INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S WATCH

‘What Future Will We Give Our Children?’
Subanen tribes endangered

When the government declared Mt. Malindang in Misamis Occidental, Western Mindanao, as a protected area, it deprived the Subanen people of their ancestral domain.  Timuay Saminoy Luminding of Lake Duminagat said, "Our parcels of land inside the Park are now buried with more than 500 concrete markers, prohibiting us from tilling the land. Those who disobeyed were apprehended and fined." "If this will continue, what future shall we give our children?" he asked.

By MARS S. MARATA 
Bulatlat

LAKE DUMINAGAT, Don Victoriano, Misamis Occidental - During last week’s Sandugo Solidarity Mission in Mt. Malindang in Misamis Occidental, 23 Timuays (Tribal chieftains) of the Subanen people from the Zamboanga Peninsula in Western Mindanao, southern Philippines, sealed a four-page resolution declaring the entire Mt. Malindang as their ancestral domain.

The resolution challenged the government’s classification of Mt. Malindang as a natural park.  The area was classified as a natural park by virtue of R.A. 7586 known as the National Integrated Protected Areas Systems (NIPAS) Act of 1992.  

Timuay Saminoy Luminding of Lake Duminagat said that when the government declared the entire Mt. Malindang, spanning 53,262 hectares, as a national park in 2002, it completely divested the Subanen people of their "sacred place" - their ancestral domain.

As a result, Luminding said "our parcels of land inside the Park are now buried with more than 500 concrete markers, prohibiting us from tilling the land. Those who disobeyed were apprehended and fined."

Luminding asked, "If this will continue, what future shall we give to our children?”

The resolution also called for the scrapping of the 1992 National Integrated Protected Areas Systems (NIPAS) Act and the 1997 Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (IPRA). The resolution declared these laws as instruments that resulted in the eviction of the Subanen people from their lands and as token responses of the government to the Lumad's genuine aspiration for ancestral domain and right to self-determination.

Displaced

A report released by the Salabukan Nok G'taw Subanen (Unity of the Subanen People or SGS) said about 59 Subanen families in Barangay Liboron, Don Victoriano have been displaced since the implementation of the NIPAS Act.

"Several others of the total 4,000 household inside the park have complained of the same case in different places in Mt. Malindang," the report further stated.

According to the report, some 33, 000 hectares of Mt. Malindang were classified as "strictly protected areas" wherein human activity is completely barred while the remaining 22, 262 hectares were classified as a "buffer zone."  In the buffer zone, human settlement is allowed but private ownership is disallowed.

The government blames the Subanen people for the environmental destruction of Mt. Malindang.  According to a Management Strategy paper produced by the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB), headed by Protected Areas superintendent Rolando Dingal, the increasing population with their destructive farming methods like kaingin (slash-and-burn) has become the main culprit in the destruction of the ecosystem of Mt. Malindang.

The PABM, in the paper, claimed that among the other important resources that face serious threat are the 49 rivers of Mt. Malindang that supply water to about one million people from Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte and Misamis Occidental.

In the paper, the PABM also averred that the destruction of Mt. Malindang will endanger the Philippine eagle.

Logging operations

Contesting the government’s claims, Onrico Simbulan, chairperson of SGS-Zamboanga Peninsula, said that it is unjust to put the blame on the Subanen people. He blames the large-scale logging operations of Findlay Miller, Inc., Loga and Sons, and the Luna Family for the destruction of the ecosystems of Mt. Malindang. Simbulan said that these groups had logging concessions around the Malindang ranges from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s.  

“On the other hand, with the backward farming tools of the Subanen people, they can hardly clear a hectare of land in a month,” said Simbulan. 

He added that being a natural park, the entire Mt. Malindang will no longer be subject to certificate of ancestral domain claims (CADC).

Based on the records of the National Commission on Indigenous People's (NCIP) in Misamis Occidental, there are about 30,000 hectares located at the foot of Mt. Malindang released to about 3,000 CADC holders.

 "Thus, the declaration of Mt. Malindang as a natural park is a subtle way of saying that the mountain ceases to be ours," Simbulan said.

"If there is anybody who is most concerned with the preservation of the mountain, it is the Subanen people because the mountain has been part of their identity," Simbulan concluded. Bulatlat

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