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Issue No. 24                        July 29-August 4,  2001                    Quezon City, Philippines

Government Projects to Worsen Human Rights Situation in Mindanao, Says Group
(Second of Two Parts)

As the Arroyo administration entices local and foreign companies to invest in projects that entail the displacement of Lumads and Moros from their land, human-rights groups are concerned of its historically proven effect: more militarization and more human-rights violations.

By CARLOS H. CONDE
Bulatlat.com

DAVAO CITY – Human-rights groups see an increase in human-rights abuses by the military as the government continues to implement projects and programs in Mindanao that entailed the displacement or dispossession of locals, particularly Lumads and Moros.

“The tortures of citizens and suspected political dissenters are part of the government’s brutal counter-insurgency policy, of the whole policy to quash resistance to the anti-people programs of the government,” said Joel Virador, secretary-general of Karapatan-Southern Mindanao.

He cited the announcement last week of Environment Secretary Heherson Alvarez that half a million hectares in at least four regions in the country – two of them in Mindanao (Northern Mindanao and Caraga, areas with huge Lumad population) -- will be turned into tree plantations. Industrial forest management agreements (IFMA) have been signed between the government and local and foreign-based companies, Alvarez had revealed.

But in an interview, Mario Talja of the Legal Rights and Natural Resource Center said that the new IFMA projects would only spawn more displacement of indigenous groups in Mindanao. He cited the IFMA experiences of Lumad communities in Agusan del Sur and Agusan del Norte.

Alvarez, however, gave the assurance that the Lumads would be protected. “There will be no conflict in the implementation of the projects,” he told reporters here last week.

But Virador said the experience of the Ata-Manobo Lumads in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, should be enough warning that these projects entail more human-rights abuses. Talaingod is host to thousands of hectares of tree plantations owned by C. Alcantara and Sons Inc., one of the country’s biggest plywood producers.

Several human-rights violations against Talaingod residents have been documented in the past. The latest was the murders of two Bayan Muna leaders in the area by suspected military men and the harassment and torture of several residents last month.

The militarization in Talaingod has also taken a toll on the health of the residents. A medical mission by Karapatan last week revealed that 29 Ata-Manobos, mostly children, died of diarrhea and cholera after the
military imposed a food and medicine blockade in the town, ostensibly to prevent the residents from helping the NPA. Only six of the fatalities have been identified.

Sr. Irene Caharian, chief of the Tribal Filipino Apostolate of the Missionaries of the Assumption who joined the medical mission, told reporters that the outbreak of diseases in Talaingod occurred after the blockade by the 72nd Infantry Battalion.

Capt. Jun Madayag, operations chief of the 701st Infantry Brigade, denied the mission’s allegations, saying the AFP never conducted operations nor imposed a blockade in Talaingod. "The soldiers were merely conducting their regular, routine patrol operations," he said.

Madayag said the residents lied to the medical mission and that, besides, most of the residents are alleged supporters of the NPA. 

Talaingod Displacement

Tens of thousands of hectares of ancestral domain were eaten up by the Alcantara plantation under the IFMA issued by the government, thus displacing the Ata-Manobos in the area. Not surprisingly, the Ata-Manobos have been struggling against the company, even declaring a pangayaw (war of vengeance) in the mid-1990s against the military and the company. At that time, the militarization was so bad that thousands of Ata-Manobos were forced to evacuate to Davao City.

The firm has been using the military as its own security force, and even groomed a former employee, Jose Libayao, to become Talaingod mayor, using him to protect the company’s interests. Libayao, who is also a Lumad, is the classic big-business stooge who is being used by Alsons in its divide-and-rule strategy in Talaingod. (Libayao’s wife is the present mayor.)

Davao del Norte and the resource-rich provinces of Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley province are among the most heavily militarized areas in Mindanao, if not the whole country. Early this year, the residents of Spur Dos in Davao Oriental were subjected to days of aerial bombings and physical torture by Army soldiers who were supposedly out to hunt down NPA guerrillas. A food blockade was imposed while some residents were used as guides to track down the guerrillas, thus exposing them to danger. Houses were also ransacked and looted, while crops were destroyed. Also in Davao Oriental last year, two men were forcibly circumcised by soldiers during a military operation.

In Compostela Valley, suspected NPA guerrillas end up in shallow graves after being arrested by the military. The most celebrated was the case of NPA leader Godofredo Guimbaolibot who was arrested in 1999 but was found dead by a roadside in Mawab town a few hours after the arrest. Another NPA guerrilla and two civilians were summarily executed with Guimbaolibot. A few months later, Guimbaolibot’s son, also a suspected NPA guerrilla, turned up in a shallow grave, his hands tied behind his back, apparently tortured to death.

Context of Abuse

Karapatan’s Virador said that all of these cases of human-rights violations in Mindanao should be taken in the context of the government’s drive to quell resistance to government and Big Business projects that displace locals.

“With the new IFMA plantations elsewhere in Mindanao, the same pattern of abuses experienced in Talaingod will be repeated. We are certain of that because it has been our sad history that every time certain economic interests are implemented in Mindanao, this is almost always preceded by heavy military deployment and, consequently, abuses,” Virador said.

Virador reiterated that they expect the human-rights situation in Mindanao to worsen as the Arroyo administration is bent on parceling out lands, especially in Muslim Mindanao, to Big Business and foreign interests. This early, even though the peace negotiations are still ongoing between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, businessmen -- both local and foreign – are already eyeing investments (mostly cash crops and plantation types, such as palm oil) in Moro lands.

Another context of all this is the fact that the Arroyo administration has inserted in the amended Organic Act that created the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao provisions that practically give to the government -- not to the ARMM government -- control and supervision over minerals and natural resources, including land and forest resources. The Moro National Liberation Front is afraid that this amended law, if passed, will once again institutionalize land grabbing in Mindanao.

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