CAGAYAN DE ORO — After the fifth dialogue aiming to settle the land dispute between Indigenous peoples and a government agency in Barangay Dalwangan, Malaybalay City, Bukidnon, Lumad are still deprived of their ancestral land. 

“They should return the land they borrowed,” Datu Aldren Gulinsao told Bulatlat in the vernacular following the dialogue last month.

Since 2017, the Gulinsao clan belonging to the Talaandig tribe has been reclaiming over 600 hectares of ancestral land, while their relative, the Maranding clan, has been claiming over 400 hectares. These form part of the more than 1,000 hectares of land under the title they obtained during the Philippine Commonwealth owned by their ancestor Maximo Gulinsao.

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), on the other hand, said the subject land has been a titled property of the Department of Agriculture (DA) since the 1930s.

To assert their rights, in February, a few members of the Gulinsao clan forcibly entered the land, which resulted in the arrest of three individuals.

CONTEXT: Uncertainty forces Lumad to enter disputed ancestral land in Bukidnon

In a dialogue launched in December 2021, lawyer Heinz Villanueva, then legal officer of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), told the Lumad claimants that they needed to file a case to cancel DA’s title before they could proceed in filing an ancestral domain claim.

Gulinsao opposed the suggestion, saying that DA possessed the same title that they have. During the September 7, 2026 dialogue, he asked the DA representative if they have a Deed of Sale. The representative could not provide a definite answer as it still needed to be checked.

The Lumad leader said they are in the process of completing their certificate of ancestral domain claim (CADC) before the NCIP.

The concerned Lumad clans, however, were told that they could be beneficiaries of the government’s agrarian reform program after 358 hectares of the subject land—also within the claim of the Gulinsao clan—has been subject to Executive Order No. 75-2019, an order directing all government agencies to identify state-owned lands suitable for agriculture for distribution to qualified agrarian reform beneficiaries.

Datu Ornan Lesion, a representative of the Maranding clan, said in the September 7, 2026, dialogue that there were more than 200 of them who wanted to become beneficiaries. The Gulinsao clan has almost the same number of members. Both clans welcomed the offer because of their eagerness to have a land to till. But this also remains a challenge.

Gulinsao said they already made repeated requests to the municipal and provincial agrarian reform offices, but they were told to also submit a request to the DA, which allegedly did not respond despite follow-ups.

Marvin Calleja, DAR Malaybalay representative, said that Task Force Dalwangan was already created in 2023, but the status of the 358 hectares of land remains pending. He said he would forward the dialogue discussion to their provincial office to clarify the matter.

“With our process now, we have lost hope on our government agencies,” Gulinsao said in the vernacular when asked for their future plans.

He said there are clan members currently living in Barangay Dalwangan, but outside their ancestral land. Other members are living in the neighboring town of Impasug-ong. He said they want to resolve the matter through a sala, a Lumad customary practice of settling disputes, as their final resort.

The month of October serves as the Indigenous Peoples’ Month. (RVO)

Disclosure: All of the dialogue discussions cited in this article were based on the minutes of meetings obtained by the Gulinsao clan from the Office of the City and Provincial Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representatives and forwarded to Bulatlat.