The fugitive of Talaingod
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TALAINGOD, Davao del Norte — Datu Guibang Apoga, the chieftain of the Ata-Manobo tribe in the hinterlands of Talaingod, has been in hiding for a decade now.
In the lowlands of Mindanao, his face is prominently displayed on posters in bus terminals and police stations as one of the most wanted persons in Southern Mindanao. In the uplands, he is being hunted down by government-backed tribal vigilantes.
In 1997, a warrant of arrest was issued against Datu Guibang and 25 other leaders of his tribe who had fought, using their spears and arrows, the armed goons of C. Alcantara and Sons (Alsons), a logging company and manufacturer of Ecowood plywood whose expansion encroached into the tribal lands of the Ata Manobos. Ironically, it was also the year when the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA), which purported to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, was signed into law by then President Fidel Ramos.
How the Ata-Manobo datu has come into hiding is a long story that began with the encroachment of big companies into the tribe’s ancestral lands. As the tribe urged other Mindanao tribes to withdraw their certificates of ancestral domain titles (CADT) and scrap the IPRA, the struggle of this fugitive datu and other Mindanao tribes is not about to end soon.
The First Encroachment
In 1991, Alsons encroached into the Ata Manobo territories when it initiated tree planting activities in Talaingod after the government approved its Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA). Through IFMA, logging companies like Alsons, whose Timber License Agreement (TLA) had expired, were able to convert their logging concessions into commercial timber plantations.
Man on the Run. Datu Guibang Apoga, shown here in an interview with Davao Today in the mountains of Talaingod in 2006, promises to keep fighting for his dispossessed people. (davaotoday.com photo)
Owned by the powerful Alcantara family whose members include top officials in the Ramos and Arroyo regimes, Alsons was working out, in the early ’90s, an application to increase the coverage of its operations from 19,000 to 45,000 hectares — an area that practically covers the entire Talaingod. At around this time, Paul Dominguez, a member of the Alcantara business and political dynastry, was the presidential assistant for Mindanao.
(To learn more about Alsons’ business practices, read this special report in The Manila Times in 2003.)
Talaingod had just been turned into a town, with former Alsons security guard, Jose Libayao, lording over it as mayor. Libayao was an Ata Manobo. He was not from Talaingod but from Mapula, in Paquibato District, Davao City. He signed the agreement that put the entire Talaingod area under Alson’s IFMA. The plan also included relocating Ata-Manobo communities into a 5,000 hectare relocation site.
Datu Guibang and his fellow tribal leaders fiercely opposed the proposal. The datus agreed to unite in defense of their land.
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October 24th, 2007 at 12:50 am
this is just a really sad story.
with all the deals the government is making with Australia and China as well as the US in making the Mindanao island a star for economic gains in the next few years, stories like these never seem to arise.
When someone takes land or property, another party eventually loses it. And it is a crime when losing it, especially in this case, was done with malice, mal-intent, and outright crime against the indeginous people of that region.
And futhermore, it saddens me that the Datu’s plight from prosecution has been 10 years! But i garner strength from his willingness to display disobedience to ensure the survival of his people, and the acknowlegement of the the government/corporations ills.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:52 am
actually, i would like followup stories on how arroyo is dealing with this problem…i know there were land disputes in bicol island of rapu-rapu also…
and furthermore, i heard through hearsay that arroyo is in charge of the UN council for indeginous rights? maybe i’m wrong.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
different place, different face…the same story, the same plight.
maski asa ani na gyud. lahi lang nga character pero murag mag fill in the blanks na lang gyud ta ani. when writing stories like this.
March 6th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I was once visited the place. It was already denuded. We noticed some NGO’s are planting trees in the area, giving assistance to the communities…and it should be the governments concern but where are they?
Sad to say but the government in the area is “trapo”. They wished things for their own. They are not concerned to the welfare of the lumads. Lumads just stand for their rights. I wish to come back soon to the area, and hoping that the Salugpungan will still stand. “Kaisa niyo ako sa inyong pakikibaka sa kalikasan”
March 6th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
The Pantaron range, a virgin forest within the range of the Salugpungan group, a place where u can still see all the wild animals a forest must have, the Talaingod government wanted to destruct. See how ediot the government is. It’s a plan of a dull…a dull who knows nothing. What a fuck the gov’t is!
July 16th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
i met datu guibang when i was still in college. i was a student writer, eager for the world, hungry for experiences. i went to talaingod in 2001 to see the condition of the Lumads there. nothing prepared me for their horrific ordeal and their valiant struggle for their rights. to say that it was an eye-opener is an understatement. since then, the dauntless datu guibang has become a personal inspiration.