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Refueling the Mangyan struggle to defend their land

By ARTHUR L. ALLAD-IW

Enrique Tupas, 46 year old, is from the Tadyawan sub-tribe of the Mangyans of Oriental Mindoro. As a child he remembers his tribe has depended on agriculture. They farmed rice, root crops and vegetables. To supplement farm yields, they took from the communal rivers and forests. He said these resources was more than enough to support their needs. Whatever excess, they sold for other needs, particularly their children’s education.

However, the Mangyan people’s life support resource is present threatened by the government’s resource use policies. Earlier corporate logging activities denuded their forests that logging companies and government authorities failed to rehabilitate. At present, corporate mining applications threaten the Mangyan ancestral domain.

“Lumubog na ang Calapan (Oriental Mindoro) dahil sa pagmimina” (Calapan has sunk due to mining activities), Tupas said at a mining conference in Baguio City where different indigenous peoples groups in the country participated.

The effect of corporate mining is not only on the environment, he observed. In Mindoro, a mining corporation that has an exploration in 5,000 hectares has displaced people in Nauhan, Victoria and Sablayan towns.

“Their target area is actually 9,000 hectares,” Tupas said citing government data. Some 4,000 from Mangyan sub-tribes: Alangan, Tadyawan, and Bangon inhabit the said towns.

Tupas added that these areas now subjected to mining applications are the only source of their livelihood. If mining exploits the resources, it would displace Mangyans from their homes and livelihood, he added.

A statement issued by the conference reveals that the US $8 billion target revenue from mining could not compensate the direct and consequential damage that mining entails. Mining companies, according to the Mines and Geo-Sciences Bureau (MGB), are expected to invest US $347 million in 23 priority projects this year alone.

Divide-and-rule tactics

Tupas grew up where people nurture unity. They have a very strong sense of collectivity in defending their ancestral territory from foreign encroachment. The government and mining companies’ resort to tactics to divide their community and this saddens him.

He claimed that members of the Alangan sub-tribe were united under Sanama (Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Mangyan). Composed of thousands, Sanama has a strong anti-mining position owing to their collective concept that land is life. However, the government’s Mines and Geo-Sciences Bureau (MGB) and a mining corporation have co-opted a number of its members.

The MGB and the company found new allies for mining exploration by creating the Kabilugan with 25 members from the Sanama. Kabilugan was accredited as a tribal organization and misrepresented the consent of the (Alangan sub-tribe) when they (Kabilugan) issued their free and prior informed consent (FPIC) in 2000 through the facilitation of the National Commission on Indigenous peoples (NCIP) in Region IV.

Under the IPRA, any activities affecting the domain of indigenous peoples should not push through without the required FPIC issued by the concerned tribe.

Sanama questioned the FPIC. They criticized the NCIP for issuing the FPIC certification without verifying it to the majority members of their sub-tribe. The experience was an eye-opener to them. This has proven that mining interests is favored by the legal system rather than the indigenous people’s rights over their ancestral domain.

Turtle-paced rights’ recognition?

Tupas narrated that prior to the 1997 enactment of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) or RA 8371, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued eight Certificates of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADCs) to them. CADC is an instrument that recognizes the claim but not the right of ownership of a community over their ancestral domain.

After 1997, they filed this at the NCIP for a Certificate of Ancestral Land Title (CADT) but the NCIP is turtle paced, he observed. Under the IPRA law, a CADT is a title that gives priority of utilization to their domain and resources to indigenous people.

From the eight CADC, only the Mangyan’s Iraya sub-tribe CADC became a CADT by the NCIP in 2003. Since 2003 only three CADCs are in-progress. NCIP Commissioners are deliberating on only one; while others remain unprocessed.

“The Iraya CADT covers areas outside the mining exploration,” Tupas shared. But he is convinced that even with the IPRA law, their land rights can be trampled on. “Mining interests are preferred rather than ours,” he added but their immeasurable gain is the support to anti-mining struggle by other Mangyan sub-tribes: the Tadyawan, Tau Buid, Buhid, Bangon, Iraya, Alangan, and Hanun-o.

Common struggle

In the said mining conference last March, participants shared their experience that was painfully common among other indigenous peoples all over. Even their call was common: “to repeal the mining act of 1995 and to defend their ancestral domains against corporate mining interests”. This unity among the different IP groups raised hopes and joy for Tupas to realize that their call would be fruitful, like their ancestors’ victorious defense of their ancestral territory.#

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