Walking for survival

The marchers protesting the construction of the Laiban Dam were resting inside the campus of Miriam College in Quezon City when I met them. They were joined by church and farmers groups in their 148- kilometer walk from Quezon Province to Malacañang. One of the older women had fainted and she sat on the grass and was massaged by her companions. It was noon and there were very few clouds in the sky.

Nap Landicho, one of the leaders, was being interviewed by reporters. I listened to him talk about how various government agencies had promised them that their Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim was going to be issued. They waited for years and got nothing in paper acknowledging that they own the land that they had been occupying since time immemorial.

It is disturbing that our government leaders continue to sacrifice the lives of indigenous peoples in the name of development. The construction of the Laiban Dam is premised on the supposed water crisis that will occur in Metro Manila if new sources of water are not tapped because of rising demand for it.

Opponents of the project have pointed out that there would be enough water if only the agencies concerned fixed the leaks in the water system and implemented water conservation and recycling methods. A big dam would mire our country deeper in debt, destroy what remaining forests we have, and effectively erase the culture of indigenous peoples whose lives are intimately related to the land. It is a myopic solution to the problem.

In other places in the Philippines, the same problems abound. In Palawan, indigenous peoples are suffering from the effects of the operations of mining companies. These activities are officially sanctioned by the national government. In a documentary that members of the Palawan indigenous communities helped make, they showed how siltation caused by mining had rendered their farms infertile.

Dr. Dario Novellino, an Italian anthropologist, lived with the Palawan and studied their farming practices for years. He said that the Palawan believed that the rocks are the bones of the land and the trees are the hairs. When the rocks became exposed, it is as if human bones are exposed. If there is a wound in the world, the rice will not grow well. I guess mining is the equivalent of grinding the bones to dust.

In Mindoro, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued an Environment Compliance Certificate (ECC) to the Mindoro Nickel Project, an 11,200-hectare nickel project located between the provinces of Oriental and Occidental Mindoro. The mine site is directly located in the Mag-asawang Watershed.

This watershed is the source of irrigation for some 50,000-hectare rice fields in the towns of Victoria, Naujan and Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro. These three towns are responsible for 51% of the total rice production of the province. The mine site is also found within the ancestral domain of the Mangyans. Local government units which have jurisdiction over the areas had passed ordinances banning large-scale mining. All these facts were ignored and an ECC was issued.

In the short program that the Laiban Dam protesters had while they took a break for lunch, Landicho said that they did not want to cause any trouble. All they wanted, he said, was to live peacefully and to be able to get on with their lives. This wish is probably echoed by indigenous peoples all over the Philippines. They are not asking for much.

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