the fish- may all affect the lake's ecology over pens is also thought to be harmful. 'We the coming years. Some municipalities don't like fish culture,' says Mrs Milagros see tourism as the best way of generating Chavez, president of KMMLT, the lake's wealth and jobs. However, the fishers are organisation of fishers. 'We don't want less enthusiastic. Midway through 1996 Taal Lake to go the same way as Laguna.' they heard rumours that an American Besides the polluting effects of fish culture, consortium was planning to build a golf- she fears that the pens in the Pancipit River course on land which had been acquired are hindering the passage of migratory fish. by a Taiwanese company and that several The fishers of Don Juan speak scathingly families faced eviction. Lack of of those who control the commercial information is a perennial problem in the fisheries in the lake. Over half the fish-pen Philippines; it is hard for people affected owners, they say, are outsiders from Manila by development plans to challenge those and elsewhere who care little for the lake's plans when developers and government long-term future. Many are military agencies fail to supply them with detailed officers and politicians and they have used information.

27 Pushed to the limits

Several hours' walk from Bagtok, perched on a hillside with spectacular views of the Arakan Valley, is the settlement of Paco-paco. Its datu, Tahalyong Sulayman, has a similar story to tell. Encompassing with a sweep of the arms the great bowl of largely treeless land below the village, he says: 'When I was a child all this was thick forest. A lot of lowlanders say that it was our slash- and-burn farming that did this. It wasn't. The settlers started it, and the logging companies did the rest.' A generation ago the Manobo were the sole occupants of the 70,000-hectare Arakan Valley; today all but 10-15,000 hectares is in the possession of non-tribal settlers, and above This family in New much of the rest has been degraded Paco have a small-holding on which they grow a by logging. variety of vegetables, and Paco-paco is picturesque and poor. keep a few animals. Ten families, most with seven or more children, live in a scattering of thatched right Tahalyong bamboo huts. The huts are spotlessly Sulayman, datu of New Paco village. In his clean and tidy. Families sleep together lifetime, he has watched in one room and cook and eat in the other. the forests of the Arakan Pigs and poultry search for pickings Valley being destroyed. around the huts, and in the fields beyond grow maize, sweet potato, cassava, and adang Layoran is the datu of Bagtok gabi. Having lost so much of their land, Bvillage. 'When the settlers first came the Manobo have been forced to change here/ he explains, 'our ancestors welcomed their farming methods: the fields are now them. They even gave them land.' continuously tilled and in places the soils Badang's people, the Manobo of Mindanao, are becoming exhausted. were later to realise that such largesse — Paco-paco has no electricity or piped with plots of land being exchanged for water, and the nearest school and health tins of fish and bags of rice — was a clinic are many miles away. However, the mistake. 'Yes/ muses Badang, 'we were modern world is impinging on their lives: fooled by the settlers. But we've learned they listen to American pop music on the our lesson — the land we have now will radio and there is a netball hoop where remain ours. We can't move again, and the young play outside the datu's hut. The besides there's nowhere else to go.' wealthier among them buy fertiliser and

28 pesticides to put on their fields, and goods as indigenous cultural communities, such as shag tobacco — which they roll in hill tribes, ethnic minorities or indigenous old newspaper — and kerosene lamps are peoples, the latter being the preferred found in many homes. term now. Forty separate ethnolinguistic According to datu Tahalyan, his people groups fall into six major categories. The were better off in the days before the largest, with over 2.1 million individuals settlers and loggers came. 'We were never and 18 ethnolinguistic groups, are the hungry when I was a child,' he recalls. lumads of Mindanao. The second most 'There was always food in the forest. Now populous group, with a million members, we've joined a new sort of economy. We comprises the indigenous people of the can go to stores and buy things, but you Cordillera, the mountainous backbone of need money for that.' northern Luzon. The remaining groups Datu Badazng of Bagtok agrees. have between 110,000 and 160,000 'Before we had no money. Now we have members each. These comprise the tribes — sometimes — but we're worse off. The which inhabit the Caraballo mountain people in the lowlands buy our produce at range in east-central Luzon; the Mangyan a low price, but they sell their own goods of Mindoro; the hill tribes of Palawan; and at a high price, so we can't afford them.' the Aeta and Agta, who are widely However, both leaders add that the distributed throughout the Philippines. situation has begun to improve. They A further 13 ethnolinguistic groups in have discovered allies in the lowlands Mindanao are collectively known as the and they have begun to assert themselves Moro, which is Spanish for Moor. politically. With the help of a theatre Although classified by the government group and a church-based organisation, as an indigenous cultural community, the the Manobos are uniting to save their land Moro's bonds of communality relate more and culture. to their religion, Islam, than their race. Three and a half centuries of Spanish A people under siege occupation brought 85 per cent of the An estimated 4.5 million Filipinos population into the Christian fold. The belong to what are variously described remainder consisted of the Moros, who

left Arakan Valley, once thickly forested.

*5f, &

29 actively fought against the Spanish, By 1970 the population had risen to 1.6 and the indigenous peoples, who avoided million, having increased ten-fold in just them by retreating from the colonial over 50 years, largely as a result of the spheres of influence. There were a few resettlement policy of the government. exceptions. By the 1890s there were some When the settlers arrived in the Arakan 200,000 Christians in Mindanao, most Valley they brought, with them ideas and being lumads, but by and large the customs which were alien to the Manobo. isolation of the area ensured that Most significantly, they saw land as a com- indigenous peoples retained their modity which could be bought, sold and language, folklore, and religion. used for financial gain as well as subsis- During the past century all but the tence. The settlers gradually took over the remotest regions have been brought into lower-lying land and the Manobo retreated some form of contact with the modern further into the forest. The peace they found world. The Manobo of Arakan Valley was short-lived. Datu Badong Layolan were first visited by government officials vividly recalls the arrival of commercial in the 1930s at a time when the Americans loggers. 'They used guards to drive us were exploring the interior of Mindanao. out,' he recalls, 'and if we refused to go The first US governor-general in they simply cut the trees around our huts, Mindanao had declared: 'It is difficult so people had to flee to save themselves.' to imagine a richer country or one out of By the late 1970s, over 150 local which more can be made than the island companies had been granted logging of Mindanao.' Areas which had never concessions covering 5 million hectares been penetrated by the Spanish were of Mindanao. These encompassed most now rapidly opened up and an influx of of the lumads' territory and were settlers — most being landless peasants awarded without consideration to either from the overcrowded Visayas — came their needs, or to the problems which to grab a slice of the promised land. The inevitably resulted from the destruction of province of Cotabato — now subdivided the forests. At the turn of the century most into five smaller provinces — is typical of of Mindanao was clothed in trees; less

below Father Fausto the island as a whole. In 1918 there were than 18 per cent is under forest cover now. Tentorio, of PIME. 172,000 people living in 36 municipalities. Commercial logging, illegal in most areas, continues with the connivance of government officials. By the late 1970s most of Arakan's forests had been logged out, but one company continued to operate illegally as recently as 1991. The battle to expel the loggers signalled the beginning of a new era for the Manobo. Hie Manobo fight back Father Fausto Tentorio does not look like a priest. He wears a t-shirt, shorts and a collection of bead bracelets, one of which bears the nickname the Manobo have given him: Pops. A member of the Italian order PIME, the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Mission, he is based at Greenfields, a town at the heart of a 'green revolution' agricultural scheme in the Arakan Valley.

