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BUTUAN CITY - Tribal leaders in the Caraga Region urged the Senate on Saturday to look into issues affecting indigenous peoples, including use of their ancestral lands that prompted a group of Manobos to abduct government workers earlier this week.
In a press statement, Manobo tribal chieftains led by Datu Kaguyangan-an said the abduction of the eight workers of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) by tribal warriors is a sign that the problems facing indigenous peoples in the region have escalated from bad to worse.
“We expect more social unrest from our people if government continues to ignore our deep-seated problems," said Kaguyangan-an, who denounced the alleged practice of some government agencies of “giving candies and lollipops" whenever indigenous peoples assert their rights over ancestral lands.
He warned that the use of palliative measures and institutionalization of divide and rule tactics would only serve to aggravate problems.
The chieftains said the issues are related to the implementation of forest laws and issuance of permits in large-, medium- and small-scale logging and mining operations in the region.
They said they also wanted to see if there were anomalies involved in the issuance of logging and mining permits in the region.
Datu Palalang, a respected Higaonon tribal chieftain, echoed the concerns raised by Datu Kaguyangan-an. In a mobile phone interview, he said they want the Senate to look urgently into the environmental problems in the region so that appropriate measures could be enacted.
Palalang said this week’s abduction of DENR personnel was not the first time such drastic action has happened in Caraga, which comprises the provinces of Agusan del Sur, Agusan del Norte, Surigao del Sur and Surigao del Norte.
Police have said the abductors were led by Leandro “Andot" Behing, the younger brother of Manobo tribal chieftain and Sibagat, Agusan del Sur ABC President Luzmindo Behing, who was gunned down by assassins bullets last July.
Behing’s family suspected that the assassins were hired by an Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA) holder who havs shown great interest in operating a logging business in their ancestral lands, which the tribal chieftain who is a natural environmentalist turned down
The late tribal leader even questioned why such IFMA was issued without consultation with affected indigenous people settlers in the area.
Palalang said tribal groups, collectively called Lumads, have long complained of injustices, long-delayed government action to address their plight, and forestry laws that conflict with the Indigenous People’s Rights Act.
Records of the DENR Caraga Regional Personnel Office showed that a number of DENR personnel have, indeed, been kidnapped while on duty in the past. Some were also killed in the line of duty.
Angelina Astillo, the regional personnel officer, said the highest DENR Caraga official kidnapped by tribal activists was the late Christopher Cuizon, regional technical director for forestry, who was snatched at his home in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte in 2006.
In 1996, Johnny Perez, the community environment and natural resources officer of Bayugan town in Agusan del Sur, was kidnapped along with forester Meliton Legaspi over a controversy in the implementation of forest laws.
Astillo recalled that at least five DENR field workers were also killed while in the line of duty in the past.
She recalled that in 2007, two DENR field workers were kidnapped in Surigao del Sur, but were eleased unharmed by their captors.
Asia’s mining capital
Earlier, lawyer Carl Cesar Rebuta, legal rights center officer for northern Mindanao, said that during the September 22-25, 2009 Asian Environmental Justice Conference in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the Caraga Region was tagged as Asia’s emerging mining capital.
He said Caraga is now hosting 42 approved Mineral Production and Sharing Agreements (MPSA) covering 103,643.25 hectares or 55.29 percent of the entire mining permits approved in Mindanao.
In the pipeline, 80 more MPSA’s are pending approval, and there are 124 application for exploration permits and 5 pending applications for Financial and Technical Assistance Agreements (FTAA), he added.
Rebuta said majority of these permits are within the ancestral domains of the Manobo-Mamanwa tribes, where only five Certificates of Ancestral Domain Claims/Titles have been issued by the government.
He also noted that the biggest work force in the region are farmers and the indigenous people who are dependent on land and water for survival.
Caraga has the country's largest freshwater wetland, the largest mangrove swamp, and the widest waterfalls lie within its boundaries.
It also hosts the country’s deepest waters – in fact the deepest in the world — and surfing haven, and it has the largest gold and nickel ore deposits. - GMANews.TV Published in GMANews, TV on October 24, 2009 |
