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CANONIZADO, Maria Isabela Clarice M.

Ms. Alexandra May D. Cardoso

Eng 13

20 March 2019

Breaking Off from the Shackles

Last December 3, 2017, Datu Victor Danyan from the T’boli-Manobo community

was slaughtered by the Philippine military a year after the “Consunji company was granted an

extension to their twenty-five year coffee plantation permit that expired in 2016” (Nansin,

“Murder of Indigenous peoples in Philippines as blatant human rights abuses continue”).

In a recent event last March 15, a 15-year old Lumad student by the name of Jerome

Pangadas was killed by a member of Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) in

Sitio Milyong, Talaingod, Davao del Norte (Save Our Schools Network).

These incidents are only a speck of what our indigenous people (IP), especially the

Lumads, experience every day. On the grassroots of these violent attacks, structural

discrimination and oppressive systems are in place to hold them in chains which are a set of

mechanisms that must be abolished once and for all.

LUMAD: A TERM

According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 2013, the Philippines has

an estimated number of IP ranging from 14-17 million in which 61% of this comes from

Mindanao. The IP found in our southern-most island are called Lumads. Contrary to popular

belief, the Lumads are not a single ethnic group but a collective term for all non-Muslim

indigenous ethnolinguistic groups found in Mindanao. Some of them are the Bagobos,
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Manobo, Tibuli, Tiruray and many others. The term was first used during the 1970s when the

Lumads “faced the onslaught of logging and agricultural plantation expansion pushed by

private business interests and with the backing of the state and its military in the country then

under a dictatorship” (Alamon 11). The word Lumad itself implies a collective identity for

individual ethnic groups under the same umbrella term who experience common struggles of

defending their rights and lands. With this, it also emphasizes a collective consciousness that

enables them to face systemic mechanisms of structural discrimination and other forms of

oppression present nowadays.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF LUMAD OPPRESSION

During the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, the colonizers controlled the land through

the presence of encomiendas and haciendas which created a “poverty sector of subsistence

farmers and a rich class of the landed gentry” (Corpuz 139). However, this kind of system

was not enforced in Mindanao because of the limitations of the Spanish government that time

to overthrow the sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao. As a result, non-Muslim ethnic groups

were free to navigate the island and use the untapped resources that were present. It was

during the American period that pushed the colonizers to exploit the rich resources of

Mindanao to feed its capitalist industries through their resettlement programs (Rodil 37, 39).

Due to this, resistance on the side of the Moro population and the Lumads arose but the

strength of the American rule to impose formal government processes, counterinsurgency

operations and other forms of containment strategies paved the way for big businesses to

exploit Mindanao’s resources. The exploitations and oppressions were manifested through

cattle ranching, agricultural plantations, logging and later on, through mining. On the surface,

the Americans showed a benevolent approach towards the Lumads by establishing farm

schools and by mediating in trade between citizens so that the Lumads will not be oppressed

by the landed elites. However, this style of assimilation became a gateway for them to extract
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cheap labor and resources in the long run to satisfy their capitalist desires and needs – a

mechanism that is still feeding oppression in the Philippines until today.

MILITARIZATION IN LUMAD COMMUNITIES & RED TAGGING

Up until today, oppression of the Lumad people is still alive in another form. The presence of

a system that perpetuates structural discrimination is still in place and what is worse is that

this is promoted by the state that promised to protect its people. This is seen through the

massive militarization in Mindanao. This state-sponsored action is advanced by the neoliberal

framework of economy in which Lumads are being oppressed to serve the expansion of

agricultural plantations and other extractive industries for foreign and local capitals.

Militarization has taken place through attacks on Lumad schools which threw children out of

gaining education (Alamon 118). In light of these school attacks, Lumad communities are

facing the risk of being red-tagged by the state. On one hand, this is because of certain

assumptions that educators are teaching communist propaganda materials to students which

are linked to the ideology of CPP-NPA. On the other hand, the red-tagging of Lumads is

being justified because of the close affiliation of the CPP-NPA with the plights of the

peasantry in which majority of the IP are part of (Alamon 164). Moreover, there have been

systemic attacks on indigenous leaders and other individuals especially since the Aquino

administration until today (Alamon 119). The militarization that is taking place in Mindanao

is being perpetuated by military and paramilitary groups (community-based

counterinsurgency units). These groups exist to subjugate ancestral domains and cultures in

order to be used for the gains of local and foreign capitalists. Mostly, these domains are part

of the 50,000 hectare landmass of Mindanao that is very lucrative for mining concessions.

Because of these cruelties, the Lumads are forced to evacuate their homes in search of

another settlement without any assurance if they can survive and can access their basic rights

and needs.
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TOWARDS EMANCIPATION

Despite the historical and structural oppression that the Lumads have experienced and are still

experiencing, they are very active in battling these to ensure their freedom. The call for unfair

laws is one step for them to release themselves from the chains. They are insistent in junking

the Indigenous People’s Rights Act as they consider this as a big loophole that will continue

to oppress them through leasing of lands to large-scale agricultural enterprises that will pay

rental fees despite the risks behind it (Alamon 138). Moreover, they are also against the

Mining Act of 1995. In fully gaining emancipation, the Lumads are also determined to assert

their demands to the state to respect their culture, land and their right to basic social services

that will allow them to thrive in their local communities. With this, collective actions such as

activism have become one of their pillars to assert their demands on the state that is

continuously participating in their oppression.

Throughout history, the Lumads were not ceased by the systemic oppression of

imperialists and the state. Yes, they were downgraded, turned into second class citizens and

sold for cheap labor, but they will eternally show resistance to shield their rights and identity.

Their plight will forever be heard by the masses and at the end of the day, together with those

who are oppressed with the long-standing system of imperialism and neoliberalism, they will

reclaim what is truly theirs from the beginning of their formation.

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WORK CITED LIST

Alamon, Arnold. Wars of Extinction: Discrimination and the Lumad Struggle in Mindanao.

RMP-NMR, Inc., 2017.

Corpuz, OD. An economic history of the Philippines. UP Press, 1997.

Nansin, Karin. “Murder of Indigenous peoples in Philippines as blatant human rights abuses

continue”. 14 Dec. 2017, https://www.foei.org/features/murder-indigenous-peoples-

philippines-blatant-human-rights-abuses-continue. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

Rodil, B. R. The minoritization of the indigenous communities of Mindanao and the Sulu

archipelago. AFRIM, Inc., 1994.

Save Our Schools Network. Lumad killing urgent alert. Facebook, 18 Mar. 2019, 11:24 p.m.,

https://www.facebook.com/saveourschoolsnetwork/photos/a.707089432696755/2574

253785980301/?type=3&theater. Accessed 19 Mar. 2019.

United Nations Development Program. “Fast facts: Indigenous People in the Philippines”. 24

Jul. 2013,

http://www.ph.undp.org/content/philippines/en/home/library/democratic_governance/

FastFacts-IPs.html. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.