30 When he arrived in 1990 he and a colleague visited the Manobo in Bagtok and the hills beyond. 'They immediately told us about the problem they had with the loggers/ recalls Father Fausto. A timber company was operating in the forests on the Manobo's sacred mountain, Mount Sinaka, and the Manobo asked the priest to help them stop the logging. 'The Department of Environment and Natural Resources agreed that they shouldn't be logging,' explains Father Fausto. 'They came and confiscated the bulldozer for a while, but as soon as the officials left, the logging began again.' Then in 1991 the Manobo hijacked the bulldozer and barricaded the site for three weeks. The loggers eventually withdrew. 'After that/ explains Father Fausto, 'the Manobo began to visit us regularly and tell us about their problems, and we realised that if we were to help them we needed an identity outside the church.' The Tribal Filipino Programme for Community Development Incorporated (TFPCDI) was founded in 1992. In the villages TFPCDI has helped set up sustainable agriculture schemes and introduced primary health care and literacy programmes. It was also instrumental in establishing MALUPA, a people's organisation with 18 local chapters. MALUPA has successfully claimed over 5,000 hectares of land as ancestral domain. and Paco-paco in 1991, they were selling above TFPCDI organises 'MALUPA has given us hope/ says land for as little as 1,000 pesos (£20) a hectare. a literacy programme and primary health care datu Tahalyong bluntly. 'Now we have Now, he says, they hardly ever sell land to initiative among the ancestral domain certificates from the outsiders: 'They realise that if they're to Manobo in the Arakan government, so we feel more secure, and have a future, it will be based on their land.' valley: (above) literacy class, with a teacher who we've set up a committee to determine It is the duty of the municipal is married to a Manobo how we should manage our land.' Paco- government to provide essential public man; (below) Jasmin Badilla, a community paco's committee, or salihanan, is services, but when people of Paco-paco health worker, visiting a introducing laws — or at least, codes of have asked the authorities to provide schools mother in Bagtok, walks behaviour — which all must abide by. It and health care facilities, they always say many miles to reach will not allow any Visayan settlers to the same thing, complains one of the isolated settlements. occupy land within its ancestral domain; villagers. 'They say "But you've got that it has also banned public consumption of priest Fausto, so why don't you ask him to alcohol, and gambling. When Father help you?" And then they turn us away.' Fausto first visited the people of Bagtok

31 God, nature and other practical matters

continue to press this view. They have sought not only to undermine the traditional beliefs of the Manobo, but their self-worth as well. Manobos who become evangelical pastors are forbidden from preaching in their own language; instead they have been made to use Visayan, the language of the settlers. According to Father Fausto Tentorio, this reinforces the idea that the Manobo are inferior to the settlers, that God does not speak their language. Father Fausto's order, PIME, was founded in the nineteenth century to work among and convert non-Christians. Today conversion is no longer seen as part of their mission in Mindanao. 'What we above Mandialay andialay Bagsilanon is a healer. A must realise/ explains the priest, 'is that Bagsilanon, a healer who M small, wiry man with a wispy beard, the Manobo's religion is the religion of uses traditional methods to treat illnesses. he arrives at the bamboo hut where guests life. Theirs is a god who can be seen stay in Bagtok in an ornately embroidered everywhere in nature.' Traditionally, at waistcoat and a tassled head-dress. 'When the time of planting and harvesting, the I'm trying to heal/ he says 'I always ask Manobo say a panubad, a prayer to for the help of Manama, the supreme Manama. Father Fausto found that the creator.' According to Manobo mythology, practice was beginning to die out when he Manama created two rivers, the Pulangi first arrived, but over the past years he has and the Agusan, to help to balance the noticed that the Manobo, keen to assert earth and prevent it swaying during their cultural identity, are once again earthquakes. Manama oversees the spirits observing the old religious ceremonies. which reside throughout nature, in rocks, There are times when the traditional trees, rivers, and mountains. With healers do more than summon Manama's Manama's help, Mandialay says he can help. Mandialay uses herbs to cure certain see which part of the body is suffering ailments: alibangbang for backache, for from illness. 'It's as though a light is example, and pula-pula for sore eyes. shining/ he explains, 'and when I see When he was young such herbs were where the sickness is, I can suck it out.' plentiful in the forests surrounding the When Christian missionaries first village. Nowadays, the only untouched encountered the Manobo they told them forest with a good supply of herbs is on that worship of Manama was evil, and the flanks of Mount Sinaka, which is many of the evangelical groups which many hours' walk away. The loss of forest have recently arrived in Mindanao has affected every aspect of Manobo life.

32 Medicinal herbs are scarcer, and so are their land and forest, they have been the monkeys and other creatures which forced to cultivate their land on a once formed an important part of the continuous basis. Manobo diet. But these are relatively To help the Manobo to adapt to settled minor matters when seen in the light farming, DKTFP has established over 70 of the agricultural changes which have separate projects. At Bagtok, Gory Paron, been forced on the Manobo by loss a young agronomist, is teaching villagers of land and deforestation. SALT, or Sloping Agricultural Land In the remoter parts of the Philippines Technology, on the hillside above the indigenous communities still practice village. 'Our main aim,' he explains as he kaingin. A plot of land is cleared of trees watches a score of villagers weeding, 'is and planted with crops. After harvest, to control soil erosion by reducing tillage the land is left fallow for several years, and to keep fertility high through crop below Crop rotation during which time the soil's fertility is rotation and the use of natural fertilisers.' and the use of natural fertilisers can help to naturally replenished. In the meantime The four-hectare plot consists of ribbons reduce soil erosion on the farmers make use of plots elsewhere, of crops divided by rows of fruit trees, steep slopes. Villagers hence the term 'shifting cultivation'. planted at 20 metre intervals. The land is weed a plot set up by TFPCDI to teach the The practice is sustainable and neither ploughed nor harrowed and methods of Sloping environmentally benign providing there crops are rotated, with rice being Agricultural Land is no shortage of land. For most of the followed by ground nuts, legumes, corn, Technology. The weeds Manobo of Arakan, however, kaingin is are used as a mulch and a rootcrop. The fruit trees are linked to conserve water and a thing of the past. Having lost most of by a nitrogen-fixing hedge, which binds enrich the soil.

33 right Gory Paron of TFPCDI and the village datu examining mango, rattan, and mahogany seedlings in the tree nursery in Bagtok village.

the soil and whose clippings are used In some villages, Manobo have taken as a weed-suppressing mulch. Instead of out loans to buy pigs and goats; in others using the high-yielding varieties of rice DKTFP has established herb gardens, and favoured by the settlers in the lowlands, this means that healers like Mandialay the Manobo plant traditional strains Bagsilanon no longer have to make the which show better resistance to pests and long trek to Mount Sinaka. diseases. The village salihanan has worked Hardly any Manobo children attend out a schedule which ensures that every government schools and only one in ten family is involved in the weeding, adult Manobos can read and write. Father sowing, harvesting, and general Fausto believes that basic education can management of the crops. do much to help the indigenous peoples. DKTFP has also helped villagers By this he means not only literacy in the Arakan Valley to establish tree training, which is proving popular among nurseries and such species as mango, the women, but education in primary rattan, and mahogany are now being health care. 'It took us two years to planted on both private and communal convince the people in Bagtok that many plots of land. Another programme has of the diseases were the result of poor enabled Manobo villagers to acquire sanitation and that they needed to do carabao, or water buffalo, which provide something about it,' he recalls. In 1995 milk and draught power to plough the the villagers constructed two communal flatter land. The beneficiaries of this toilets, and the incidence of diarrhoea scheme are given interest-free loans has fallen. which are repayable after three years.

34 Claiming the land

2 n.—^r left Manobo women and children, New Paco.

Manobo goes into Mount Apo So far the state has refused to grant Anational park and is accosted by a freehold titles; instead it has introduced monkey. The monkey says: 'Hey! You measures to enable indigenous peoples can't come in here.' The Manobo replies: to claim occupation but not ownership 'But I'm an indigenous person!' 'Yes, I of their homelands. know that,' says the monkey impatiently, Under the 1987 constitution, all 'but you shouldn't be here. Only we mineral and forest lands, public parks animals have rights here.' and reservations, and land which the In some instances indigenous people government has yet to classify belong to do have the right to live in national parks, the state, which, as a result, owns 53 per but this story, told by a Manobo of Paco- cent of the Philippine land mass. 'Forest paco, illustrates the insecurity which land' is defined as all land with a slope of many feel about their land. Having been 18 per cent or more, regardless of whether driven further and further into the hills, or not it is forested. The vast majority of they are now eager to protect and reserve indigenous people consequently find for themselves the land which they still themselves on land which is owned by occupy. In an ideal world, they would be the state, responsibility for whose given titles to their ancestral domain, management is primarily vested in the conferring rights of ownership. Department of Environment and Natural

