'We will not be ignored again,' say lumad in prospective Bangsamoro

From InterAksyon (Apr 13): 'We will not be ignored again,' say lumad in prospective Bangsamoro



Map showing the ancestral domain of the Teduray Lambangian in Maguindanao

Indigenous people in the prospective Bangsamoro have informed President Benigno Aquino III that they will not allow themselves to be ignored again and will pursue the delineation of their ancestral lands within the new territory.

“Although a handful individuals are critical and not happy about this development and even misinterpret this as causing harm to the peace process -- there’s no stopping now,” leaders of the Teduray, Lambangian, Dulangan Manobo, Erumanen ne Manuvu, Obo Manobo tribes said in an open letter to Aquino.

In the letter, they informed Aquino that they were working with the National Commission on Indigenous People with the delineation of their ancestral lands within the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which will eventually be dissolved to give way for the new Bangsamoro territory under the terms of the peace agreement between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

“After seeking guidance from our ancestors, we decided to do what is just and fair to our children’s children -- to carefully prepare the small space for our tribes to thrive as distinct peoples and contribute to the new tomorrow that waits for us in the Bangsamoro,” the tribal leaders said.

There are more than 100,000 lumad within the ARMM who lay claim to an ancestral domain that spans 300,000 hectares of land and coastal waters within 12 municipalities of Maguindanao and parts of neighboring Sultan Kudarat province.

The lumad leaders said what they seek is to be a ““minority of the minority” within the Bangsamoro and that the reaction to the delineation process would determine if this was possible.

Earlier, indigenous people within the ARMM, which was created through the peace agreement between government and the Moro National Liberation Front, said they had been left out of the pact and its aftermath, mainly by the failure to include the autonomous region in the coverage of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act or even set up an office of the NCIP.

Because of this, the lumad leaders said that since 2005, they “have been supportive all the way” of the peace negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and had constantly sent proposals and position papers to both sides and engaged them in dialogues since 2005.
The Bangsamoro Transition Commission drafting the law that will create the new entity also has two lumad representatives.

Despite this, they asked: “What have happened to the many years of our engagement with the government, our own LGUs (local government units), the MILF and OPAPP (Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process)? Where have all our proposals gone? Are we to expect the same treatment and inattention to happen to our submissions to the BTC?”

The tribal leaders said that while the framework and comprehensive agreements on the Bangsamoro “may have answered consensus points for the Moro peoples,” they had “raised a lot of crucial questions for us indigenous peoples:

1. Why was the (IPRA), the very law that protects our rights as Indigenous Peoples not included in the FAB, Annexes and the CAB? And therefore, we believe that our rights won’t be significantly entrenched in the BBL (Bangsamoro Basic Law). The IPRA, which is supposed to be a national law and thereby set as the minimum standard for any legal reforms, has obviously been put aside. It is our national law. It forms the legal basis for our assertion of our rights in any proposition, including the Bangsamoro. In our view, government had surrendered our rights to a political entity, which has yet to prove or even earn its mantle to govern.
2. Isn’t it that by empowering and providing us our rights to govern our own territory, exercising our culture and recognizing that we are distinct peoples part of the over all peace process?  But where are we in the entire picture? Are we talking about a different peace in the Bangsamoro?
3. How can we address a competing and contradictory policy over land and ancestral domains by the peace actors themselves? Government instrumentalities are supporting us for as long as the ARMM is not yet abolished; they say that IPRA can still take effect. In apparent contradiction, the MILF Central Committee publicly stated their position on a single ancestral domain and not allowing AD delineation processes (refer to April 1 Editorial, Luwaran, official publication of MILF).
4. Can the executive branch of the government lead the way to finally overcome the problematics of the IPRA in the ARMM?  We are humbly appealing your esteemed intervention to inspire the process and break this impasse.”

The open letter stressed that the lumad “are not and will never be spoilers, free riders, or even ill-minded whisperers of some sort. Our open, honest yet critically constructive support to the peace process through the early years will bear us out. We remain fully supportive of your administration’s efforts to reach a just and sustainable peace in the Bangsamoro and beyond.”

They said they consider Aquino a “kefeduwan” or indigenous peacemaker “in-the-making,” a title he will have deserved when “you come over to our villages as a full-fledged ‘kefeduwan’.”

Only then, they said, “we can say that peace is really at hand. A genuine peace for all.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/84715/we-will-not-be-ignored-again-say-lumad-in-prospective-bangsamoro