(Due to its timeliness, we yield this space to the statement of the Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas on the 50th anniversary of martial law. – Ed.)
INDIGENOUS Peoples (IPs) say never again to martial law. We have seen and experienced martial law and dictatorship before. Just as we have never forgotten the atrocities, we shall never be silenced by any threats against our right to live with dignity.
We have witnessed how the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his regime used their power to torture, disappear and silence staunch critics of his administration. Marcos Sr. and his cronies committed grave human rights violations and rampant corruption with flamboyance and grand edifices. The Marcoses left the country in debt and the Filipino people poorer than ever.
Resistance against the Marcos Sr. dictatorship varied from case to case among the different tribes of the Philippines. Resistance movements flourished against the Marcos administration’s appropriation of indigenous lands, particularly of the Chico River Dam Project and the Manila Water Supply III project on the Kaliwa River watershed and all-out giveaway of forest lands for political patronage.
Proved to be a threat to their life, livelihood and culture, the Chico River Dam Project was met with resistance by various Igorot people, notably the Kalinga people. The 1984 killing of Macliing Dulag, a pangat (leader) and spokesperson of the opposition created public outrage. The murder of Macliing unified the Cordillera people to resist the proposed dam, causing both the World Bank and the Marcos regime to eventually abandon the project. It is now considered a landmark case study concerning ancestral domain issues in the Philippines.
The indigenous Dumagat, Remontado Agta who lived in the Kaliwa watershed, were most affected and opposed the dam project. They first appealed to the Marcos administration to stop the construction. But when Marcos refused, they “responded with intense social mobilization over many years.”
Ancestral lands and natural resources are used for political patronage and enrichment of Marcos cronies and allies. The dictator rewards friends and family with Timber License Agreements or TLAs, the instrument used to operate concessions to harvest trees on vast tracks of ancestral lands.
IPs were subjected to massacres and other human rights violations throughout the martial law. One major record is violations against the Subanon people —an incident that has been called the Tudela massacre happened on August 24, 1981, members of a Marcos-sponsored paramilitary forces strafed the house of a Subanon family, the Gumapons, in Sitio Gitason, Barrio Lampasan, Tudela, Misamis Occidental.
Fifty years has passed, the Marcoses are back in top government position. However, victims of human rights violations are yet to receive an apology from the Marcoses and justice yet to be served. Tuloy ang laban para sa demokrasya, katarungan at katotohanan!
