No Cause To Celebrate U.N. Decade of IPs
Development aggression, reign of terror endangering tribal communities

Organized tribal groups in the Philippines accuse no less than President Macapagal-Arroyo of pursuing a twin program of development aggression and state terrorism that is wiping away their communities and bringing about the disintegration of their indigenous forms of life.

By Felicisimo H. Manalansan
Bulatlat.com 

On the eve of the last year of the 1994-2004 as UN Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, tribal groups say that the Macapagal-Arroyo government appears to be doing the exact opposite of its report to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights (UNCHR) - that of the gradual extermination of Filipino indigenous peoples (IPs) by a combination of government policies that spell “ethnocide.” 

And in the May elections President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can look forward to having a low vote from indigenous Filipinos, who comprise about 20 percent of the Philippine population. 

This is because, while there is no known indigenous vote among the country’s 110 ethnic groups, the government’s policies in relating to such groups seems to be uniting these peoples in damning the president. They accuse no less than Macapagal-Arroyo of pursuing a twin program of development aggression and state terrorism that is wiping away their communities and bringing about the disintegration of their indigenous systems.  

They also denounce being used by government for using them as a showcase for a supposed pro-indigenous law that is made inutile by contradictory provisions favoring foreign and local elite interests in large-scale mining and timber licensing agreements.  

Such programs of the government form part of the basis of the government’s anti-indigenous policies, says the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP-National Federation of Indigenous Peoples Organizations in the Philippines), the country’s largest federation of indigenous peoples with nine regional organizations throughout the country’s 13 regions. 

KAMP Secretary General Gerardo Gobrin has one word for such anti-indigenous policies and practices of the government: ethnocide.  

And KAMP, as well as the Tunay na Alyansa ng Bayan Alay sa Katutubo (TABAK-Alliance of Advocates for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights) and the National Minority Resource Center (NMRC), have brought its complaints against the anti-indigenous policies of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration all the way to the United Nations. 

Ethnocide 

Ethnocide, says a KAMP 2002 report to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Fundamental Freedoms and Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Prof. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, who was in the county in December 2002, is the virtual extermination of indigenous peoples due to relentless state terrorism and development aggression. These “twin evils” lead to the loss of lives, destruction of indigenous peoples communities, the disintegration of indigenous socio-political and cultural systems, and the loss of economic bases, adds the KAMP report. The report illustrated how in less than 20 months of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, the government committed nearly 200 cases of human rights violations, most of them against indigenous peoples, in the Southern Tagalog region alone.

It adds that government troops have also been held responsible for at least eight deaths of indigenous leaders, including the 2001 assassination of Dumagat (a tribe in Eastern Rizal) leader Nicanor delos Santos whose slaying the military justified for being a communist hitman out to kill President Arroyo. How this could have been possible when the latter was killed by Army soldiers under Col. Laureano Tolentino while preparing to join a Human Rights Caravan for the International Day of Human Rights mobilization in Manila was, however, not explained by the military.

In 2003, KAMP documented more than 80 additional cases of human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples, further substantiating their claims of the ethnocidal policies of the government against indigenous peoples. Updating these reports, KAMP, TABAK and the NMRC submitted another report to the UN Committee on Human Rights (UNCHR) last October. The report, entitled “Shadow Report” to the Report of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) regarding its Application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), KAMP’s Gobrin said was prepared to counter the lies peddled by the GRP before the UNCHR regarding GRP’s policies in promoting the rights of Filipino indigenous peoples.

Shadow Report

The Philippine indigenous peoples’ 28-page shadow report answers point-by-point the claims made by the GRP in a three-part report the latter submitted to the UNCHR. Both reports were about the Philippine government’s compliance to the ICCPR particularly relative to the rights of indigenous peoples. 

Unlike the GRP report, however, the KAMP report submitted to the UNCHR through the coordination of the Minority Rights Group International made substantial reference to UN Special Rapporteur Prof. Stavenhagen Philippine Mission Report submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights last March 5, 2003. This report also made convincing arguments about what KAMP and other indigenous peoples organizations have been pointing to as the GRP’s ethnocidal policies on Philippine indigenous groups. 

KAMP’s shadow report zeroes in on how the GRP has been implementing or violating articles 27 and 6 of the ICCPR, namely the Rights of Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, and the Right to Life, respectively. It also contains recommendations including those earlier made by the Stavenhagen report.  