35 Resources (DENR). The constitution 'When mining companies or ranches recognised the existence of ancestral have their eyes on the land/ says domains, but the state retained the right Professor Leonen, 'then DENR is not giving of ownership and control. However, in the CADCs'. Frequently, applications are 1993, in response to the long-standing lost in the bureaucratic machinery of calls for the recognition of indigenous government. There are plenty of places land rights, DENR administrative order to get lost: LRC has calculated that there 02 (DA 02) provided for the identification are 26 separate steps between application and delineation of ancestral domains. and approval. CADCs only provide partial Indigenous people can now apply protection against development as they to DENR for Certificates of Ancestral do not give protection against projects Domain Claims, or CADCs. They must which are carried out or sanctioned by provide maps showing the boundaries other government departments. This to their claim, together with a detailed means, for example, that a CADC provides history of their occupation of the land. protection against forestry plantation, but They cannot claim land which they have not a hydro-electric power scheme of the lost to settlers or others in the past. So far Department of Energy. three million hectares — ten per cent of In the Arakan Valley MALUPA has the country — has been subject to claims successfully claimed 5,241 hectares of for CADCs, and DENR has approved land as ancestral domain, and 464 families them for a quarter of this area. are registered as the beneficiaries of five According to Professor Marvic Leonen, separate CADCs. A further three claims director of the Legal Rights and National are still pending with DENR, and as there Resources Centre (LRC) in Manila, DENR is no commercial activity in this part of is only approving claims for land where the valley, they will probably be granted. there is no sign of commercial opposition: Datu Badang Layoran of Bagtok says that they now feel more secure about their situation. 'When we received the certificate,' right Father Peter Geremiah of DKTFP. he recalls, 'we felt we could at last plan An outspoken champion for the future.' of the poor and dispossessed, he is detested by those in A clash of cultures power, and has twice Some of the indigenous people living been imprisoned on in the remote Cordillera have rejected the trumped-up charges. laws of the state, arguing that they have lived peacefully for centuries with their own system of administration. They remain relatively untouched by the outside world and they possess sufficient land to continue practising terraced rice cultivation and kaingin agriculture. The lumads in Mindanao would like to argue a similar case, but they are in no position to do so. Their homelands are fragmented and they have long been forced to interact with the non-tribal world. The clash of cultures is now as pronounced as it has ever been, and people like the B'laan of southern

36 Mindanao are threatening to take up arms crossfire and of tribal leaders who refused above Land congress, where B'laan and govern- if their lands suffer further encroachment. to leave land coveted by the Muslims. ment officials met to Unlike the Manobo of Arakan Valley, the In 199311 B'laan were massacred in the discuss indigenous B'laan live on land which may well be village of Lampiras. When asked who the land rights. rich in minerals. killers were, Father Peter Geremiah of the Half a century ago the B'laan occupied Diocese of Kidapwan Tribal Filipino a vast area of valleys and hills around the Programme (DKTFP) admitted that no- town of Columbio. Since then they have one knew for sure. Muslim separatists, lost much of it. In 1950 two presidential Christian fanatics, local politicians and proclamations set aside 30,000 hectares cattle ranchers had all been implicated in for rice and corn production; this was killings over the past 20 years. The B'laan classified as a resettlement site and were frequently the victims, though being migrants flowed in from the Visayas. a warrior tribe they were not averse to Timber-licence agreements led to the settling old scores. felling of most of the forest land around The B'laan now constitute 30 per cent Columbio, and pasture leases allowed of the population of Columbio district, ranchers to convert the logged areas into the Muslims 20 per cent and the settlers grassland. Another wave of settlers the rest. According to Father Peter, the arrived in the 1960s, and the B'laan lack of land security — stemming partly retreated further into the hills when from the conflicting claims of the three armed conflict flared up between Muslim communities and partly from the threat separatists and government forces in the now posed by a mining company — is the 1970s. Since then there have been many principal factor underlying the conflicts killings, of innocents caught in the in the area.

37 With the help of DKTFP the B'laan that the collective CLOAs are far too established La Bugal Tribal Council, the small, and fail to encompass their counterpart to the Manobo's MALUPA. ancestral domain. In 1988 it successfully petitioned the gov- In June 1996 the theatre company ernment to cancel timber and pasture Kaliwat organised a Land Congress. At the licences granted to a large ranching company, congress over 50 B'laan from Columbio and it subsequently spearheaded the district met officials from DAR and DENR. campaign for the recognition of B'laan Communication was difficult. This was ancestral domains. In 1993 the B'laan not so much a question of language — made claims to 21,400 hectares. most spoke or understood Visayan — as Unfortunately, some of this lay within the attitude and philosophy. The government resettlement area established in 1950 and officials clearly saw land as a commodity, responsibility for its management rests with just as the settlers did. The B'laan, in the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), contrast, talked of land in almost mystical not DENR. Under the government's land terms: not only did it provide sustenance reform programme DAR can grant and most of the necessities of life, it was Certificates of Land Ownership Awards the abode of Manama and spirits. It was (CLOAs). These were conceived as a means not something which could be parcelled of providing land to landless farmers and off in plots and exchanged for goods and they are limited to three hectares per cash; in short, it could not be owned. But family. The B'laan argued that they should if the government officials failed to be granted collective ownership of their understand the B'laan's complex attitude CLOAs, and that the 3-hectare limit per towards land, the B'laan failed to see that family should not apply to them, and the government officials had to work DAR has accepted their demand. within the constraints of their departments. However, many B'laan are unsatisfied. When the day-long congress broke up below family working on They claim that settlers have received participants seemed moderately satisfied. their land, Arakan valley. CLOAs within B'laan territory and that The B'laan had expressed their fears and Indigenous people regard the names of some B'laan families have land in mystical terms as anger to the government; the government being the abode of spirits. been missed off the list. They also argue officials said that they now understood the B'laan's case better; and Kaliwat staff considered it something of a triumph that the two parties had met at all. Many of the indigenous people in the Philippines fear that they will eventually lose their land. This is often a general apprehension, based on past experience of settlers and loggers. For the B'laan, however, their fears have a sharper focus. In 1995 Western Mining Corporation (WMC) was given permission to prospect for gold and other minerals over an area of almost 100,000 hectares in southern Mindanao. Welcomed by some, reviled by others, WMC may do more to change the way of life in Columbio district than the loggers and settlers ever did. Whether it will be a change for the better or worse is far from certain.

38 The mining dileiimici

n Ancestral Domains Bill made its Afirst appearance in the legislature in 1988, but its passage towards the statute books has been continually thwarted by politicians antipathetic to the cause of the indigenous people. The mining community, in contrast, has suffered no such set-backs. In 1995 the Mining Code paved the way for a new phase in mineral exploitation, with foreign corporations being given special incentives to operate in the country. The government sees mineral exploitation as a way of raising some of the substantial revenue needed to build a modern economy. Foreign corporations possessing the capital and expertise which local mining companies lack are therefore being welcomed into the Philippines. The Mining Code allows foreign corporations to apply for Financial and Technical Assistance Agreements (FTAAs) which give them the right to explore, develop, and use mineral resources, and auxiliary rights to exploit timber and water. Under the new code, foreign corporations can repatriate all profits once taxes and royalties have been paid to the government. By June 1996,67 applications for FTAAs had been filed by mining corporations, covering over a third of the uplands of the Philippines. If one adds to this the 300 or so applications under previous legislation, 67 per cent of the uplands and 42 per cent of the total land area are subject to some form of mineral exploitation claim. While environmental above Linda Datumanong groups stress the enormity of this figure, and her family. She the mining world is quick to point out that believes that without land, her children have by September 1996 the government had no future.

39 granted only two FTAAs. Both had gone not a foreign company's! And WMC to Australian companies: one to ARIMCO is using bribery to win people round.' and the other to Western Mining WMC is now paying salaries to some Corporation (WMC), whose Columbio of the B'laan leaders and giving financial FTAA gives it an exclusive concession for support to tribal councils. While mineral exploitation over 99,400 hectares opponents describe this as bribery; WMC of land, most of which is considered by sees it as sensible business practice. Some the B'laan to be theirs. WMC has three other of those who have been approached by applications pending. If they are granted, WMC with offers of jobs and money have its area of exploration around Columbio resisted the overtures. These include a will be increased to 400,000 hectares. Davao City journalist who has written There is a presumption, both by WMC unfavourably about WMC, the director of and by those who oppose its presence, Kaliwat, and prominent B'laan like Linda that the corporation will strike gold Datumanong of Lampiras village. T met and copper in the Colombio FTAA. Mrs X of WMC,' she recalls, 'and she tried WMC estimates an 'expected yield of to bribe me by giving me a job with a 4,000 approximately $2,700 million and about peso salary. I refused to sign the contract $500 million for [the Philippine] she had drawn up. I didn't sign it because government through taxes and fees'. I am concerned for my children.' She adds WMC has done its utmost to convince that if WMC strikes a commercially viable the local population that it will be deposit in or around Lampiras her people sensitive both to their needs and to the will lose some of their land; without land environment. It intends to operate a her children have no future. preferential employment programme WMC vows that it will observe the for local people, providing they have the environmental standards which are necessary skills; it has established a school applicable for mining operations in for B'laan children where no school Australia and it points out that its work existed before, and it has built roads will be monitored by DENR. It is and provided a water supply. disingenuous, counter the B'laan, to claim Professor Leonen of LRC agrees that that open-pit mining can be done in an WMC has provided social services which environmentally sensitive manner, and benefit some B'laan, but he believes that it is naive to imagine that DENR will these will pale into insignificance when effectively police WMC's operations. seen in the light of the environmental and As evidence they cite events of the.recent social change which mining will cause. past. In June 1996 three executives of the 'A huge operation such as this/ he says, Marcopper Mining Corporation, two of 'will shift sovereignty away from the local whom were Australian, were charged government, which is responsible for with violations of the Water Code and the providing services, to the corporation Philippines Mining Act and with 'reckless itself. The local government will rely imprudence'. Mine tailings had killed off increasingly on mining taxes and this will life in a major waterway on Marinduque create serious dilemmas when it comes to Island. Fisheries had been destroyed, balancing the needs of the local people irrigated land had been deprived of its with the demands of the corporation.' water source, and toxic materials leaking Father Peter Geremiah is more from the Canadian-owned mine had led forthright. 'There are some B'laan who to a dramatic rise in illnesses among local are saying, "Yes, we favour WMC, it's people. Environmentalists claim that building schools and helping us." But events such as the Marcopper disaster that's the government's responsibility, are commonplace in the Philippines.

