Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security Oct. 2014 | Page 76

Philippines

A Tapestry of IP Voices
The text below is a synthesis of the viewpoints of many IP leaders,
including traditional leaders such as Datus, (IP leaders) and Bae,
(traditional women leaders), who wish to remain anonymous for
safety reasons. It includes perspectives from such people as C. B.,
an IP woman in her forties working as a volunteer organiser in the
hinterland communities of various IPs. Her work brings her in contact
with IP realities and issues from poverty, hunger, land-grabbing and
conversion, to illegal resource extraction, counter-insurgency and
arbitrary killings. While staying true to their words, the narrative below
paints a composite picture of the complexities facing IP communities.

=10.000.000
Caught in the middle

It would be fair to say that IPs have reached the end
of their patience, or their boiling point. They feel
anybody can take advantage of them with impunity.
How can IPs feel secure when they are the ones
being killed in their own territory because of the
struggle of forces they are not part of? The army
and guerillas were accepted as guests, yet wound up
killing and marginalising their hosts.
In a 2010 meeting of some 17 IP leaders and
organisers, we noted the number of IP leaders and
key persons killed since the 1997 promulgation
between the government and the NPA [meant
to ensure adherence to human rights principles
and international humanitarian laws, and protect
civilians during the conflict ]. By our count, we
tallied more than 500 individuals killed from 1997
to 2010. These killings were purportedly done by
military forces, the NPA as well as unidentified
killers, and for various reasons.
Ironically, as many as 70 percent of the NPA in our
territories are IPs, and 80 percent of those were
recruited from the youth. Why? Because they never
had the opportunity to go to school. These conflicts
are just reflections of these realities and the lack
of attention given to root causes. To establish our
security, we need to be educated – in our culture,
in our rights, in our identity. But the reality now
is that there is little access to that education. Who
should provide it for us?

Traditional spirituality and leadership

EVELOPMENT
3

Among lumads or IPs, we treat all things as
interconnected; nothing exists on its own. Our
history, our territories and the land interconnect

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Cultural respect and external intervention

us. Human security is comprehensive and it is a
given right to us as well as an obligation. I give it
and I expect it at the same time. What we IPs are
basically saying is that in the same way that all
things are interconnected, anything you demand or
any privilege you ask for requires a corresponding
obligation on your part.
In tribal history or lore, there are lineages that are
historically blessed with leadership. In the areas
where the traditional leaders still prosper, there
is a capacity to relate the traditional wa ys and
means to current realities. For example, there are
traditional folk leaders, who also serve as very good
church leaders, and they perform these tasks with
equal respect for both sides. They also help in a
rediscovery of the traditional ways, or at least show
the merit in these practices and beliefs.
In our culture, the highest women leaders are
the ones we call Bae. They have authority in the
community that even men must respect. Women
play an important role as culture-bearers, nurturers
of peace and the essential cultural elements of a
tribe. With the absence of security, stresses that
affect women ultimately have a negative effect
on almost all aspects of IP life such as continuing
education, on traditional cultural practices and on
the life rhythms of the communities overall.
‘Pretender’ Datus picked to represent IP
communities by the NPA, the mayors, governors
and politicians do not last because their lineage
does not have the required blessing from the
Magbabaya or Creator, a God-given blessing granted
to their lineage and ancestry. Communities will not
fully support someone like this. Political actors find
it difficult to penetrate and sustain their call among
the IPs, as they basically deny the spiritual aspects
important to the IP way of life.