The Philippine indigenous peoples report criticized the government’s adherence to the ICCPR on indigenous peoples saying that despite the government’s response to the ICCPR through Republic Act 8371, or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997, no substantive accomplishments have been noted on such implementation. KAMP reports that in particular most indigenous populations in the Philippines are victims of a never ending cycle of dislocation from the colonial period up to the present. It cites as examples the Ati of Panay, the Kankanaeys of Baguio and the Badjaos of the coastal villages in southern Metro Manila who are now mostly slum and street dwellers, adding that a very few number of indigenous Filipinos managed to stay in their traditional territories because of government neglect and the historical injustice committed against their people.  

Worse, KAMP says, there is no clear program by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the main government agency tasked geared for the welfare and rights of the indigenous peoples, concerning its displaced and neglected constituents. Skirting IPRA No less than UN Special Rapporteur Stavenhagern confirmed that GRP is skirting the ancestral land rights of Philippine indigenous groups saying, the right of the indigenous peoples to their ancestral domains and lands and natural resources found therein is in fact limited by Section 56 of IPRA, which provides that property rights within the ancestral domains already existing and/or vested shall be recognized and respected. “Thus, mining companies licensed by the Government under the 1995 Mining Act continue to operate in these domains despite opposition by indigenous communities and organizations,” Stavenhagern maintains. 

While the UN Special Rapporteur noted that some progress has been made in facilitating the ancestral land rights of indigenous peoples, these have been a slow and cumbersome, full of pitfalls and ambiguities, thus driving indigenous communities to despair of the usefulness of IPRA as a legal instrument.

Proof that IPRA has practically defeated all purposes of land ownership and protection of indigenous peoples which the law ostensibly adheres to, KAMP states that there are at present a total of 4.2 million hectares of indigenous peoples lands up for grabs by various concessionaires in the mining and agro-forest related businesses.  On top of these, about 5,232 hectares have been given to big ranchers as pasture lease agreements.  The loggers took 255,438 hectares as active Timber License Agreements (logging permits).

Bio-diversity conservation programs and researches specifically those under the National Integrated Protected Areas Systems (NIPAS) have fenced off 1.4 million hectares, KAMP adds.  Timber plantations called Industrial Forest Management Agrement (IFMA), both of the cooperative and the concession-types have managed to secure a combined area of 434,388.44 hectares. Pending mining applications now account to 1.6 million hectares of lands.   

At least seven mega dams will submerge indigenous communities in various parts of the country. Most controversial of these is the San Roque Multi-purpose Dam Project in the border of Pangasinan and Cordillera.  It is a US$1.1-billion project funded by the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) that will destroy peasant and indigenous villages in Central and Northern Luzon. 

Government is even adding insult to injury by promising to give land titles under the IPRA covering a total of only 643,687 hectares of lands for some preferred communities out of the 12 million indigenous peoples, KAMP alleges. IPRA, the KAMP further states, does not repeal but rather strengthens other oppressive land laws that brought forth the historical injustice committed against indigenous peoples. IPRA is being used by the state and its preferred partners in the continued plunder of the Indigenous Peoples’ territories and its resources, it adds. 

Land domain rights of indigenous people, adds KAMP, have also been compromised by President Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent declaration of a major policy shift in mining from tolerance to active promotion. Subsequently, KAMP says, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) coordinated with the NCIP in ruling that while indigenous peoples have the right to their land, the state reserves the right to the mineral deposits within their lands. 

These pronouncements made by key government officials are virtual assurance to mining concessionaires of unhampered operations and gives the go-signal for mining companies to continue operations even in areas considered as ancestral domains of the indigenous peoples, says KAMP. 

In essence what IPRA says of indigenous peoples’ right of ownership over their lands does not necessarily equate to the right to signify approval or rejection to the entry of the mines. And the corresponding right to develop the land and the resources therein would have been reduced to the right to negotiate for some amount of royalty with the mining companies, it adds. 

To put it bluntly, the dire economic conditions of the indigenous peoples are being exploited by prospective corporations to gain approval to their entry. Extravagant promises are made to lure the villagers into accepting the operations of certain development projects in ancestral lands despite the common knowledge of the people of its devastating long term effect. In other cases, some resort to outright deceit, KAMP states, giving particular examples in standing mining claims in Nueva Vizcaya considered as ancestral lands of Bugkalot and Ifugao indigenous groups.   

