Oppressed But Fighting
Oppression has many faces and is committed in various ways but nothing could beat that of a tribal community that had been coerced to live with cows. How was that? Here’s the story. That happened in Panalsalan, Maramag, Bukidnon when a rich then Congressman from the Visayas region visited the barangay (called a barrio then). He came one Christmas Day in 1969 distributing “gifts,” P20 per family (in the ‘60s, P20 is now equivalent to P2,000). A month later, that powerful Congressman came back with his armed cowboys, fencing the barangay with six-feet high barbwire claiming that those “gifts” were his payment for the land, converting the barangay into a ranch. I personally had seen the terrible face of oppression as a young student leader then and as Editor of the School Organ of a nearby State University. I published an article entitled, “A Barrio in a Cage.” It was by all means a barangay with a chapel, an elementary school, a barangay hall and hundreds of houses but was fenced like a “concentration camp.” So difficult to live with cows, I wrote then, because cows would enter the school premises and would even dirty the chapel. Worse, cows were destroying cornfields and all other crops in the farms, to the detriment of the tribe’s livelihood, a gross violation of their basic human rights to food and livelihood. Every time they would drive away the cows to protect their crops, they would be arrested for “malicious mischief.” In fact, 19 Manobos had to sleep in prison in Maramag for just shooing away the cows eating their corn.
So desperate that a father had mixed poison in the food of his family and when everyone was dead, he drank the remaining poison. Going around the barangay, I saw a burnt house and was told that a man burned his own house to end it all. That happened five decades ago but until now the picture of the barangay heavily fenced imprisoning some 500 Manobo families, victims of oppression and gross violation of their basic human rights are still vivid in the inner recesses of my thoughts. When as a young 16-yr. old editor, I exposed and stood firmly to help, I was threatened by the armed cowboys and in fact, branded as a leftist and even imprisoned. That was how powerful that Congressman was. But such “red-tagging” had no basis, just harassment, thus I was released.
Today, as a journalist, I continue exposing the pitiful life of our Indigenous Peoples especially here in Mindanao who are the most oppressed but are not getting due attention. Now I discovered the painful truism that what happened in Panalasan, Maramag, Bukidnon is just a “tip of the iceberg.” In Barobo, Valencia, Bukidnon, the 150-hectare farmland of the Indigenous People which my two lawyer siblings fought successfully in court which decided in their favor was land-grabbed by a rich and powerful well-known family whose security force called Tagbagani headed by Col. Aleander Noble put-up a machine gun on top of a hill, fencing the area and not allowing the farmers to enter, despite the strong stand of the DAR under Provincial Agrarian Reform Officer (PARO) Amora then that the tribe had already been issued a Certificate of Land Ownership Agreement (CLOA). Thus, we initiated a WALK FOR A CAUSE in 1997 to Manila and went to Camp Crame for the rule of law to prevail based on the legal basis that the AFP should support the farmer-beneficiaries if disallowed to enter their land by armed men.
With a firm resolve to implement the rule of law, thus upon returning back to Bukidnon, we used People Power to enter their farmland and dared the armed men of the Security Force to shoot us, out of the bravery of my late lawyer-brother Atty. Maning together with the late PARO Amora. Because of that amazing courageous act of my brother who recently passed away, no less than then Pres. Fidel Ramos ordered the entry of the tribal farmers. This wonderful one of its kind victories can be googled in YOU TUBE, entitled, “Chronicle of Land Redeemed.” To our gallant beloved brother, the late Atty, Manuel Ravanera whose legal services to the oppressed IPs all those years were all for free in the spirit of love and service, our firm salute and warm embrace!
What was so painful was what happened in San Vicente, Sumilao, Bukidnon when in 2016, the 5,000-hectare ancestral domain of the Manolo Tribe headed by Bae Merlita Mayantao was fenced as a ranch by a powerful Ramcar Corporation. When the tribe did protest through mass action one early morning, barrage of bullets fired upon them by the Tagbagani Security Force, killing three tribal members including a son of Bae Merlita and wounding three more. Until now, no one has been arrested as justice is so elusive against the rich and powerful. Shall we again do another Walk for a Cause? With the massive conversion now of the blessed land of Mindanao which are the ancestral domain of the Indigenous Peoples who are now living in hunger and extreme poverty, what shall we do to stop such horrible travesty of social justice? Shall we allow the painful truism to continue that the enrichment of a few rich and powerful oligarchs and foreign corporations in cohort with powers-that-be means the displacement and impoverishment of the millions of IPs? Such is a great social injustice contrary to what has been declared in the 1987 Constitution that, “The State shall promote social justice in all phases of national development. “Another empty Constitutional rhetoric like the Constitutional prohibition of political dynasties which has not been implemented at all since 1987,
What is so painful which must be the focus of our advocacy to counter in a civilized and Chrisian society is that, every time they would stand to resist, they are being killed. In fact, since 2016, some 101 Chieftains and Lady Chieftains have already been the victims of Extra Judicial Killings (EJKs), some of them were environmental allies who are so passionate in protecting God’s vanishing creation and in advocating for social justice. It is about time to now expose these horrible social injustices to fight for what is right, what is true and what is just. Are we Filipinos for oppression or for liberation? If we come together as one collective force for liberation, we will surely win. As it has been said, EL PUEBLO UNIDO, NO MAS SERA VINCIDO! (The People United, Can Never Be Defeated)
As has been said, there are two kinds of people now living on earth. The first kind are those who use whatever talent and skills they must to serve the poor and the oppressed, to protect God’s vanishing creation and to live with love in one’s heart for people, planet, prosperity and peace whose devotion is to maximize values. This is based on the biblical statement that, “What would profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul.” If you are that kind of person, you will be mocked, isolated, charged in court or even imprisoned and killed. Such is res ipsa loquitor (the thing speaks for itself) in our country that is giving high veneration to the profit motive. The other kind of people are those whose skills and talents are used to have more money, to serve the rich and powerful for them to earn more, to live for self-aggrandizement, to seek instant wealth, fame and power and some even become successful politicians. Majority of the people belong to this category, to live a prosperous and luxurious life, buried in unbridled materialism and consumerism, to have dominion over the earth. In that way, they will be admired, praised and even idolized. Their vision is to maximize consumer goods and short-term profit, to live in palace-like mansions with beautiful cars, to maximize fame and power never to maximize values because it is the Satanic ego that is in control. Remember what Jesus said, ‘DENY THYSELF.” Yes, deny the ego.
It is in this context that we Filipinos should know what King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, “Wealth, fame and power are meaningless, utterly meaningless.” That had been the firm stand of one who was a powerful King who had everything then. What matters is how we have exemplified oneness with all of God’s creation with love in our heart and serving the least of our brethren. When one debunks the mundane, he goes to the sublime, gaining consciousness which what really matters and which is all there is. When oneness with all life especially with the poor and the oppressed Indigenous Peoples looms in the life of the Filipino people, then liberation time has come, never oppression. MAHALIN PO NATIN ANG ATING KAPWA LALO NA PO ANG MGA INAAPI DAHIL SILA PO AY TAO NA NILALANG NG PANGINOON HINDI PO SILA BASURA. Yes, in helping the poor and the oppressed, in protecting God’s vanishing creation, we might be killed as what happened to our environmental colleagues. But no problem. Nothing to fear. Whan that happens, which we pray will not, we will certainly end up in God’s loving embrace, to the Unseen Being, the Ocean of Consciousness which what is all there is!
