Profile on the Tribal Filipinos: they came for recognition

By Media Mindanao News Service

News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988 Posted by Davao Today

The recognition as a people is still the main agendum among the Tribal Filipinos in their historical bid to boot out continuing dislocation and marginalization and other forms of oppressions by “majority Filipinos.”

Honorato Magdasang, Mandaya Chieftain revealed that although recognition was “granted” through the Presidential Assistance for National Minorities (PANAMIN), they are still classified “third class” citizens. His stint as the national Project Operations Officer for PANAMIN in 1984 did not result to substantial upliftment for the condition of the tribal Filipinos. His plans and projects for the tribal communities were often debunked by bureaucratic controls and undisclosed payolas.

Nevertheless, the struggle for recognition as a people does not end in it nor is a useless passion. The tribal Filipinos are yet to fence in their rich cultural heritage against the onslaught for the Christian “chauvinist” tradition and the “cannibalizing civilized” society.

Sprouting Christian sects and denomination often convince them to “change” their “barbaric” ways — including their “uncivilized” costumes. And “civilized majority Filipinos” constantly lure them to the unsatiable passions for fashion and high-heeled living.

“They (the majority Filipinos and Christian pastors) want us to swallow their “luscious” food and live in cemented houses when we are not used to these. What if they leave us? I am sure we will be craving for the things they have forcibly injected into our simple lives. We ultimately become pitiable,” quipped Magdagasang who deplored the ways majority Filipinos and Christian preachers are gradually eliminating their tradition and practices.

The tribal communities are further pushed to the limits of nature. They are always at the mercy of the landgrabbing by big landowners and transnational companies (TNC) protected by legal titles as against their claim to the ancestral lands they have held as sacred. Magdagasang declared his strong opposition to the massive incursion of TNCs in Mindanao saying that these were responsible for the illegal acquisition and destruction of tribal lands, which have been theirs for centuries and fertiled with the “sweat and blood” of their ancestors.

In most instances, both Christianity and TNCs, he added, were responsible for the disunity among his people. More and more tribal people are “deviously” acculturated to be used against fellow tribals.

“Look, who are these nuns, priests and pastors who are Mandayas? They are the very exploiters and oppressors of their fellow Mandayas and tribal Filipinos,” Magdagasang pointed out.

Magdagasang continued: “They (the acculturated tribal people) forgot their origin. One thing they can not erase is the fact that without us, there can be no them; but there can be us without them (Media Mindanao News Service News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988 Posted by Davao Today)