Double Speak  

The GRP engages in double speak to deliberately cover up its violations of Article 6 of the ICCPR, states KAMP. 

Article 6 of the ICCPR provides that the state shall at all times respect the right to life of its people, including its indigenous population. 

But KAMP in its report to the UN-CHR says that what the GRP is saying in its report are not what are actually happening, especially among indigenous communities. KAMP says that gross human rights abuses like hamletting, torture, intimidation, coercion, and other forms of human rights violations, including massacre and killings, are continually happening against indigenous peoples and being perpetrated by armed state authorities, including so-called self-help vigilantes armed and supported by the GRP. 

Drawing from records of KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights), KAMP charged that the Macapagal-Arroyo government of having perpetrated at least 63 cases of human rights abuses that have victimized 562 indigenous Mangyans and Dumagats in Mindoro and Rizal provinces alone. Nationwide, a total of 189 such cases victimizing indigenous peoples were monitored from Karapatan records from 2001 up to third quarter of 2003. Gobrin clarifies that statistics on human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples continue to pile up, citing on-going hamletting, harassments and other abuses happening against the Aetas of Central Luzon in the tri-boundaries of Zambales, Tarlac and Pampanga. (Please see tables below.) 

In place of IPRA

KAMP, in its recommendations to the UNCHR, wants the Macapagal-Arroyo government to scrap IPRA and in its place formulate laws and policies that would suit the varying situation of indigenous Philippine groups. “In place of IPRA, the government should formulate laws and policies that would suit the varying situation of indigenous groups in the Philippines, specifically their systems of land ownership and use instead of one homogenous law like IPRA whose mechanisms and processes are still tied up to the bureaucratic processes of the government,” says KAMP. 

RA 8371 should be scrapped with the view to correcting errors and giving justice and restitution to indigenous peoples, KAMP says, adding that the government should stop giving concessions to prospective encroachers on indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands.The federation of Philippine indigenous groups is willing to trade off a moratorium on the issuance to Certificates of Ancestral Land Titles or Claims to indigenous peoples to a similar cessation in the issuance of permits to mining, logging and other agro-forestry related businesses in the ancestral land areas of indigenous peoples.

On the other hand, justice for the indigenous peoples, in KAMP’s recommendations, would have to take the form of restitution of all victims of human rights abuses, especially indigenous peoples. Indemnification to the families of  indigenous peoples whose human rights were violated should, however, be followed by meting out the maximum penalty for the perpetrators of such abuses, also noted among KAMP’s recommendations.

Military and police authorities whose units figured in violations of human rights should be put on tactical suspension, says KAMP, pending investigations on the crimes committed by the troops under their command. KAMP also reiterated UN Special Rapporteur Stavenhagen’s earlier recommendations to the UNCHR, such as:

a.     That resolving land rights issues should at all times take priority over commercial development. There needs to be recognition not only in law but also in practice of the prior right of traditional communities;

b.    That government carry out a prompt and effective investigation of the numerous human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples, which have been documented by human rights organizations and special fact finding missions;

c.     That CAFGUs be withdrawn from indigenous areas altogether, within the framework of a national program to demilitarize indigenous peoples territories;

d.     That adequate basic social services, including housing, education, health, food and drinking water, be made available to all indigenous peoples in the country to the maximum extent possible;

e.     That maximum protection be afforded to human rights defenders in carrying their legitimate human rights work;

f.      That the rights of indigenous peoples be a standard linchpin of all human rights education programs at all levels of formal schooling, as well as in non-formal education.

Blood compact

The new year will have a full line up of activities for Philippine indigenous groups as this will mark the last year of the UN Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, says Gobrin.

Most important among such activities, adds Gobrin, they are looking forward to a blood compact between and among the different indigenous groups in the country in the coming celebration of the Indigenous Peoples Week in August.

This should serve as an occasion to unite indigenous Filipinos given the many challenges that they face in trying to bridge not only the territorial and cultural gap among the various indigenous populations scattered throughout Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, but more importantly in coming up with a common resolve to stand up against the ethnocide that has seemingly become a part of the government’s globalization policies, says Gobrin. Bulatlat.com

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The tables below list human rights violations suffered by indigenous peoples in different regions under the Arroyo government.

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