40 However, DENR maintains that the Asked what her people will do if prosecution of the executives is evidence WMC begins mineral exploitation near of the hard-line approach it is now taking her village, Linda Datumanong replies: against polluters. The Philippines, 'They are still some distance away from according to Victor Ramos, Secretary Lampiras at the moment. But if they come, of State for the Environment, is set to we'll be forced to fight back. There will be become the first 'green tiger' in Asia. bloodshed.' Critics of WMC accuse the corporation of underhand practices and duplicity, Staging a revival but it is clear that some of the company's 'When we first went up to the Arakan opponents have wildly exaggerated the Valley/ recalls Nestor Horfilla, the director impact that its operations are likely to of the Kaliwat Theatre Collective, 'the have. The foreign mining lobby could Manobo had had so many bad experiences also point out, in its defence, that the with the lowlanders that they feared the small-scale mining operations which worst.' Now, when members of Kaliwat are often championed by its critics tend arrive in remote villages like Paco-paco, to be far more polluting than large-scale there are .shouts of delight and much ventures. embracing and laughter. At first sight the The Philippines government is faced Manobo and the theatre group seem imp- by a profound dilemma. If it is to tackle robable partners — the Manobo are slight poverty in a lasting way it requires the of build and reticent by nature; the artistes, revenue to create jobs, house people as they call themselves, are glamorous, decently, and so forth. There may be better colourful, effervescent—but together they and more benign ways of raising revenue have produced some of the most interest- than mining, but one cannot expect a poor ing theatrical work in the Philippines. country rich in gold and copper to leave its deposits untouched. However, the argument that large-scale mining is in left Nestor Horfilla, the national interest does not impress Director of Kaliwat. the B'laan. The 1950 presidential proclamations which appropriated 30,000 hectares of their land as an agricultural resettlement area were also justified in terms of the national interest, as were numerous logging concessions awarded in the region. None brought any tangible benefits to the B'laan, and most see no reason to suppose that WMC's activities will bring anything other than transitory improvements to their lives. The B'laan are continuing to press for recognition of their ancestral domain. Whether CADCs will save their land from the bulldozers is a moot point. Professor Leonen is not optimistic. 'If a foreign corporation clashes with indigenous people,' he says, 'it's usually the cor- poration that wins.'

41 above Members of Sitting on the steps of a Manobo hut, there would be more discussion about Kaliwat Theatre Company the vast roadless landscape laid out before the content. in rehearsal. Their plays are performed throughout him, Richard Belar, one of the original Kaliwat's members see themselves the Philippines, and members of Kaliwat, recalls their early as technicians whose task it is to present elsewhere in the world. experiences: 'In those days we would the lumads' stories to the world beyond. Their plays are more than entertainment; they carry send a couple of people to a village like Once the Manobo, or whichever of the an advocacy message, this, and they'd spend time here, getting lumads Kaliwat is working with, approve and encourage audiences to know the datu and his people and the play, it goes on tour in theatres, to think about the issues of land rights and cultural asking about their lives, their myths, their schools, and government offices around survival. history.' With the Manobo's permission, the Philippines. In recent years Kaliwat Kaliwat worked up the raw material of has also performed in Europe, Japan, research into a play back at their Davao and Australia. 'Of course, we have to City headquarters. The group then entertain,' says Richard. 'But our plays returned to the village and put on a also have an advocacy role. They explore performance. 'We'd work their legends issues about land, and about the struggles and their dialogue into the piece,' explains of the lumads and their spirituality, and Richard, 'and we'd try to tell the story — they encourage the audience to think.' through dance and music and words — of A new generation of actor/researchers the people's history and struggles.' Often has recently joined Kaliwat. Their various the Manobo in the audience would get up talents — some are musically trained, and complain that something was wrong, others can dance and mime — are or suggest additions. A one-hour piece blended with those of the older members might take several hours, then afterwards of the collective, but performing takes up

42 less than a third of their time. Much of the Theatre has proved to be one of the rest they spend in the field, often walking most effective ways of reaching out to for many hours up vertiginous slopes to indigenous people, but Kaliwat's work reach remote villages. 'Our task at the extends far beyond the stage. The collective moment,' explained Sheila and Lyndon, plays an important role in brokering deals whom we meet in Paco-paco, 'is to collect between Mindanao's lumads and the the Manobo's epic stories.' These are then authorities. It has helped them draw up recorded and transformed into comic ancestral domain claims and its research book form back in Kaliwat's office. The has been used to write the supporting comics are distributed to Mindanao's histories which DENR requires. schools, along with other educational materials, and they help to foster a better understanding among settler children of the lumads' predicament. People like the Manobo and the B'laan are in a state of transition. They have lost some of their traditions, and they have been forced to adopt the administrative structures imposed by government. The datu remain important, but it is the elected bamngay captains who hold the real power now. The closer they are to the plains, the left and below Richard Belar, of Kaliwat, playing more indigenous people tend to adopt the a traditional lumad settlers' ways of life. According to Father instrument. The theatre Fausto Tentorio of the Tribal Filipino group learn the songs and stories of indigenous Programme, the young are more easily groups like the Manobo lured away from the traditional lifestyle and B'laan. than the old. There is a feeling among them that whatever the settlers have and do must be good, simply because it is modern. This, he says, stems from the lumads' low self-esteem. 'It's very apparent,' says Father Fausto. 'Whenever you have Manobo and settlers meeting in a forum, the Manobo tend to keep quiet. They feel inferior.' When Kaliwat first visited the Manobo of Arakan Valley they discovered that the art of story-telling was beginning to die out and that it was only the elders who knew the Manobo's myths and tales. Since Kaliwat took an interest, encouraging them not only to share their past, but to participate in performances, the Manobo have realised that their culture is worth preserving. Now, the young people are learning to tell the old stories and to play the traditional lumad instruments.

43 Living dangerously

hen Mount Pinatubo erupted in June W1991, spewing 8 billion cubic metres of volcanic debris across Central Luzon, the people of San Juan bamngay considered themselves fortunate. Over a million people were displaced by the eruption and subsequent mudflows, but San Juan suffered no more than a thick coating of ash and temporary flooding. However, four years later, on 1 October 1995, Typhoon Mameng struck the Philippines and torrential rain turned the volcanic ash into rivers of glutinous lahar. San Juan was one of many places buried by this sea of mud. Since the eruption there have been mudflows each lahar season — displacing around 800,000 people and killing around 30 people a year — but no-one had foreseen the damage which Typhoon Mameng would wreak. 1.3 million people were displaced and over 430 were killed. Pepe Cuenca and his extended family — wife, four children, three grandchildren — were asleep in their pleasant home, recently built with the money Pepe had earned during four years in Saudi Arabia, when the mudflows struck. 'I suddenly heard rumbling like galloping horses,' he recalls. 'It was the lahar, and it was moving at 60 kilometres an hour by the time it hit San Juan.' Within a quarter of an hour the town had been submerged beneath 15 feet of lahar. Pepe and his family climbed onto above (top) A wasteland above (bottom) Pepe their tin roof and huddled in the lashing of grey lahar covers the Cuenca beside his new fields and villages around house, built on stilts rain, watching the lahar rise around their Pinatubo in Central Luzon. above his old one which feet. 'For 24 hours,' he recalls with a shudder, This is near Bacolor, was submerged under 'we had no food, no water, our grandchildren Pampanga, a once busy a tide of lahar. and prosperous town, and were crying...' Eventually a rescue truck home to 60,000 people. managed to plough across the lahar and the family was moved to an evacuation site. The lahar drove four-fifths of San Juan's population, around 1,200 people, into

