THE LIVES AND STRUGGLES OF THE TUMANDOK

PEOPLE OF PANAY ISLAND, PHILIPPINES

Translated from the original Hiligaynon version
Prepared by the

TUMANDOK NGA MANGUNGUMA NGA NAGAPANGAPIN SA

DUTA KAG KABUHI (TUMANDUK)
(Tumandok Farmers in Defense of Land and Life)
st

for the

1 INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MISSION

TO THE JALAUR RIVER
Panay Island, Philippines
16-18 July 2016
In Western Visayas, a tumandok is a native, one who belongs to a place.
For generations, our peoplethe indigenous people of Central Panayhave lived in the
borders of Iloilo, Capiz and Aklan provinces, at the foot of the highest mountains of Panay Island
called Madia-as and Baloy, and at the headwaters of the major rivers of the islandPan-ay, Jalaur,
Mambusao and Aklan.
Those who dwell along the upper reaches of Aklan River are called Akeanon. Those who
live along Pan-ay River are called Pan-ayanon and those who live along Jalaur River are called
Jalawudnon. The Lambunaonon are in the mountains of Lambunao. But those who live in the
plains and the rural centers call us Bukidnon or buki, a derogatory label meaning ignorant
mountain people. The government and the academicians on the other hand call us Suludnon,
meaning people from the interior.
Most Pan-ayanon and Jalawudnon are slash-and-burn farmers with rice as their main
produce. Some have rice paddies, and some also plant coffee and banana. The Akeanons, aside
from rice farming, plant coconuts and local abaca. We also hunt, fish and forage the forest and the
rivers for food.
Many of our women and young people have gone to the urban and rural centers to work as
househelps and do other odd jobs especially during the lean season when we are waiting for the
palay to ripen.
Hunger and poverty persist as significant problems in our communities. Production in the
highland communities these past decades is characterized by decreasing yields in the swidden
farms caused by natural calamities such as La Nia, typhoons and landslides destroying our crops,
as well as the spread of the use of chemicals and genetically modified crops. Harvest from coffee
and banana have been declining as well. Many families are deep in dept to the usurers in the town
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centers and lending firms who charge interest rates from 50% per harvest to 100% per year
through the sagahay system and up to 2,300% through the porsyentuhan.
Government neglect is also prevalent. Schools or schoolteachers and health workers are
rarely seen in tumandok communities. According to studies made by IP advocate groups in Panay,
literacy rates in the upland areas is 15-20% while malnutrition in children and tuberculosis in
adults is rampant.
The harshness of our life is caused not only by the backwardness of our methods of
production. We are poor not only because society shuns us nor the government has not extended
its services to us. We are poor because the fruits of our labor were taken from us by the elite, our
lands are taken by the government, our daily lives are disrupted by government programs,
foreign-owned corporations and the military who come to our communities.
The bisaya rice, the most fragrant rice in the whole Visayas, is our product. It is expensive
when sold in the towns or cities but very cheap when bought by the comprador from us. The same
thing happen to other products gathered from the forests and rivers. The fields and forests where
we get our sustenance have grown smaller and smaller because of varied programs and projects
of the government and foreign corporations. The government that supposedly defends and serves
our peoples interests considersus as squatters in our own land.
Decades of Struggle in the Defense of Our Ancestral Domain
In December 1962, Diosdado Macapagal declared more than 33,310 hectares of our
ancestral land in the municipalities of Tapaz and Jamindan, Capiz as army reservation. The AFP
took control of this land and built Camp Macario Peralta in Jaena Norte, Jamindan to guard it. They
ordered the communities to pay tumado or rent for farming their own land. The government
allowed the big landlord families to bring in cattle and convert farmlands into pasturelands.
