Paramilitaries Shoot at Tribe Over “Forest Reserves” in Philippines

17th May 2014. The Asian Human Rights Com­mis­sion (AHRC) is deeply con­cerned, and demands an inves­ti­ga­tion into the actions of the secu­ri­ty guards and their employ­er land­lord for shoot­ing at, and hold­ing at gun­point, indige­nous peo­ple who were to occu­py their ances­tral land in Que­zon, Bukid­non.

In their mis­sion report, titled: “‘Pakighiusa’: Sol­i­dar­i­ty Mis­sion to Mem­bers of TINDOGA in Sup­port of Their Strug­gle for Land and Life,” pre­pared by Rur­al Mis­sion­ar­ies of the Philip­pines, North­ern Min­danao Sub-Region, it not­ed that the armed secu­ri­ty guards indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at Manobo-Pulangi­hons tribes on April 23 pur­pose­ly to dri­ve them away from their land.

The indige­nous tribe, com­posed of 530 fam­i­lies are from four clans, are led by Datu San­tiano “Andong” Agda­han. They had already been rec­og­nized as the right­ful own­ers of the 623 hectares of land as part of their ances­tral domain. Datu Agda­han also heads the TINDOGA (Trib­al Indige­nous Oppressed Group Asso­ci­a­tion).

On April 23, in sup­port of their claim, the tribes were accom­pa­nied by offi­cials from the nation­al and local gov­ern­ment agen­cies, notably the Nation­al Com­mis­sion for the Indige­nous Peo­ple (NCIP), the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment, and the police.

But at around 1pm, armed secu­ri­ty guards, report­ed­ly work­ing for Mr. Pablo “Pol­ing” Loren­zo III, who claims to be the own­er of Ran­cho Mon­tal­van, were deployed, and alleged­ly indis­crim­i­nate­ly shot at the group. They also held “12 indi­vid­u­als at gun point,” five of whom were women, and three were minors.

The armed men delib­er­ate­ly con­cealed their iden­ti­ties by not wear­ing their uni­forms. Most of them wore black long sleeves; their faces are either cov­ered with bal­a­clavas or shirts.

The AHRC is of the opin­ion that the use of force and intim­i­da­tion, by shoot­ing at the indige­nous peo­ple and hold­ing them at gun­point; was done pur­pose­ly to fright­en and intim­i­date this group of indige­nous peo­ple claim­ing their right to occu­py their ances­tral land.

It is report­ed that even though the NCIP has already declared the 623 hectares are the ances­tral domain of the Manobo-Pulangi­hons, “only 70 hectares were allot­ted for use of the claimants. The rest were clas­si­fied as for­est reserves. Inter­est­ing­ly, what is sup­posed to be for­est reserves are most­ly plant­ed with “sug­ar­cane and pineap­ple.”

The AHRC urges the gov­ern­ment to hold account­able Ma. Shir­lene D. Sario the provin­cial offi­cer of the NCIP, for alleged­ly fail­ing to ful­fil the oblig­a­tions required from her to ensure the indige­nous peo­ple are prop­er­ly install in their land.

The AHRC also express­es its dis­ap­point­ment at the lack of con­cern, notably by the local gov­ern­ment offi­cials in Que­zon, Bukid­non, to fail­ing to address the urgent needs of their own con­stituents.

The mis­sion report indi­cat­ed that “no gov­ern­ment offi­cial from Que­zon town to the Provin­cial gov­ern­ment even vis­it­ed the Manobo-Pulangi­hons.”