44 exile: most remain in evacuation camps, wealthy suburb of Manila it is not, staging sites or with relatives elsewhere. generally speaking, a disaster: the rich Pepe was among those who decided to live in well-constructed buildings which return, and he now lives with his family are resistant to high winds. When a in a makeshift hut on stilts, constructed cyclone hits a poor fishing village, it is above the roof of his old dwelling. The nearly always a disaster: tin roofs are farmland around his house is a barren stripped off bamboo dwellings like waste of grey lahar and the church nearby autumn leaves off a tree. The millions of is half-buried. On its walls someone has people affected by disasters between 1991 scrawled Tumayo ka San Juan. Rise up San and 1995 were predominantly the rural poor. Juan! Babalik Kaming Muli Ngunit Kailan. CDRC has identified several 'areas of We'll be back, but when? vulnerability'. The first, and the most Many will not be back and it is unlikely significant, concerns geographical events that Pepe's hut will survive the next monsoon, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, even though it is anchored to the ground and typhoons. In the second category are with anti-typhoon guy ropes. 'Last year,' the hazards and disasters which result he says as he scans the barren horizon, from human activities. Flash floods and 'we lost almost everything.' This is said landslides, for example, are frequently without rancour or self-pity. He knows caused by deforestation. Forests act like that his misfortunes have been shared by a sponge, trapping the rain when it falls millions, not only round Mount Pinatubo, and releasing it slowly over the ensuing but in many other parts of the Philippines. months. Once the land has been stripped bare, the water can rush unimpeded down The Rim of Fire the hillsides, causing landslides on steeper The Philippines lies in the Pacific rim of slopes and floods in the plains. Government fire. Of its 200 volcanoes, 21 are classified figures suggest that one hectare of forest is as active although PHIVOLCS, the being lost every minute in the Philippines, government institution which studies or some 10,000 hectares a week, much seismic activity, is only monitoring six through illegal felling. According to CDRC, of them. Between 1991 and 1995 the over a million people were affected by cumulative number of people affected floods in 1994 and again in 1995. by volcanic activity was 3.7 million, most CDRC's figures also include those who being victims of Pinatubo. The Philippines have been displaced by fighting between also lies within the Pacific typhoon belt, government forces, the New Peoples' and in an average year some 20 typhoons Army, and the Muslim guerilla forces and cyclones batter large parts of the country. in Mindanao. The NPA is no longer the Between 1991 and 1995 just under 25 force it once was, and with the advent million people were affected by cyclones, of an uneasy peace in Mindanao the generally suffering loss of homes and crops. number affected by military activity has The entire country with the exception of declined, from around 170,000 in 1991 Palawan province is subject to earthquakes, to 34,000 by 1995. However, CDRC and of which around five a day are recorded. other organisations involved in disaster The Citizens' Disaster Response Centre relief are concerned that a new form of (CDRC), the leading NGO working in the displacement is on the increase. Dams, field, makes a clear distinction between roads, mining projects, and other hazards and disasters. A volcanic schemes which are loosely or explicitly eruption is a hazard; it only becomes a associated with Philippines 2000 are disaster if it has an impact on the human driving people from their homes. Again, population. When a cyclone hits a figures are hard to come by, but the

45 right Temporary shelter built by a family whose home was destroyed by lahar.

Ecumenical Commission for Displaced The people of Alasas —1,967 Families and Communities calculated that individuals in all — had been told to between January and October 1995 over expect at least 10 feet of lahar once the 38,000 families were permanently monsoons arrived. A local organisation, displaced. This figure was 34 per cent the Pampanga Disaster Response higher than for the whole of 1994. Network, had helped the community to prepare its evacuation plans and everyone Coping with Pinatubo knew what they had to do once the alert The terminology used to classify the victims was sounded. 'We've been assigned an of Pinatubo's mudflows is chillingly evacuation centre,' explains a woman impersonal. Those displaced by the initial who has been working on what is flows in 1991 are known as lahar 1, those cumbersomely termed disaster by the second year's as lahar 2, and so on. preparedness, 'and we expect to be there In June 1996 the villagers of Alasas were for the whole lahar season, longer if the expecting, shortly, to become lahar 6. Sitting damage is as bad as we expect.' She adds in the porch of a well-appointed house that most of the people in Alasas have on the leafy main street, Paquito Timbol, lived here all their lives and know no former secretary to the bamngay captain, other home. The lahar was going to reflects on the impending disaster: 'I've swallow up their fields and houses and, been here since 1946 and I've never worried like their erstwhile neighbours in Dolores about this community till now.' He motions Concepcion, they were about to experience the uncertain and often miserable in the distance of Mount Pinatubo, obscured existence of Pinatubo's refugees. now by heavy rain clouds, and says: 'If you go two kilometres up there you'll find When Pinatubo erupted, having lain what's left of Dolores Concepcion. That dormant for 500 years, experts estimated village was destroyed last year.' that disruption to life would continue for

46 ten years. It now appears that this was women. Its co-ordinator, Cristina Turla, an optimistic estimate; it is likely that speaks with warmth and gratitude about lahar flows and floods will continue to the Pampanga Disaster Response cause chaos in the region for at least 15 Network (PDRN), which rescued them years, until all the lahar has been washed when the lahar came and helped establish off the mountains, either into the sea, the management committee. There was where it has already smothered vast little that PDRN could do, however, to expanses of coral, or onto flat land, where improve the physical conditions within it will stabilise. In purely economic terms the centre. 'There's a big problem with the volcano has been a disaster for Central overcrowding,' explains Cristina as she Luzon. Some 350,000 hectares of shows us a room 15 feet square. 'This is productive land have been covered the space every family has to live in. Some with lahar and are virtually useless. have seven children, so you can imagine The cost in human terms can be most what it's like.' The bunkhouses are ill- clearly seen in the evacuation centres. ventilated and oppressively hot and These are supposed to provide temporary there is little space between them. accommodation for evacuees, who will In such conditions infectious diseases eventually return to their villages or be associated with poor hygiene are a serious housed in permanent resettlement sites problem. Overcrowding can also lead to managed by the government's Mount tension. 'Maybe one family makes too Pinatubo Commission (MPC). much noise,' says Cristina, 'but we can Prior to Typhoon Mameng, MPC had normally settle disputes by talking to resettled 34,550 families in permanent people.' Considering the living sites in Pampanga, but over 7,400 families conditions, she adds, there were relatively were still waiting in evacuation centres. few social problems in the centre. Indeed, The backlog rose dramatically after the hardship had encouraged people to help typhoon. At the beginning of 1996,21,900 one another. 'If there's a family with a families — around 100,000 people — were serious problem,' explains Cristina, 'such living in temporary evacuation centres. as no money to buy food, or someone's very sick, we'll go round the centre and Waiting for help get contributions from other people.' Malino looks incongruously like an The women on the management urban slum pitched into good fertile committee had no idea how long they countryside: tin-roof bunkhouses would remain in Malino. 'What if the simmer in the midday heat beneath a owner comes back from Canada and says forest of TV aerials. Most of the 167 he wants the land?' asks one rhetorically. families in the centre saw their barangay Another speculates that they might be partially disappear beneath the mudflows here for ten years or more: 'But we haven't of 1994. Some returned to their homes in lost hope,' she adds swiftly. 'Someone, the dry season, but they were driven out some day, might resettle us.' again in 1995 when the lahar destroyed Does she mean the government? Bacolor town. This question elicits bitter laughter. 'We The bunkhouses were constructed by understand that there are other communities a Catholic organisation, SACOP, on land whose needs are greater than ours,' says leased from the expatriate brother of Cristina, choosing her words carefully, Malino's barangay captain. The 'but the government and the Mount evacuation centre is administered by a 13- Pinatubo Commission have been very member evacuation centre management slow, very inefficient. There are still evacuees committee (ECME), all of whom are from 1991 who haven't been resettled yet.'

47 right Local people inspecting the Fidel Ramos mega-dyke. Many feel the money to build it could have been better used for resettlement schemes.

