NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/5932

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Subject: Philippines: CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE
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The ACTivist July/August 92

The ACTivist is published monthly (one issue during July and August)
by the ACT for Disarmament Coalition, 736 Bathurst St., Toronto,
Ontario, Canada, M5S 2R4, phone [phone], fax [phone],
e-mail web:act.

Reprint freely, but please credit us (and send us a copy!)

/** gen.newsletter: 121.21 **/
** Written 11:35 pm  Aug 11, 1992 by web:act in cdp:gen.newsletter **
CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE

By May Primera
Special to The ACTivist

With my eyes closed, I could still feel the dust on my face as the
"skylab" roared through the scabrous path and past the verdant
groves. "Skylab" was the name the villagers had given the puny
motorbike that could seat six people -- one person in front of the
driver, two behind him and two on each side of the horizontal slab
of wood tied tightly to its rear like an outrigger. The unsuspecting
bike could run more than 60 mph on the narrow dirt roads and
uncleared pathways. There are no traffic patrol guards this side of
Southern Philippines. Only armalite-toting men in faded fatigues.

I came from Manila where the dirt is less organic, to the far bucolic
 south, to write a story about indigenous Filipinos who were driven
away from their ancestral lands by the private army of a rich
Chinese-Filipino businessman. I travelled for a day from Davao City
to South Cotabato with two community organizers, riding on skylabs,
walking on a hanging bridge and crossing the river on the back of
a water buffalo. Our four-hour bus ride was interrupted for 15
minutes by military men who searched the rusting vehicle and
frisked the male passengers. "Last week it was the NPAs (New
People's Army, the opposition guerrilla army) who were manning
this checkpoint," the passengers said, casually laughing away the
constantly threatened 'peace and order situation'.

I finally met the terrified indigenous T'bolis in a remote barrio
building makeshift huts from palm leaves and sharing with each
other what little food they could harvest from the land. They
offered us delicious rice coffee and boiled cassava, a staple for the
 hardworking farmers. Then the stories were told.

The T'bolis have lived in South Cotabato since time immemorial.
It was they who named some of the towns and barrios here. They
are among the 4.5 million members of some 40 indigenous
communities living in the remote interiors of Luzon, Mindanao,
and some islands of Visayas. Like the rest of the indigenous peoples,
T'bolis have a distinct language and culture, having been least
influenced by Christianity and Hispanization. To escape colonization,
 some of these tribal folks withdrew to the hinterlands while
others stood their ground successfully.

But their existence as distinct peoples of the Philippines continues
to be threatened by land-grabbing lowlanders, the encroachment
of multinational corporations, militarization, and so-called
development projects of the government.

The T'bolis I visited were among the casualties of the
government's neglect and lack of clearcut policies on ancestral
land claims. They were victims of the government's lack of political
will to go after violators of human rights, in this case the private
army of a landowner created supposedly to protect property from
 communist rebels, but in fact used against these peaceable
people.

The tribespeople told us how their straw houses were strafed
five days before we arrived. When the frightened T'bolis came
out of their houses clutching children and meagre belongings to
 their chests, the armed men poured gasoline on the huts and
told the people never to come back. "If you come back, we will
kill you all," one tribeswoman remembered the armed men
as saying. About 300 families were displaced as a result of the
vicious attack. Although no one was reported killed, many were
wounded and at least ten men were brutally beaten with armalite
butts.

For three days and three nights they stayed in the woods, near a
creek where the cows of the businessman drank. They were
eventually found by the ranch guards and chased away with
gunfire. "Even our children were shot at," they said. Cattle get
better treatment here than human beings.

They dispersed in small groups and sought assistance from
the church. Some travelled on foot for days to reach their
relatives' homes, homes of people who have momentarily given
up fighting for their land and have rebuilt in other remote areas.

The land of the T'bolis, from which they were driven, is 5,000
hectares of plains where hundreds of cattle graze. "As far as
the eyes can see," Carlos Blusan, the tribe spokesperson,
described the land's vastness. Formerly called Lacag, it was
renamed ANSA Farms, after the names of the landowner
and his partner.

The strafing and burning of the T'bolis' houses in November,
1990, was, at the time, the most violent of the series of demolitions
since the beginning of the 1980s when T'bolis started reoccupying
 the land they believe to be theirs. Antonio Nocom, the businessman
 to whom the title of the land belongs, was said to have duped
the tribal elders into signing away their land rights in the early
60s. The guileless tribesmen were made to believe that the papers
were just a permission for the businessman to raise a few goats
on their land. "A week later, cows were brought in and the
lowlanders started building fences. The fences grew bigger
and bigger until our parents came home from the farm one day
to find their houses demolished and fenced in," the dusky,
strong-jawed Blusan related.

But the stubborn men and women were unfazed. They kept
coming back and rebuilding even as the keepers of the ranch
kept destroying. The farmhands would lead cattle to the
Tbolis' farms to trample and graze on their corn and other farm
crops. They accused tribesmen of stealing cows and then beat
them up beyond recognition. The tribe told the story of a man
named Alex, whose flesh was sliced thinly with a bolo in front
of his neighbours: "This is the way to slice a cow's meat," a
T'boli woman, Neneng, recalled the man as saying while Alex
screamed in agony.

The reality is, 20 per cent of the 60 million population of the
Philippines own 80 per cent of the lands. Philippine governments,
which have a long history of elitism, have been known to cater to
the needs of the rich and their visions of industrialization. Thus,
it stands impotent as weathly and powerful landgrabbers drive
tribal families away from the lands they have inhabited for
centuries.

The survival of the indigenous peoples' culture and way of life
is imperilled by the government's inconsiderate policies of
allowing the construction of various "development" projects
like hydroelectric dams, without prior consultation with the
local tribespeople. These projects, which invade ancestral lands,
do not serve to improve the lives of the tribespeople. On the
contrary, the structures have caused the destruction of their
traditional way of life.

A friend of mine who works for TABAK -- the Alliance of
Advocates for Indigenous Peoples' Rights -- wrote to me recently
about the killing of one of the tribal leaders of the Lacag T'bolis.
She also reported how the area -- now declared by the military
as a no-man's-land -- was bombed by the same armed elements
after the tenacious T'bolis tried to reoccupy it last year.

The creation of private armies is just one aspect of the
militarization going on in the Philippines. In 1987, when peace
negotiations between the government and the revolutionary
group called the National Democratic Front failed to result in a
compromise, the government adopted a "Total War Policy" aimed
at wiping out insurgency by 1992. Thousands of troops were
deployed and continue to be sent into areas believed to be
occupied by the New Peoples' Army. Vigilante groups were formed
including private armies to quell dissent and silence the poor
peasants who are asking for land rights.

Cause-oriented groups, the churches and people's organizations
are one in denouncing the senseless slaughter of the innocents
caught in the crossfire of this bitter conflict. Non-government
organizations committed to working towards genuine development
for the people urge the international community to pressure the
Philippine government to negotiate anew with the NDF and other
rebelling forces for a just and lasting peace. It should be a peace
based on the resolution of the fundamental problems of Philippine
society that have spawned widespread social unrest. One that
would take into consideration the issues that presently confront
women, children, the environment and the indigenous peoples.

May Primera is a journalist from the Philippines, now based
in Toronto.

** End of text from cdp:gen.newsletter **