Malaybalay City – Bukidnon State University (BSU) under president Barroso in cooperation with Legal Rights and Natural Resources Inc-Kasama sa Kalikasa/Friends of the Earth Philippines (FoE-Phils) Cagayan de Oro regional Office will host the Indigenous People (IP) Month Celebration on October 5 – 9, 2009 to be held at BSU compound.

The activity would be a venue for the IP to celebrate the richness of their unique culture and allowing a cultural exchange that will foster deeper cultural understanding of the struggle of the IPs to self-determination.

Bukidnon host a dozens of corporate plantations, agro-industrial farms, large-scale hydro dams and now the influx of large-scale mining companies which triggered the displacement of the indigenous peoples to give way to these developments.

The province is also the home of the Manobo’s, one of the biggest tribes in the Philippines, but as of today, less than 5 titles were issued to the Manobos.

The BSU-Ethno Cultural Museum, BSU-Extension Office, and the BSU-College of Community Education and Industrial Technology (CCEIT) will host a photo Exhibit featuring the continuing struggle of the indigenous peoples in the Mindanao. The photo exhibit will open on October 5, 2009, 3:00pm at BSU-Auditorium which will run until October 9, 2009.

The IP month celebration will culminate with a forum at BSU Auditorium on October 8, 2009, 9:00 in the morning with indigenous community representatives. This forum would be a venue to deepen awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the diversity of Filipino culture and other communities particularly the students from various colleges and universities which are expected to attend.

October has been celebrated as the IP month in commemoration of the passage of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) last October 29, 1997.

Below is a short glimpse of the Photo exhibits entitled “Empamulangi, a Manobo term which means The Center of the Land and T’boli Tribe: Defending the last frontier.

Carl Cesar C. Rebuta

Team Leader

LRC-Cagayan de Oro Office

Cocoy.rebuta [at] lrcksk [dot] org

——————-

T’Boli Tribe: Defending the Last Frontier

TULA HADU… (T’boli word means “insult”)

Despite knowledge of the community‘s presence, the DENR approved a 300-hectare parcel of land as a part of the 11,862-hectare large-scale tree plantation. Industrial Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) number 22 was issued in 1992 to SII,now known as Silvicultural Industries Inc,which is owned by Victor A.Consunji and associates.

This 300-hectare area, as Block VII of IFMA 22 and operating as the locally-known Dawang coffee plantation, encroached into the T’boli ancestral territory of Datal Bonlangon it continues to threaten the tenurial security of the community and limit their farmlands, thereby aggravating poverty.

A Tula hadu to the T’boli community and its resident’s violation of their Rights to the Ancestral Domains, their Human Rights.

K’LANGITAN…….( T’boli term, meaning”anger”)

As a village of Barangay Ned with an appointed sitio leader in the late 1980s, Datal Bonlangon opposed the coffee plantation, T’boli residents were threatened harassed by company guards, displaced and forced to flee During an all –evening, rain –drenched, eight-hour evacuation-hike in 1991, a child and an old man died along the way. They then endured 7 years of difficult living, away from their ancestral territory. No school for children, sugar cane juice for babies, forest roots crops and plants for food.

They returned in December 1998 to reclaim their lands, they persisted in reestablishing the community but are still being threatened by expansion of the plantation

It is not difficult to imagine the community to harbor K’langitan over IFMA 22 and its leaseholder, SII.

ANGAT KEFYE……..( T’boli term, meaning “future )

Despite the hardships they endured, the T’bolis of Datal Bonlangon continues to stand their ground, fight for their rights and pursue their dreams.

The struggle of Datal Bonlangon is for land, for life, for angat kefye the T’boli community members hope to regain the ancestral domains their ancestors possessed since time immemorial

It is their rights to claim ownership, exercise control and sustainability utilize land and resources within their domain.

They call the DENR to cancel the 300-hectares block VII of IFMA 22.

“EMPAMULANGI “

(Manobo term which means “The Center of the Land”)

Destruction of 80,000 hectares of Ancestral Domain

Meanwhile, Bukidnons are lamenting the fact that the proposed hydro project will totally submerge some 40,000 hectares of the Ancestral Domain of the Manobo-Pulangiyon tribe, aside from the destruction of their historical sacred grounds.

The 348 megawatts hydro-electric dam project which could be the tallest dam in Mindanao, would inundate 80,000 hectares of land. It will displace 2,280 families of Manobo and 6,700 families of non-lumads. With the proposed hydro-electric project, the stonehenge which is sacred ground to the lumads would vanish.

Legend of the Damulog Stonehenge Formation

According to oral traditions, the Manobo’s leader were two brothers; Tabunaway and Mamalu. Tabunaway was a skillfull forest food gatherer. He is the convenor of the village elders, and he was acclaimed as the Datu. His younger older brother, Mamalu, led the fishing chores of the villages. Manobos occupied the lower valley of Pulangi river in Central Mindanao which is Cotabato City.

In the 14th century, Shariff Kabungsuan, a Muslim missionary propagate Islam in Mindanao.

Mamalu left the lower valley and moved to the highlands of Pulangi river because he couldn’t accept to be converted.

Tabunay was converted to Islam but pledged to visit his brother with things brought from the trade center in the lower valley. The Mamalu clan became known now as Manobos, while Tabunaway clan is now known as Maguindanaos.

No one really knows the reason of the deaths of Apo Mamalu and Apo Tabunaway. But to some elders, Apo Mamalu was buried in a stonehenge-like site situated in Mikasili, Damulog, Bukdinon This archeological site compose of stone formations similar to England stonehenge has never been recorded in the National Museum. Found at the tribal Barangay of Mikasili, Damulog, Bukidnon, the stonehenge is in a hill with hundred of burial rocks. The site is near the riverbank of Pulangi river.

Continuing oppositions of the Lumads

There are other alternative and viable means of producing electricity other than producing another dam here in Mindanao, without compromising the state of the Manobo tribe and the inhabitants of the province. Though they are adamant in their position that the income of the local government units of these areas will be great, there are no clear implementing policies and benefits for the Manobo tribes and the residents of these communities and the effects it will have on their ancestral domains, livelihood, income, security and most of all, their culture and identity.