Apathy and incompetence Arayat, some 29 kilometres from San Fernando, the nearest place where people The Mount Pinatubo Commission claims can expect to find work. Public transport that its resettlement programme is well to and from Mount Arayat costs 70 pesos managed and that the number of evacuees a day; a day-labourer is paid around 130 waiting for places in permanent sites is pesos a day. There are no schools near the relatively small. This is simply not the resettlement site and the facilities are poor. case. Over 20,000 families in Pampanga Little wonder, then, that many of those alone were languishing in school halls and offered places there have refused to go. temporary evacuation centres as the 1996 Rather than tackle the land issue, the monsoon approached; another typhoon, government has made some grand and another disastrous lahar season, and their costly gestures, one of which is the Fidel B. numbers would swell dramatically. Ramos mega-dyke, a 17-kilometre wall Yet again, land reform — or the lack whose purpose is to channel lahar away of it — is the main issue. It is not penury, from Angeles City and San Fernando. The but political apathy, which is responsible project was controversial from the outset. for the lack of resettlement sites. No one It has pleased the business interests in in a position of influence or power has San Fernando, but outraged many of the been prepared to tackle the land issue. village communities which have lost land In Pampanga there are ten landlords who to the dyke, or who now believe that they own between 1000 and 5000 hectares each. are in greater danger of being submerged None has relinquished, or been made to because of it. Whether the dyke will work relinquish, the smallest portion of land remains to be seen. Independent to help resettle the victims of Pinatubo. engineers claim that it has been so badly From time to time the MPC has designed that lahar flows similar to those established resettlement sites which of 1995 would certainly breach it. The evacuees have spurned, generally on dyke was a political solution to a technical the grounds that they are too remote. One problem, and a very expensive one too, such site is to be found half way up Mount costing 2.75 billion pesos, or around $100

48 million. It is money, say the victims of most of those in the resettlement centres Pinatubo, that could have been much are farmers, skilled in handicraft production better spent. perhaps, but not in computer technology. By mid-1996 the resettlement site was Life in a resettlement site taking on the attributes of permanency: Not long ago the countryside between some families had attached their homes, Tokwing and Angeles City was a verdant illegally, to the electricity supply; some patchwork of cane fields and rice paddy, had constructed hen coops, added interspersed with small villages with tree- porticos, and planted flowers and shrubs. lined streets and clusters of palm and 'If it hadn't been for us, there'd have been mango. Now it is a lunar landscape, a no progress,' explains Yolly. 'We only got wasteland of grey lahar. Here and there water pumps installed because we scraps of tin roof or thatch poke through campaigned for them.' She adds that the mud, and a line of telegraph poles — many people were angry about the way now waist-high — marks the course of in which the units have been allocated. a road which lies buried under 15 feet Often the least deserving — including of volcanic debris. One of the villages friends and relatives of local officials — submerged by the lahar was Mancatian, had been given units ahead of the whose houses were washed away in 1994. more needy. Many of its former inhabitants are now Visit any of the evacuation and to be found in Tokwing resettlement site, resettlement sites around Pinatubo and here, as in Malino, it is the women and you will hear a similar story. It is the who have done most to improve evacuees themselves who are doing most conditions and get the best they can from to improve conditions, often with little or the government agencies. Their menfolk no help from the authorities. And it is the are too busy trying to earn a living in below Heavy rain floods women who are at the forefront of the this evacuation site at Angeles City, and some are far away, organisations which are fighting for better Tokwing, which was built in Manila and beyond. cheaply and quickly, conditions and helping the least fortunate without proper drainage or 'We feel we're constantly having to and the poorest to survive. sanitation. battle against the authorities,' explains Yolly de la Cruz, who is the chair of the local chapter of Ugnayan, an alliance of Pinatubo's victims. When Yolly arrived she and many other families were lodged in huts beside a large productivity centre. The huts, which are now home to 194 families, are cramped, dirty, ill-served in every sense, and surrounded by pools of stagnant water. The productivity centre, in contrast, consists of rows of gleaming white warehouses. These were constructed to attract industry to the resettlement sites, and therefore provide jobs for the people here. The warehouses in Tokwing remain empty; productivity centres throughout the region have proved to be expensive white elephants. The industries which were supposed to move in require skilled labour, whereas

49 Building for the future debriefing to displaced families, provided training in disaster preparedness, and above A theatre group, Soon after it was set up in 1984, the lobbied the government on issues ranging Teatrong Balen, Citizens' Disaster Response Centre, from housing to health care. They have specialise in working with children who have been whose headquarters is in Manila, decided played a significant role in the relief traumatised by their to establish a regional network to respond process, but they have failed to influence experiences of disaster. to specific disasters. There are now 18 the decision-makers in matters of lasting They put on puppet shows, and spend time regional centres making up the Citizens' strategic importance, the most obvious talking to the children Disaster Response Network (CDRN) being the need for land reform and for a about their fears. Here, and their function is to promote citizenry- viable and better organised resettlement members of the group join in a game with based development-oriented disaster programme. children from the camp. response, or CBDODR. The centre in Following the 1995 typhoon, CDRC Luzon is known as CONCERN, the agreed to oversee the construction of Central Luzon Disaster Response bunkhouses which would eventually Network, and it comprises a number provide temporary homes for 1000 of separate offices, one being PDRN, the families displaced from San Juan. It took Pampanga Disaster Response Network, six months to find a site, some distance which became operational in the months away in Mexico village. before Pinatubo erupted. 'We said right from the beginning PDRN and its counterparts in other this is not just a CDRC project/ explains provinces have helped to organise its social services officer, Malu Fellizar- evacuation procedures, dispensed Cagay. 'It's a joint venture between CDRC emergency food aid, given psycho-social and the community of San Juan.' A points

50 system established which families those who were capable of useful work were most in need of resettlement. The were being encouraged to participate. widows, the elderly, the disabled, those 'We've tried to ensure that there's one who had lost everything in the lahar, and skilled carpenter to each bunkhouse,' those who had no breadwinners, were explains Malu, on a site inspection in deemed to be in greatest need and were mid-July. Over 100 people were working allocated bunkhouse accommodation. in teams on the bunkhouses, some of This was in stark contrast to the way which were nearing completion. in which the government generally The bunkhouses are not a final allocates accommodation in evacuation solution. They will provide temporary resettlement sites: those with good accommodation for lahar victims, and as political contacts, or cash to spare, some leave — either to return to their land generally go to the top of the queue. or to other resettlement sites — others will The bunkhouses have been designed take their place. There is no land available to a standard which far surpasses those nearby and therefore no opportunity for constructed under government schemes. people to make a living as farmers, which Each will house six families, and each many once were. The projects will only family will have 21 square metres of floor help a small proportion of Pinatubo's space, with a door at either end and two victims. All the same, it has put the windows. The World Health rhetoric of self-help — or citizenry-based Organisation's emergency guidelines development-oriented disaster response stipulate that there should be one latrine — into action, and it may well become a for 20 people. In the Mexico evacuation model for the future. The government and centre each bunkhouse is to be served by the MPC will find it far harder to argue two latrines and two bathrooms and there that their evacuation centres are adequate will be a nine-metre space between the when they compare so unfavourably to rows of bunkhouses. the Mexico bunkhouses. This was the first project in the Philippines to involve disaster victims in the building of their own homes, and all

left People displaced by the Pinatubo disaster mixing cement for the construction of new bunkhouses, Mexico village.

51 for survival

overty is an overwhelmingly rural Pphenomenon in the Philippines although to a visitor the endless slums in urban Manila, when contrasted with the picturesque nature of much of the countryside, might suggest the exact opposite. Life expectancy in the NCR, the National Capital Region, which includes Metro Manila, is 68.6 years; in remote Central Mindanao, it is 13 years less. There is 99.1 per cent literacy in the NCR; 83 per cent literacy in Central Mindanao. Children in the NCR spend an average 9.7 years at school; in Central Mindanao they spend 5.8 years. The poverty index developed by the Philippine Human Development Network is low for the NCR, at 14.9, and exceptionally high, over 50, for Central Mindanao. The poorest regions tend to be the most remote and politically troubled; the more affluent are generally close to the capital. Poverty is as much about lack of options as it is about lack of cash.Many of the rural poor simply stay where they are, eking out a living as best they can in the hope their situation will eventually improve. But others — and in the Philippines a significant number — adopt survival strategies which involve physical movement. Some are ambitious; some are desperate. Either way, they see migration as a means to improving their standard of living. For many, the escape from poverty means both a change of occupation and a change of address. This is most clearly seen in the red-light districts of places above (top) At school in Tugas village, northern Mindanao. Literacy rates are high in the Philippines, like Manila, Angeles City, Olongapo, though children from rural areas spend fewer years in and Cebu. UNICEF estimates that there school, on average, than their urban compatriots. are half a million prostitutes in the above (bottom) Drop-in centre for prostitutes in Davao. Philippines, a fifth of whom are minors,

52 some as young as six years old. of whom have village backgrounds. A survey carried out by UNICEF Human rights organisations have become found that 50 per cent of the prostitutes increasingly worried about the maltreatment interviewed had entered the sex trade to meted out to many Filipinos, particularly escape poverty, which more often than those working as domestic servants in not meant rural poverty; a further 15 per Singapore, Japan, and the Middle East. cent were fleeing family problems — However, the government is reluctant to broken marriages, loss of a parent and take any steps which might lead to a loss so on; eight per cent had been physically of the considerable revenue OCWs bring forced into prostitution, and only three into the country. Between them they remit per cent claimed that they had chosen around $4.7 billion a year, equivalent in prostitution as an easy way to earn 1996 to around 20 per cent of export earnings. money. The Philippines has now become This inflow of money is economically a major destination for paedophiles and significant for two reasons. First, it foreigners are increasingly active in stimulates consumer spending; one in running the sex industry. Over half three Filipino families is now said to be the bars along Angeles City's notorious partially dependent on OCWs remittances. Field Avenue are now owned and Second, the government receives managed by Australians. substantial taxes from OCW remittances, Poverty has also turned rural equivalent to around $34 million a year. Philippines into a huge exporter of cheap In 1960 less than a third of the below Looking for materials for recycling, labour. There are an estimated 6.2 million population lived in urban areas. Now on a Patayas garbage overseas contract workers (OCWs), many almost half does. Landlessness arid low dump in Quezon City.