Before this, the ancestral lands in the mountains of Lambunao and Calinog, Iloilowere declared
forest reservations and guarded by foresters of the DENR. Government personnel forbade the
locals to farm and to use the trees in the forests. Locals were arrested, mauled and imprisoned for
continuing to farm for livelihood.
In the 70s, with the help of student activists and organizers, we united to defend our land
and formed organizations in the villages. We got to know of the roots of our poverty and the need
for resistance. We stopped paying tumado. We settled the dumot and panambi i and ended the longrunning wars between the Pan-ayanon and Akeanon. We recovered the pasturelands and
replanted them with rice. We improved on our traditional methods of cooperation such as the
dagyawii, dagsawiii, and hil-oiv, while learning to raise other farm products to supplement our
livelihood.
These efforts did not go unheeded by the government. Soon we were attacked by the
constabulary, with the help of the BSDU and later the CHDF. Our homes were strafed, our leaders
were beheaded or killed. The farmers who were active in defending our lands were also beheaded,
their heads strung together and paraded in the town center to instill fear in us. Our weapons for
hunting and defense, as well as valuable heirlooms from our ancestors were stolen. The attacks
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and killings on our communities were led by zealous military men with the likes of PC Sgt. Nick
Roca and PC Tsgt. Fortunato Cataluav.
But our struggle continued. Not only for our land and our rights as indigenous people, but
for our rights as human beings, as members of the peasantry and of the whole Philippine society.
By the 80s, we had recovered a large part of the ancestral land for our own productive use
although in paper it was still owned by the Philippine Army, the DENR or the big landlords living
in the cities or town centers. A large majority of our communities had mass organizations of
farmers, women and youth. Different forms of cooperation to improve production continued, as
did campaigns on literacy-numeracy, health, and other initiatives to improve the situation of our
people. At the middle of the decade, the government launched intense military operations to gain
back control of our land. This came in the form of Oplan Lambat Bitag I, II, and III under the total
war policy of the Aquino regime and was claimed as the solution to the peace and order problem
which they said was due to the communist insurgency. Battalion-sized troops from military units,
ICHDF/CAFGU and policemen conducted strike operations. They used mortars and helicopters
and big coordinated columns combed the forests. Communities were bombed and razed by the
troops. They put up detachments and forced us to join the ICHDF/CAFGU.
Many men left the villages to evade forced conscription into the CAFGU. More young men
and women joined the NPA instead of the CAFGU. They realized that armed attacks on our
communities can be met only with armed resistance for us to survive as a people. By the 1990s,
majority of the members of the NPA were tumandok warriors. There was widespread evacuation
from 1987 until 1988 as people fled from the military operations, and many villages became no
mans land. Our fields were destroyed, farm animals died, the homes we left were looted by the
military, the paramilitary and the bandits. We were scattered in the plains of Tapaz and Calinog,
and others went as far as Dueas and Passi in Iloilo. Some were able to return home only during
the last years of the decade when military operations declined. Others came back during the 90s.
The government achieved peace by devastating our communities.
The lives of the tumandok who remained in the mountain villages were controlled by the
military. They were ordered to put up their houses in the village center and can only go to their
farms to work and gather or hunt in the forest only if allowed or surveilled by military. Even the
traditional dagyaw and hil-o were tagged as communist activities and anyone who tried to protest
met strong threats.Many tumanduk communities wavered and mass organizations fell apart.
