Indigenous group occupies Bukidnon ranch in Phillipines

1st Octo­ber 2008
MARAMAG, Bukid­non — Mem­bers of an indige­nous group in the vil­lages of Panal­salan and Dagum­baan in Mara­m­ag, Bukid­non, occu­pied and plant­ed crops on a 520-hectare land that used to be the cat­tle ranch of for­mer Kibawe May­or Ernesto Vil­lalon.

1st Octo­ber 2008
MARAMAG, Bukid­non — Mem­bers of an indige­nous group in the vil­lages of Panal­salan and Dagum­baan in Mara­m­ag, Bukid­non, occu­pied and plant­ed crops on a 520-hectare land that used to be the cat­tle ranch of for­mer Kibawe May­or Ernesto Vil­lalon.

Say­ing they have to avert food short­age in their com­mu­ni­ties, 100 mem­bers of the Panal­salan Dagum­baan Trib­al Asso­ci­a­tion (Pada­ta) plant­ed fruit trees and corn in the ranch pend­ing the approval of their Com­mu­ni­ty-based For­est Man­age­ment (CBFM) appli­ca­tion for prop­er­ty.

Vil­lalon’s For­est Land Graz­ing Lease Agree­ment (FLGLA) No. 1816 expired on Decem­ber 1997. Its con­trol thus tech­ni­cal­ly revert­ed to the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources (DENR). Since the place is moun­tain­ous and is part of the Kulkul Range and clas­si­fied as tim­ber­land, the new set­tlers claimed it is viable for the CBFM pro­gram.

Pada­ta chief Datu Hen­ry Aslag had applied for a CBFM at the office of the DENR but the depart­ment has not act­ed on the mat­ter yet.

CBFM is a strat­e­gy for sus­tain­able for­est devel­op­ment that address­es rur­al pover­ty and pro­mot­ing social jus­tice. Under this pro­gram, the com­mu­ni­ty or actu­al res­i­dents in a pro­duc­tion for­est are the de fac­to man­agers of the land, allow­ing them to devel­op, uti­lize and con­serve spe­cif­ic por­tions of the for­est lands with­in a 25-year pro­duc­tion-shar­ing agree­ment.

The grow­ing pover­ty inci­dence in these two vil­lages caused the indige­nous group to apply for CBFM and occup­py the tim­ber­land that had been under DENR super­vi­sion since 1997.

Aslag jus­ti­fied this, say­ing: “In order to sur­vive, 70 per­cent of our mem­bers eke out a liv­ing as sea­son­al agri-work­ers of a near­by banana plan­ta­tion earn­ing a mea­ger P70-100 dai­ly. We must start plant­i­ng before we run out of bud­get to buy NFA rice.”

DENR data show that the total for­est land area in Bukid­non is 669,576 hectares, com­prised of 187,548 hectares of pro­duc­tion for­est and 481,978 hectares of pro­tec­tion for­est.

To date, only 15 per­cent or 26,977.9 hectares of the total pro­duc­tion for­est has CBFM appli­ca­tion. When approved, Pada­ta would be the 48th CBFM hold­er in the province.

“Embrac­ing the spir­it of CBFM which pro­motes social jus­tice, we appeal to Sec­re­tary Atien­za to grant our CBFM appli­ca­tion the ear­li­est time pos­si­ble,” said Aslag, a leader of the Talaandig tribe.

He also urged the office of the Nation­al Com­mis­sion on Indige­nous Peo­ple (NCIP) to expe­dite the Free Pri­or Informed Con­sent (FPIC) process which is a require­ment before DENR shall approve their CBFM appli­ca­tion.

Pada­ta also sub­mit­ted to Sec­re­tary Atien­za a peti­tion for denial of Vil­lalon’s lease renew­al after the DENR region­al office endorsed the said appli­ca­tion despite the absence of a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion from the NCIP.

“We actu­al­ly ques­tion the action of DENR Region­al Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Max­i­mo Dichoso. We do not want to believe that there is a con­nivance between Vil­lalon and the DENR region­al office behind Sec­re­tary Atien­za­’s watch,” said Aslag.

He argued that it will be unrea­son­able for DENR to retain Vil­lalon’s ranch because of his fail­ure to devel­op the land for cat­tle graz­ing by giv­ing up his con­trol over around 150 hectares to farm­ers.

Aslag said that the most effec­tive approach to revive the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the land and con­serve the for­est is to rather dis­trib­ute the land to land­less farm­ers through CBFM