53 wages have driven millions of families taught me to make the baskets, so I did out of the countryside and into the cities. more and more of that.' In 1978 they had This book began with the story of Hernari the first of their six children; as the years Monares. In his view it made better past and the family grew they found it economic sense to live the life of an urban increasingly difficult to make ends meet. scavenger than to work as a day-labourer However, their fortunes have recently on farms in the countryside. His story is changed. typical of millions. The housemaid 'Before 1993 most of the basket-makers working in Singapore or the Gulf, the in the village were lucky if they made prostitute working in the girlie bars of 3000 pesos a month,' recalls Renato. Olongapo, and the men and women who 'Now, we make 4000 or so. I've started live and scavenge on the garbage dumps making improvements to our house and in Metro Manila have one thing in my children can now go onto higher-level common: they have been driven from education. I wouldn't be able to clothe my their homes by poverty, poverty which children as I do on my old wages.' has its roots in the inequitable distribution A few kilometres away is the village of land and resources. of Bonapal. Under a lean-to roof a dozen President Ramos bluntly stated in a women and teenage girls sit in the shade, speech on land reform: 'Poverty in our their fingers expertly weaving bamboo country is, in the end, rural poverty.' reeds into rattan frames. Unlike the The key to its eradication, in his view basket-makers of Sison, they have only and others, is land reform. Sadly, his recently learnt the skills of the craft. They deeds have not matched his words and began making baskets in 1990, explains for most Filipino peasants land reform the treasurer of their social production remains a distant dream. This is not to say unit, Betty Estayo, but they made little that individuals and communities cannot money during the first three years. improve their lot without land reform. The turning point, both for the basket- The basket-makers of Pangasinan are makers of Bonapal and Sison, came in among the many small communities who 1993. Before then the trade was are proving that ingenuity, hard work, dominated by a small number of and good organisation can help to raise suppliers. The suppliers, most of whom living standards for people in the were also frame-makers, received orders countryside. from abroad through the Community Crafts Association of the Philippines Bridging the poverty gap (CCAP). A system of patronage meant Sison village looks like a rural idyll. that the suppliers favoured some Bamboo huts are scattered beneath a producers but not others. The women canopy of palm and fruit trees beside a of Bonapal did badly under the old winding stream. Pigs and hens wander dispensation, as did many of the men unrestrained around the sandy alleys and and women in Sison; they were not well- opposite Renato Velasco's home scores of connected. The suppliers, of whom there pigeons gently coo from a homemade were 17 in all, also took a slice of the cote. A powerful, big-boned man with a producers' profits. For example, CCAP beguilingly soft voice, Renato came to would pay 73 pesos for the magazine Pangasinan province from Pampanga in organisers which were sold in Oxf am 1968. Initially he made a living as a street shops in Britain. The suppliers would vendor in the towns, then in 1976 he pass 57 pesos to the producers, and keep married into a family involved in the 16 pesos themselves. Some made up craft business. 'I carried on trading,' he to 17,000 pesos a year, five times more explains, *but my wife and her family than the most prosperous producers.

54 Those days have gone. CCAP disbanded the old structures in 1993 and insisted that it would only do business with democratically run social production units (SPUs), of which there are now seven in Pangasinan province. 'In the early years,' explains Betty Estayo, 'we were lucky if we made 200 pesos a month. Now we make at least 1,000 each.' In the early years the women all had to work as casual labour on farms. 'Farm work is hell,' says Cecilia Vergara, the SPU president, 'and now that this brings us a living, we don't need to work in the fields any more.' Prior to 1993 the basket-making business was seen as precisely that — a business. Some — the suppliers — did very well out of it; others — the producers — did not. Since the social production units were established, all members have had an equal say in the management of the trade. Orders are now equitably distributed among the members of each SPU. No fortunes are being made, but community-level democracy has ensured that all get a fair return for their work. Now the profits made from the basket trade are being used for the common good. In 1993 Zenaida Quismorio, the new executive director of CCAP, set up a department to promote development projects among the craft workers. The SPUs were encouraged to put aside a slice of their profits and use the common funds for social projects. By February 1996 Riverside SPU at Sison had a common fund worth 10,000 pesos. Members can now take out low-interest loan; some use these to buy livestock, others buy above Basket-makers at essential household items. At Bonapal Dilan village. the women have built up a common fund which is used to buy materials for basket- making and as a source of individual loans. It has proved especially useful for those women who have needed money to pay for the treatment of sick children. At another village nearby, Dilan, the SPU has used its common fund to buy a calf and a young buffalo. The former will provide

55 milk when it matures; the latter will be the vice-president of the SPU, Danilo used to plough the small plots of land Salcedo, rapidly enumerates the present which the members own. cost of materials for a hamper: four rattan The male members of Dilan and poles at 7.20 pesos; three bundles of Riverside SPUs claim that the women are bamboo at 16.50 pesos; wooden spokes treated as equals and have as much say in at 19.50 pesos; seven metres of rope for the running of the units as the men. This four pesos; glue, nails and electricity at is the theory. The practice is somewhat ten pesos. Total 95 pesos. 'And the price different: nearly always the women defer we get for a hamper is 130 pesos,' to the men, and it is the latter who make concludes Danilo. 'The weavers get ten the important decisions. It was for this pesos and the framers 25 pesos. Last year reason that the women of Bonapal we also got 130 pesos a hamper, but the decided to set themselves up as a raw materials were cheaper then, so the women's group. 'Actually,' says Betty weavers and framers got more.' He estimates Estayo, 'one of the husbands, a framer, that over the last 12 months raw materials was a member for a while. He taught us have risen in cost by 30 per cent, while the a lot, but he's left now — he found us too price which CCAP are paying for goods gossipy!' The women are adamant that has scarcely risen in seven years. they are better off without the men. 'We In Bonapal the women are especially feel far less inhibited when there are no concerned about the rising cost of men around,' says one. 'We can discuss education. 'My husband's away at sea,' things far more openly among ourselves. explains Betty Estayo, 'so we're better off If a husband and a wife are together, the than most and we can afford to educate man speaks up, the woman doesn't. our children.' They have three in college That's the culture here.' Betty Estayo adds and one at high school. 'But for many of that the work of the social production unit the women here it's far more difficult. It has helped to raise the women's self- used to cost 65 pesos a year to send a child esteem — 'It shows that we can run things to school; now it costs 300 pesos.' as well as the men' — and it has raised In addition to the annual fees, their status in the eyes of their husbands. parents must pay for books, uniforms, 'It also means that we can contribute and transport; all of which have become towards looking after our families,' more expensive. A family with three she adds. 'That means a lot for us.' children at school pays around 600 pesos The craft workers of Pangasinan stress a month, rather more than half what the that although they are better off than they women can earn from basket-making. used to be, their financial situation is far However, the women concede that they from secure. For one thing, they operate would be much worse off if it were not for in a market where tastes change. A the social production units and the money magazine organiser or rattan basket that they make from the craft trade. sells well in England one year may go out of fashion the next. The producers have to accept this and come up with new designs to attract the foreign buyers. At Sison they have done precisely that. When they were told that their magazine racks were no longer selling, they designed a new one, which is proving successful. More worrying, in many ways, than the uncertainties of the market are the spiralling costs of raw materials. In Dilan,

56 A tale of two cities

right Rich and poor Filipinos live side by side, but inhabit different worlds.