Without the organizations, the military fanned old antagonisms between the Akeanon and Panayanon and encouraged the communities to join the CAFGU to be able to take up arms.
Military operations temporarily declined during the early 1990s upon the implementation
of the Ramos regimes Oplan Unlad Bayan. The CAFGU in our place were dis-armed in July-August
1995. Mass organizations in the Pan-ayanon communities were re-organized and revived.
Our efforts to regain the lost abundance of our farms were repeatedly disrupted by the
implementation of government and military programmes with the likes of Greening Panay funded
by JICA . Widespread plantations of mahogany and gmelina were established in our ancestral
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land. The land available for farming shrunk again in many villages where this was implemented,
but many villages also resisted and some even secretly set fire to the seedlings.
Under the AFP Modernization Act of 1995, tumandok land was used for training military
troops and for testing bombs. People living around the impact area, including children, were
wounded when test bombs miss its target. We were forbidden to farm and build new structures.
They tried to evict the residents in 26 villages but we stood our ground. Since Balikatan 94 was
carried out, more military exercises have been conducted in our ancestral lands.
On October 24-26, 1996, together with a widespread petition-signing to protest the
eviction order, 17 villages held an assembly in the 3ID, PAs impact area itself, in Mt. Danao in Sitio
Pula, Jaena Sur, Jamindan to express our stand on the land. This was the first Tumanduk
Assembly and the organization of TUMANDUK (TUmanduk nga MAngunguma nga Nagapangapin
in sa DUta kag Kabuhi)vi was born, the unity of different organizations and communities of
indigenous people of Panay. This was the first gathering of indigenous peoples this size and in the
Sandugo ceremony, participants signed their names in blood on the declaration of unity to defend
our land. The 3ID, PA was forced to step back and instead of 26 villages, they ordered the eviction
of only 6. Later, they ordered only 3, those on the impact area. But still we stayed. By October 1998
we again had an assembly in the impact area with the theme Our Land, Our Life and many
villages participated despite storm and flood. Every two years from then, we were able to have our
assembly wherein more and more participated.
In the succeeding assemblies, we also discussed the problems and demands of the
indigenous people against the Mining Act of 1995 where the whole ancestral land and beyond in
the municipalities of Tapaz, Jamindan, Libacao, and Calinog were under the application for FTAA
of the Egyptian Mineral Corporation. With the other sectors, we were able to push the Provincial
Board of Capiz to issue a resolution on a 10-year moratorium on mining in the province. We linked
the tumanduk struggle against the army reservation to the struggle of other indigenous peoples in
the whole country who are also dispossessed of their lands or under the threat of dispossession
because of the Mining Act.
We launched protests against the intensive and widespread military campaigns which was
resumed by the 3ID PA in 2001 at the same time that French engineers of Spie-Enertrans
conducted studies on the planned giant hydroelectric dam in Brgy. Nayawan, Tapaz, Capiz. Special
Operations Teams of the 12IB, PA occupied the villages and again forced us to join the CAFGU.
Many were arrested or interrogated without warrants, or detained without any case. Our crops
were destroyed and homes were barged into and searched. In October 2002, almost two-thirds of
the whole combat forces of Panay Island were focused on the ancestral lands in Tapaz and Calinog.
The Provincial Board of Capiz investigated and passed a resolution calling for the pullout of the
12IB from Tapaz because this caused fear among the people. This resolution was ignored by the
military. So, with the intensification of militarization in our communitiies and insistence of the
military to take our land, many members of our communities decided to join the underground
armed resistance and the New Peoples Army (NPA). The NPA launched ambushes and other
military offensives against the SOT and military operating troops.

