LEADERS of 10 indigenous organizations, with Muslim and Christian human-rights advocates, recently planted mahogany seedlings as a symbol of their unity in the European Union-funded project Healing the Hurt. “This act symbolizes the strong foundation of our collaboration in this project,” said Sis.Ma. Famita Somogod, MSM, the sub-regional coordinator of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Subregion.
“We need to be united to heal the wounds that have been wrought in our hearts and minds by years of being pitted against each other—especially against our Lumad brothers and sisters who have fought hard to retain their traditions and culture. This is the core of our project.”
The Healing the Hurt project was launched at Barangay Balit in San Luis, Agusan del Sur. The project, led by the RMP-NMR, is an interfaith initiative aimed at addressing the state of marginalization and discrimination of the indigenous peoples.
“It is a great joy for us to know that there are people from outside [our community] who are helping us,” Datu Mambalanse from Barangay Mahayag, San Luis, Agusan del Sur, said.
“We are very happy that other people want to see, want to know about our situation.” The project launch was held at the hospital compound in Barangay Balit, where more than a thousand Banwaons have sought sanctuary from militarization of their villages. “This was to emphasize the grounding of the project on concrete issues of the indigenous communities,” Somogod said. The project focuses on protecting the indigenous peoples’ human rights, and strengthening their indigenous traditional structures and community-based organizations. Strong organizations are the indigenous communities’ best defense against threats to their rights.
Before the evacuation of the Banwaon families, Chairman Necasio “Angis” Precioso of Barangay Balit and also a vocal defender of his tribe’s ancestral domain, was shot in broad daylight on December 22 last year. The local organization, Tagdumahan, of which Presioso had been the founding chairman, had been campaigning against the intrusion of mining and extractive activities in the area.
“We simply want to have freedom in our ancestral territories,” Datu Malayudan from Barangay Mahagsay, San Luis, said. “We need to fight for our rights, for our culture and our traditions that are being violated. The entry of mining and other extractive industries in our ancestral domain will only result in miseries of our families. The development that they are bringing is not the development that we need.
Our ancestral domain must be respected so we could farm in peace, without fear.” The project brings together the different religious groups in Mindanao—the Lumad (animistic), the Muslims and the Christians. “The project connects the church people to the issue of the integrity of creation and the defense of human rights—right to life, to live and to a living here on earth,” said Bishop Raul Amorcillio of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. “This is a venue to promote the rights of the indigenous peoples and the defense of their ancestral domain.
“The project focuses on the wholeness of nature and on human dignity; and entails the participation of the church people in healing the wound inflicted by the violations of human rights; the wound borne out from the defense of the ancestral domains against large plantations and mines, the wound in the destruction of traditions and the culture of the lumad. It also helps shape the right relationship among God, His people, nature and the community as a whole.”
The launch was attended by at least 150 individuals from different institutions, the bulk coming from religious organizations. The project is co-implemented by the Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization, Ibon Foundation, Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao and the Community-Based Health Services.