Expanding political arenas for indigenous peoples

Inquirer Northern Luzon : Expanding political arenas for tribes

By Maurice Malanes
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: October 15, 2008

BAGUIO CITY – Times have changed a lot since the 1970s when celebrating what was then called “Tribal Filipino Month” was mainly another form of protest against a dictatorship that killed and made martyrs of the likes of Kalinga chieftain Macli-ing Dulag.

Under the late President Ferdinand Marcos’ iron-fist rule, the Church and other religious organizations had instituted “Tribal Filipino Sunday” every second Sunday of October. Special Masses or ecumenical worship services were held to honor tribal Filipinos. Celebrants paid tribute to them and credited them for their wisdom in protecting and managing their lands and resources.

Tribal Filipinos, for instance, had been hailed for hunting, gathering and mining (or panning) from the forests only what they needed. Such appreciation of wise thinking was made in contrast to what their leaders and activists considered the corporate greed behind large-scale logging, mining and other extractive industries.

In the Cordillera, the celebrants lamented and spoke strongly against the “militarization” of tribal communities, which had protested against these industries, along with the Marcos regime’s “development projects” such as the proposed series of World Bank-funded dams along the Chico River in Mt. Province and Kalinga.

Marcos’ soldiers killed Dulag on April 24, 1980, but not the philosophy on land stewardship he articulated and the protests against the dams he helped lead. Among other things, he had said nobody could appropriate for himself the land because “only the race owns the land.”

“How can you own what outlives you?” Dulag once said.

Indigenous culture

In every tribal Filipino celebration, participants would not only pay homage to martyrs like Dulag but would also celebrate whatever aspects of indigenous culture had survived colonization. These included a strong sense of community, cooperation, restorative (as opposed to punitive) justice and holistic spirituality (as opposed to the dualistic religious world-view that colonizers introduced).

The celebration was, in a way, driving across an important message: Even before almost 400 years of convent culture under the Spaniards and more than 50 years of American influence, a flourishing culture existed in this archipelago.

In Marcos’ time, the event was limited to tribal leaders, activists, church leaders and other advocates. As a form of protest against the regime, it was usually held in churches, school gymnasiums or auditoriums or in public parks after a street march – which revealed the constricted space or arena for indigenous voices.

Changing political arena

The political arenas have changed, particularly after a new Constitution was put in place in 1987. After the lobby efforts of tribal Filipino leaders and representatives themselves, the Constitution has finally recognized the rights of “indigenous cultural communities,” including the rights to their ancestral lands and domains and to govern themselves according to their customary laws and practices.

These constitutional rights ushered in an enabling law – the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (Ipra) of 1997. At the United Nations, the Philippines is often cited as a model of some sort because of the Ipra.

The act created a separate bureaucracy, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, which has employed mostly indigenous professionals.

During the Marcos regime, the political arenas for indigenous peoples were the streets, and, in some extreme cases, the hills.

Despite what some indigenous peoples’ leaders consider its flaws, the Ipra has helped provide a venue for indigenous peoples to engage the government. For example, indigenous communities can use Ipra’s free and prior informed consent (FPIC) process in evaluating and assessing and finally accepting or rejecting a development project, such as a mine or a dam.

Critics, however, cite some instances in which the FPIC process had been subverted. Their common issue was that only a few elders or local government leaders were involved. Some indigenous leaders had alleged that cases of bribery and corruption had tainted it.

Still, the FPIC process, if combined with indigenous peoples’ own vigilance, offers an arena where they can get a better bargain or register their sentiments.

Global arenas

Many of the issues of indigenous peoples, such as those related to land and resources, still persist. But the political arenas through which they could ventilate these issues have expanded even to the global front.

At the UN, indigenous peoples lobbied and strengthened their own ranks and networks and pushed for the creation of an arena through which they could be heard.

One of these arenas is the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which has been chaired since 2006 by Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a Kankanaey from Besao, Mt. Province. An activist since the First Quarter Storm, Tauli-Corpuz had immersed herself in the local indigenous peoples’ movement before working with the UN.

Other arenas, which needed more indigenous voices, include the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

One of the good news for indigenous peoples is the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which the UN General Assembly approved on Sept. 13, 2007.

Along with the Ipra, the declaration, says Tauli-Corpuz, can also be invoked by indigenous peoples in asserting their rights to their traditional knowledge, culture, land and resources, and their right to determine how best to govern themselves.

But unless it is put to good use, the declaration is just another document. The challenge, says indigenous peoples’ advocate and lawyer Elpidio Peria, is how to apply this by continually invoking it so it becomes a living document.