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Through this difficult situation, we continued to educate and organize. TUMANDUK

organizing has reached Jalawudnon communities and some Ati in Calinog, and we have linked up
with some Lambunaonon.
For the past decade, the government employed sophisticated methods of landgrabbing
meant to deceive our people. They tried to force on us laws like NIPAS and IPRA vii. Under these
laws, we are denied of the right to our land and its rich bounty which has long sustained our
people. The government ressurected its claims that our land is classified as public land, and
therefore we dont have the rights to our ancestral lands.
In 2004, the 3ID strengthened their position on tumandok land. They conducted a survey of
the land in the towns of Tapaz and Jamindan and put up concrete markers in the boundaries to
delineate the the military reservation. SOTs and Civilian Active Auxiliaries were deployed to
communities.
We studied and campaigned against the 45 million peso eco-tourism project in 16 villages
in the headwaters of the Jalaur River and the reforestation project in Lambunao. These are being
funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and threaten the livelihood thousands of
farmers, indigenous and otherwise. Targeted by these projects are the 9,227.6 hectares in upland
Calinog declared as forest reserve as well as 3478 has in lambunao and 695 hectares in Calinog
declared as Civil Reservation in 1950 for INCA (Iloilo National College of Agriculture, now a
campus of West Visayas State University) despite the farmers who dwell in and till the land.
In 2005 we started to lobby to the Philippine Congress to repeal PP 67. Resolutions to
conduct inquiry were sponsored by legislators belonging to progressive partylist groups in the
Lower House and by Sen. Jamby Madrigal in the Senate. Congressional inquiry was conducted on
December 2008 followed by a Senate inquiry on May 2009. The inquiries raised the publics
awareness on the tumandok struggle on a national scope. Our appeal also gathered support from
the local government. The Sanggunian Panlalawigan of Capiz passed Resolution number 175
appealing to then Pres. Arroyo to repeal PP 67 in 2008. In 2011, the Sangguniang Bayan of Tapaz
also passed Resolution 34, appealing to the president to repeal PP 67 and return the land to the
tumandok people.
Govt agencies like DENR and NCIP viiiwere mobilized to control tumandok lands as well as
to deceive and divide the ranks of the tumandok. The Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR) exercised their control over tumandok lands and declared our ancestral
domain as forest reservation, but at the same time, approved mining applications in tumandok
lands. IPRA is primarily implemented by NCIP, under which a community will not be recognized
as indigenous by the government even if their families and ancestors have lived there for
hundreds of years unless certified by NCIP. The NCIP supports the landgrabbing of our lands by
the military, as well as the implementation of eco-tourism and reforestation projects. The NCIP
has highlighted awarding of CADTix to the tumandok communities of Garangan, Masaroy, Agcalaga
in 2005. This was done not as a recognition of our rights to our ancestral land. It was done to make
it easier for the government and private corporations to take away our lands. Corporations
interested in the land only has to ensure the concurrence of tribal chieftains, often installed by
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NCIP, to gain entry to the communities. Also, though CADT was already issued, the land will still
be considered as public land.
NCIP supports a few tumandok which they introduced to the public as tribe chieftains even
if these persons are not recognized as leaders nor highly-esteemed in our communities. They act
as hired mouthpiece echoing praises for the government-led aggresion against our people. They
deliberately misrepresent the tumandok people to deceive the public and influence public opinion.
Organizations were put up among us to purposely divide our ranks and weaken our unity in
defending our ancestral lands. Fraternities, institutions and other organizations from the outside
were mobilized as partners by government agencies and the AFP in conducting humanitarian
missions to help ease the introduction of government projects.
The 1SRBx, considered part of the military elite force, was deployed to Central Panay in
2005-2006. With the 47th IB, they launched batallion-sized military operations in upland Tapaz
and Calinog and left a trail of abuses committed to our people. In July 12, 2006 they tortured and
threatened seven civilians while conducting operations in Brgy. Masaroy, Calinog. Among the
victims was Loreto Duerme Jr. who was tied to a tree while the soldiers kicked and punched him
to force him to admit that he was an NPA member. He was released the following day, along with
Ian Castor,a 17 year boy also tortured by the scout rangers, the soldiers threatening to kill them if
they tell anyone what happened. The victims filed charges but justice was not meted out. The
1SRB was subsequently transferred out of Panay after they failed to defeat the NPA that has been
growing in strength in the area. They had incurred many casualties in an ambush by the NPA on
November 19, 2005 in Datagan, Calinog.
Militarization in our communities continue up to this day. It was made especially worse
under Pres. Arroyos Oplan Bantay Laya 1 and 2 and Pres. Aquinos Oplan Bayanihan . Our daily
lives were denied peace in the presence of Special Operations Teams, which became Reengineered
Special Operations Teams and are now called Peace and Development Teams. They encamp in the
midst of communities for a duration of a few months to a year before transferring to another
barangay. Their prolonged presence in our communities and the frequent combat operations
resulted to never-ending crimes and human rights violations victimizing our people. We still cry
justice for the life of Charito Caspillo, wife of Jason Eulalio, who was 3 months pregrant when she
was shot by the military on May 6, 2009 in Rizal Sur, Tapaz. We also demand justice for Rodelyn
Aguirre, a 6 year old child who was killed on March 11, 2012 when an M203 grenade exploded
outside their house where she was chopping firewood. Roda, her younger sister, was also
wounded by the explosion. The M203 grenade was fired by the elements of 61IB encamped in
Brgy. Tacayan, Tapaz, 200 meters away from Rodelyns house.
In 2010 to 2011, residents of 7 barangays in Tapaz, including Tacayan, petitioned against
military encampment in our communities because it terrorizes our women and children and put
our peoples lives in danger. The military ignored our pleas. If only they had listened to us,
Rodelyn will still be alive today. Fact-finding missions were conducted by human rights
organizations and has identified the military as perpetrators of numerous violations.