n rural areas in the Philippines the tourists. It was a blight on the urban I average annual population growth landscape and a living reproach to between 1965 and 1995 was 1.8 per cent; successive governments, who endured in the cities it was 3.9 per cent. These its presence but made no move to help figures are not so much a reflection of its inhabitants. Philippines 2000, however, varying fecundity as of the rural exodus, has come up with an answer. A private which has had a dramatic impact on company has been granted title to the Manila in particular. During the 1980s, land on condition that it reclaims 40 its population grew at the rate of four hectares of Manila bay which lie beside it. per cent a year and its living conditions The land will be used for warehouse compare unfavourably with those of most storage by Japanese and Taiwanese major metropolises. In Manila an average companies, and Smoky Mountain will three people share each room, the same as be turned into a commercial reprocessing in Calcutta, double the number for Cairo site. As part of the deal with the municipal and six times more than in New York or authorities, the company has agreed to Los Angeles. use some of its profits to rehouse Smoky Mountain, the garbage dump displaced families. A new housing in Manila which was once home to development will be jointly managed Hernari Monares and his family, provides with the National Housing Authority, a parable for modern times. Until 1995, which claims that this is a model for 4,000 families made a living on the dump the future. and its infamy was such that it even The inhabitants of Smoky Mountain attracted guided tours for Japanese were largely unimpressed by the housing

57 offer, rightly so it now seems. Those don't know where we could move to,' families who accepted the offer are living she says with a resigned shrug. in tented camps some four hours' drive to The squatters at Marcello-under-the- the south, near Cavite, far from potential Bridge are admirably industrious. Some of places of employment. Those families them work in the construction business as who declined to leave Smoky Mountain, labourers, others work as street vendors, and they were the majority, were violently and now and again the men hire a banca evicted. The leader of their resistance and go fishing in Manila Bay. The families movement was murdered by soldiers. all value education highly, although they Between the dump and reclamation can scarcely afford the fees and books and site the main road passes over a river. uniforms. 'We realise,' explains Roily Hanging from the bridge, like wooden Banez, who runs a small stall beside the nest boxes, are the homes of 16 families bridge, 'that it if our children are going — some 75 people. The squatters of to have a chance of getting decent jobs, Marcello-under-the-Bridge have no they'll need to finish their schooling.' He electricity, no piped water, and no adds that the nearest school is many miles sanitation other than the river below away and transport costs 10 pesos a day their shacks, which they use as a sewer, for each child. 'If a family hasn't got any which it closely resembles. There are flies money,' says Rowena, 'then the mother everywhere and the hanging shacks are will get up at 4am and walk the children dark and cramped. One of the women, all the way to the school.' Rowena Banez, says that despite the In the National Capital Region over dreadful living conditions, the families 3.5 million have a story to tell similar to here have a certain attachment to the Rowena's: they live in slums, struggle to place. 'We're better off than some others survive, and in many cases are worried I can think of,' she says, 'but our major about insecurity, not least because they problem is insecurity.' The government is are excluded from the brave new world threatening to evict the squatters who live of Philippines 2000 and may eventually along the road which serves as Marcello- be evicted to make way for its projects. under-the-Bridge's roof, and Rowena and Especially vulnerable are the quarter of below Squatter home at her community anticipate that they will a million families who live along railway Marcello-under-the Bridge be the next to go after that. 'We simply tracks, esteros and in areas earmarked for infrastructure projects. Manila is a city in crisis, or rather it is two cities, one for the rich, one for the poor. The lifestyles and consumer aspirations of the middle class would not seem out of place in Dallas, while there is poverty here to match anything which can be seen in Africa. Metro Manila suffers from chronic overcrowding, poor services, worsening pollution, and a spiralling crime rate, all of which, to a greater or lesser degree, are a reflection of the flight from rural poverty and of the gross inequities which exist between rich and poor, between landowner and peasant, between the well-connected and the powerless.

58 In search of justice

left young street seller, Manila

he Philippines has a vibrant struggle. Others have chosen to support Tand sophisticated network of non- factions whose approaches range from governmental organisations (NGOs). selective use of violent means to peaceful While some campaign for policy change, lobbying and the establishment of a others work with poor and marginalised strong and uncorrupt civic society. "The communities. A few do both. Many NGOs great debate', as it is portentously referred grew out of the movements which to, has been highly divisive and it has opposed the dictatorial rule of President affected the work of many organisations Marcos. Many, inevitably, became highly and coalitions. However, it would be wrong politicised and formed close links with the to overstate its importance; most of those then-banned Communist Party. Some who work in the voluntary sector have NGOs and peoples' organisations have nothing to do with the political retained their links and have been affected machinations of the Communist Party. by the recent split within the Party. Some NGOs have been especially effective have aligned themselves with the where they have focused on the 'reaffirmists', whose analysis of what is sustainable use of resources, and there is wrong in Philippine society remains no doubt that their work among fishing fundamentally unchanged, as does their and tribal people in particular is helping belief in the importance of an armed to conserve resources — fish, timber,

59 agricultural land — for future sustainable growth. It is clear, however, generations. Where the NGOs have been that Philippines 2000 and its codicil, the less successful is in challenging a political Social Reform Agenda, have done little system which is responsible for enhancing to challenge the inherent inequities in divisions between rich and poor, rather Philippine society. Land reform must still than doing away with them, although come top of any reformist agenda, but tax they were a significant force during the reform is equally important. The present EDSA revolution. tax system penalises the poor: while they Politics in the Philippines is about are forced to pay value-added taxes on gold, goons, and guns — wealth and food, cooking oil, clothes and other power. In theory, the Philippines is the essential goods, the rich have proved only true democracy in South-East Asia, themselves to be geniuses when it comes but it scarcely deserves the name. Out of to avoiding personal taxes. Tax evasion is the 228 elected senators and congressmen, costing the country over $3 billion a year, all but a dozen are dollar-millionaires. equivalent to two-thirds of the money Many are multi-millionaires, and their remitted each year by the country's 6 wealth, in many cases, is based on the million overseas contract workers. ownership of land. Little wonder, then, The champions of justice have much that so little has been done in the field of to rail against still, but in certain respects land reform. Little wonder that there is life has changed for the better in the such strong opposition to the Fisheries Philippines. Ten years ago, under Code, when so many congressmen own President Marcos, all opposition to the trawlers and prawn farms. government was ruthlessly suppressed. In theory, poor Filipinos could vote Under Cory Aquino, there were marginal for virtuous, altruistic men and women improvements, in terms of human rights if who would champion their cause and not the economy, but nothing was done to create a more just society. But trapo politics change the feudal system of land tenure. is deeply engrained in the Filipino psyche, Unlike his predecessors, President Ramos and the relationship between politician has realised that the NGO movement, and and voter is a mirror of that between peoples' organisations which operate in landlord and peasant. The peasant always the community, should have some say in hopes that the landlord will come to his the formulation of government policy. aid in times of trouble. Generally NGOs are now regularly consulted over speaking, he will. He will pay for the sick the drafting of the Fisheries Code, and the wife to go to hospital; he will send round Legal Rights and Natural Resources a few bags of rice when crops fail. This Centre (LRC) has been intimately helps to maintain the master-servant involved in drafting the Ancestral relationship, which suits the master better Domain Bill, which should be of benefit to than it does the servant. In a wider context indigenous people when it becomes law. feudal patronage becomes political Furthermore, individuals who were patronage. A combination of once a thorn in the government's side are philanthropy, charisma, and terror now to be found in positions of influence is enough to keep most politicians in within the civil service. Antonio La Vina, power, and as long as this system persists for example, was formerly the executive it is difficult to see how a fairer society director of LRC; now he is an under- can be created. secretary in the Department of It is too early to judge whether Environment and Natural Resources Philippines 2000 will succeed in turning (DENR). He concedes that there are many the country into an economic tiger, and problems facing the department: 'It's whether it will spark off long-term difficult to bring about rapid change in a

60 bureaucracy that's been here for 100 who have brought pressure to bear years/ he says, 'but we are changing on government. "There's no doubt in things for the better.' He believes that the my mind,' says La Vina, 'that the NGO rhetoric of community-based resource movement is very significant in terms of management, much loved by politicians getting change.' The NGO movement has nowadays, is more than rhetoric: for done much to improve resource example, there have been tangible management at the local level; now it improvements in forestry practices. must become part of the struggle to create Since he joined the legal affairs a strong civic society — a society which department, corrupt officials have will do away with the unjust structures been disciplined and dismissed and which are primarily responsible for the the department has become much more poverty which affects over half of the vigorous in imposing pollution laws. population. If DENR is reforming itself, then some of the credit must go to the organisations below basketball is played all over the Philippines, even in remote villages

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