NGOs who help and introduce technologies,
such as using chemicals or varieties new to the
area, need to gauge their impact on traditional
practices. Non-IP organisers organise along nontribal lines, like forming umbrella organisations
entrusted to speak for all the clans within a given
territory. This runs counter to the ancestral domain
principle, which recognises the clan rather than the
organisation. These organisers sometimes insist on
their methods, consolidating power among a few
instead of collectively. Such organisations might
ask IPs to join political rallies and burn flags and
effigies, but do not address IPs’ own right to selfdetermination, nor help IPs reclaim lost territories
or reestablish traditional plant varieties as an
assertion of IP identity and territory.
To strengthen the tribes, you have to strengthen
the basic units, the clans. The common territory is
what the tribes build their alliances on, their basis
of strength, as well as the basis on which they make
their decisions. In any situation with IPs, it is best
to be consultative rather than rushing in with offers
of resources, services and whatnot. Otherwise,
you will be taken advantage of for your mistake,
and your efforts won’t garner you any respect or
support. You must consult the leaders and honour
what they say.

The Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA)
and governance

We were amongst the first to push for the
institutionalisation of IP governance. The 1997
Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) itself was
drafted and passed as the mechanism to reconcile
the social injustices of the past, as well as dealing
with IP matters and their territory. IPRA is about
governance, a smaller government run along IP
lines, similar to what the Bangsamoro desires. As
such, it has as much right to be implemented for IPs
as the BBL that is envisioned for the Bangsamoro.
The government has basically surrendered IP rights
to the Bangsamoro, or its precursor, the ARMM
through 16 years of non-enforcement of the IPRA
within the ARMM. There was no political will or
mechanism. This is a clear case of abandonment.
In the IP areas, governance is very fragmented. You
can have as many as three local governance units
functioning in parallel: the official one run by the
government, another by the NPA, and the third
as asserted by the IPs through their right to selfdetermination.

Threats to identity, challenges to security

Nowadays, traditional beliefs, our interconnectedness,
our need to care and share as a result, are no
longer honoured. This leads to insecurity for many.
The trend is more to acquire and exploit without
responsibility or accountability. Many have forgotten
that human security, particularly for IPs, emphasises
that all is interconnected.
The strongest of forces now dominating this
discussion is driven by the need to secure economic
rights. Historically, IPs survived and prospered in a
non-cash economy. But they failed in dealing with
the introduction of a cash-based economic system,
where what had been interconnected was reduced
to commodities and their value pegged in cash.

Menu

”IPs are under constant
pressures from the outside
and we are often forced to
make impossible choices that
split communities apart.”
When forced to make a choice, those in power
will likely follow the mainstream process of
implementation such as the Local Government
Code, rather than the traditional structure and
mechanisms allowed for by the IPRA. All this
prevails because higher politics dictates this
arrangement. Again, IPs are made powerless
because of the uneven application of the law.

“Like logs floating in the sea”

We are not secured by our government. Even
with the international declaration of IP rights, the
national declaration of such rights or laws and
their regional promulgations, all of these are just
recognition and declarations. In reality, there is no
actual implementation in our areas.
We are not secured in many aspects of our lives,
such as our sustainable development, which has
no support, and our ancestral domain, another
issue that remains floating. We feel we are like logs
floating in the sea, visible to all but unable to anchor
ourselves onshore.
The bottom line here is that the state can’t protect
our people. In fact, when we asserted our rights to
the local authorities, we actually experienced more
attacks on IPs as a result. By declaring our stand, we
became targets of other vested groups who saw our
legal claims as a threat to their own interests.
IPs are under constant pressures from the outside
and we are often forced to make impossible choices
that split communities apart, forcing some to fight
back with arms, or others to pursue legal means. Yet
guns need bullets. The legal system is pro-rich – you
need to pay for every action. More often, the IPs last
choice is to fl ee conflict. In our case for now, we still
prefer setting up a new community, our “safe zone”
where we can have peace, rather than fighting. In
these instances, it is the women’s negotiating skills
that are brought into play.
IPs don’t have a clear or accessible method of
documenting their histories and experiences
other than their traditional ways of oral recall.
We have realised that we need to document the
incidents we’ve endured, and we need a clear and
defined mechanism for reporting such violations
that guarantees action. The judicial courts have
jurisdiction over such acts, but historically for IPs
these have moved so slow that witnesses have died
waiting to testify or for filed cases to move forward.
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