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Landgrabbing of our ancestral domain escalated under the Aquino presidency. The
government was purposely driving us out of our lands to give way to development projects. We
resisted these projects because we know that without our lands, we will perish as a people.
As early as 2011, the Tumanduk in its 8th General Assembly has already resolved to oppose
the construction of large-scale dam in Jalaur river through the Jalaur River Multipurpose Project
because it will destroy our communities, our livelihoods and the environment. Our strong
opposition for the past years, as well the support given to us by organizations in the country and
abroad, has delayed the implementation of the project. The government then resorted to dirty
tactics to divide our ranks and weaken our resolve through imtimidation, bribery and
militarization of our communities. Bogus organizations like the Calinog Indigenous Peoples
Organization were created by NIA, NCIP and AFP to defend the project and cover-up the
tumandoks opposition. The government is also planning to construct a large dam in Pan-ay river
through the Panay River Basin Integrated Development Project.
While the Jalawudnon confonted the Jalaur megadam project, the Pan-ayanon and
Lambunaonon communities were disrupted by the implementation of the National Greening
Program carried out by DENR which started in 2011. This reforestation project exploited the
severe poverty of our people by offering money to anyone who will plant trees on his lands. Some
Pan-ayanons were enticed by the easy money, and soon after all of their redorxi were planted with
trees, and have encroached on their neighbors land to earn more money. Barangays
implementing the project encroach on lands of neighboring barangays not in favor of the project.
As a result, land for food production has shrunk significantly thereby worsening hunger.Rampant
land disputes fueled more feuds and conflicts between families and neighboring communities.
Current Situation and the Continuing Fight for Land and Life
Today, our struggle has gone on for more than four decades. We remain oppressed and
exploited, and our hardships and poverty continue to worsen. Our struggle is growing stronger,
wider and firmer in response to the governments violation of our rights to our land and our right
to live as a community.
The poverty we suffer is aggravated by a series of natural calamities brought about by
climate change. Our homes and sources of livelihood were devastated by typhoon Quinta in 2012;
and barely a year after, by Supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013. Most communities have not yet fully
recovered from these events when the effects El Nio were felt in 2015. Blatant government
neglect in the face of hunger and destitution caused by these calamities has enraged us and
prompted us to flood the streets to demand immediate attention. Through our collective action,
the efforts of the TUMANDUK organization and the assistance extended by NGOs, we were able to
rebuild our homes and rehabilitate our farms. We confronted great odds in overcoming the
vulnerability of our communities to the impacts of such calamities. We also realised that we must
persevere to become resilient by increasing food production, learning disaster-preparedness and
fostering cooperation, among others.
While we are grappling with this situation, we also confront the escalating threat of
eviction from our land due to megadam and reforestation projects. The justness of our cause
IP TUMANDOK Situationer | 7

