Adrian S.

Reyes
12-Lav

Dispossessing the ‘lumad’

The Lumad are a group of non-Muslim indigenous people in the southern
Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous".There are
18 Lumad ethnolinguistic groups namely, Atta, Bagobo, Banwaon, B’laan,
Bukidnon, Dibabawon, Higaonon, Mamanwa, Mandaya, Manguwangan,
Manobo, Mansaka, Subanon, Tagakaolo, Tasaday, Tboli, Teduray, and Ubo.
Things appeared to be looking up for the lumad, when the Davao City Mayor
Rodrigo Duterte won the 2016 presidential race. The tough-talking fellow
Mindanaoan had campaigned on the promise of protecting and helping the
lumad get back to their communities by disbanding the paramilitary forces
that have hounded and chased them off their land.
Two years later, hundreds of lumad families continue to languish in tent
shelters and evacuation centers, suffering illness and diseases and making
do with the lack of privacy, and the distance that has kept their children
away from school and their elders from cultivating their crops and tending to
their livestock.
In July 16, some 328 lumad families, or 1,607 individuals, again fled their
homes in 23 sitios in Barangay Diatagon in Surigao del Sur because of the
heavy presence of soldiers in the area. Among those who fled the area were
568 students and 48 teachers from eight community schools of the Tribal
Filipino Program of Surigao del Sur (TRIFPSS) and the Alternative Learning
Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (Alcadev). The two
groups run schools for lumad communities in what the Department of
Education calls “geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas,” where
DepEd schools have yet to be built.
The military—members of the 75th Infantry Battalion who had camped out in
the Manobo community for more than a month, according to the human
rights group Karapatan—had also threatened to arrest non-Lianga residents
extending humanitarian support to the Manobo evacuees. Church people
bringing food relief were prevented from entering the evacuation center, said
the nuns who had joined the evacuees on their trek. Members of religious
congregations have been supporting Alcadev and TRIFPSS with school
materials and supplies, as well as footwear for the students.

This was the fourth forced evacuation of the Manobo communities from the
Andap Valley complex under the Duterte administration. They had previously
fled to shelters in July and November 2017, and in January 2018 after
harassment from government soldiers who accused them of supporting
rebels in their midst. Addressing the conflict, President Duterte made the
startling threat to bomb the lumad schools for supposedly spreading
subversive ideas and teaching students to rebel against the government.

But more than insurgency, interest in the lumad ancestral lands seems to be
at the center of the conflict, with the lumad and environment groups
resisting the idea of hosting mining and logging companies in the area. As
the Manobo and their supporters have pointed out, the military appears to be
protecting the investors while driving the lumad off their land.

President Duterte announced in a recent speech in Davao City that the

lumad were ready to relocate, and that he would choose the investors to be
granted access to their ancestral lands. He also vowed to provide P100
million to fund agriculture development in lumad areas. To protests from the
lumad, Malacañang said the President’s plan would, in fact, protect the locals
from being exploited and influenced by communist rebels, by introducing
jobs and reducing poverty in the area.

The idea does not sit well with the lumad, the original settlers in Mindanao,
who fear being displaced as investors put up mining companies and
plantations on their lands. Who can blame them? At the rate they are being
driven away, how long before they are permanently dispossessed of their
lands and rendered homeless? And where will they go?

At the heart of this Martial Law in Mindanao are Dupe30 cronies interest in
mining. Investors must considered that the land is for the natives.

It is also unrighteous that the investors together with the government were
able to evict the native on their land just to build a mining companies and
plantation.

Lumads deserve to be treaten equally, the government or the military is

supposed to be helping and protecting them. But in facing the reality the
lumads is not getting this kind of protection that they needed the most. We
must protect the lumads from this type of insults they are filipino native
citizens the government must consider their needs before making a decision
that will affect the lives of this lumad peoples.