against the Jalaur megadam has gained widespread support here and abroad. Our consistent
opposition has delayed the construction but the threat of its continuance still looms. We must
continue to raise the peoples understanding of the project, not only in tumandok communities,
but also in the communities located downstream of Jalaur river which will also be affected by the
project as well as the general public who will be paying for the construction of the megadam in the
years to come. We must continue to gather support from advocates and the international
community to demand to the government to put a stop to the project once and for all.
We have achieved gains in our campaign against the National Greening Program but its
widespread and aggressive implementation in indigenous communities still continue to this day.
We must educate our people that the long term effects of the project will ultimately force us out of
our land. Far-reaching actions must be launched to stop the project and reclaim the land to
promote food production. We must assert our right to self-determination and our indigenous
ways of protecting the environment.
We continue to demand justice for the atrocities and abuses committed against our people.
Adding to the already long list of atrocities is the death of Pastor Mirasol and wounding of Rolando
Diaz on October 7, 2013 when elements of 61 IB strafed the homes of tumandok in Brgy. Nayawan,
Tapaz, Capiz. We also demand the dismissal of trumped up charges against a number of tumandok
leaders filed by the police and the military.
We also face problems of low prices of farm produce, continuous increase in the prices of
basic commodities, lack of social services, and intense militarization in our communities. We know
that our struggle is a protracted struggle and at its core is the struggle to reclaim our land.
It is necessary to continue raising our understanding of the nature of our struggle. We need
continuing and wide-ranging studies to increase our grasp of issues and our plans of action. We
must have studies on the history of society in general and the tumanduk in particular, on human
rights, on government policies and projects that affect us, specially about megadam projects, NGP,
Proclamation 67, Mining Act, NIPAS, IPRA, and military plans.
We welcome and support the developments in the peace process between the GRP, now
under the Duterte presidency, and the NDFP. Addressing the roots of the armed conflict raging in
our country has long been desired by the tumandok people. Poverty, landgrabbing of our ancestral
domain, attacks and abuses committed by the military are among the reasons why some of our
women, men and youth take up arms and join the NPA. Lasting peace will only be possible if these
problems, along with problems affecting the whole Filipino people, are solved.
We the tumandok are conscious of the need to continue strengthening and expanding our
unity in order to defend our ancestral land. We have achieved a significant gain in the creation of
the TUMANDUK organization to serve as the center for action and cooperation among different
tumandok communities. But we still have to expand in order to reach other IP communities and
develop the TUMANDUK organisational capacities, develop more leaders, increase our
membership, and become self-reliant. We must ever be vigilant against schemes aiming to destroy
our unity and cripple our struggle.
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We also learned from our more than four decades of struggle the importance of uniting
with other sectors of society and the whole nation. We will achieve our dreams of living in peace
and freedom in our own land only when the whole nation is liberated from the clutches of foreign
corporations and when a government that truly cares for the interests of the oppressed is
established. Therefore, we tumandok need to develop more activities and campaigns where
different sectors can participate, and our participation in their activities and campaigns, even up
to global actions. Our experience also shows the importance of developing different forms of
struggle, traditional and new, parliamentary and otherwise, secret and open, to effectively
respond to all forms of oppression, exploitation and repression by our government and the ruling
elite.
We will continue and advance our struggle to reclaim our land from the government and
the military. We will assert our rights as a people and protect the burial grounds of our ancestors,
our culture and way of life.
We keep in mind the words of Evelita Ka Mera Gedoria, a tumandok leader who dedicated
her whole life in the struggle: Kung madula daya nga duta,kami nga tumandok, madula. xii
We will die for our land, we will fight for our people.

The dumot is an indigenous tradition of vendetta for the death of a family or tribe member against any member of the other
family or tribe that goes down to generations as long as the score is not settled and will stop only when the number of deaths
in both sides is perceived to be equal. The panambi is vendetta in the form of mass killing of a tribe or family to end the
grudge. this usually includes killing women , children and farm animals.
ii
Indigenous form of labor cooperation
iii
Indigenous form of collective fishing
iv
Indigenous form of labor cooperation
v
Roca was executed by the NPA in 1987 in Negros. Catalua is still alive and continues to grab lands together with his
armed goons.
vi
This is the Visayan term for Indigenous Farmers in Defense of Land and Life
vii
National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 1992. Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997
viii
Department of Environment and Natural Resources. National Commission on the Indigenous People
ix
Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title
x st
1 Scout Ranger Batallion
xi
Indigenous system of land-ownership followed by the tumandok wherin a family claims ownership of land that was initially
cleared (nagguba) by its ancestor. Since most barangays are composed of only one to three extended families that are also
linked up by inter-marriage, ownership is almost common to all.
xii
If our land is gone, we, the tumandok, will die.

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