Homelands

There’s no lack of untold stories about land in the Philippines. Often, we hear of big changes in far-flung villages, in desolate communities and, depending on which side of the valley or mountain you come from, you either celebrate or mourn such changes.

There are those who celebrate the arrival of malls and other economic barometers – from new Jollibee stores to small neighborhood cafés. Or the development of new subdivisions, sprawling mixed-use estates, campus towns, hotels and resorts. They’re seen as success stories as they contribute to the local economy, spur tourism, provide jobs to the locals and ultimately change landscapes into dream-like developments.

But more often than not, such developments come at a price; at the expense of the environment and those who consider these areas their dwelling places.

They are those we call indigenous – communities that have remained rooted to place, near or far, that are enfolded in the varied landscapes of the Philippine archipelago.

For decades now, they’ve been fighting for their land and life, resisting threats – big or small – from mining to urbanization to the construction of dams.

Their stories have been told and retold for generations but rarely captured in photographs as did American documentary photographer Jacob Maentz  in his book Homelands, which narrates these indigenous stories.

The book provides an intimate look into the lives of our Indigenous Peoples, their traditions, culture, beliefs, their dreams and nightmares.

“Listen, as Sagada-born speaks to us of his homeland: I come from the highlands where the mountains and skies meet. My hometown of Sagada is 4,850 feet above sea level in the Cordillera mountains of Northern Luzon, Philippines. From time to time, we would wake up to an awesome sea of clouds escalating and spanning into an endless horizon to greet the dawn, blanketing Sagada’s southern villages,” says Nicola Sebastian in her essay, The Wilderness is not Empty, which is among the 18 essays in the book.

At best, Homelands serves as a stark reminder and engaging narration of the inevitable realities of development in the Philippines: that as our policymakers and big business push for progress, there are communities that suffer the consequences.

Environmental frontline

“In the Philippines, Indigenous Peoples make up more than 160 diverse ethnolinguistic groups and are said to belong to the environmental frontline: holding the line against irreversible ecological devastation. When the Indigenous says that Land is life, they mean it as a rallying cry. To fight for the land is to fight for life – not just indigenous lives but all the lives that depend on their ecological services.

“When indigenous communities resist the exploitation of their homelands, they are protecting their very existence. They are insisting that their way of life matters; that the land matters, in and of itself,” says an article about Homelands.

It is a book that Maenz put together through his years of living with the communities. These are stories that the communities have chosen to share with Maentz as their honored guest.

“The idea of putting a book together was something I contemplated many times throughout the weeks and months I spent with communities. A book always seemed like a good medium, a place where these photos could live, not as individual images, but as part of a cohesive narrative and in physical form. I wanted to create something that would allow for both discovery and reflection and a space where deeper conversations about the Indigenous struggle for land and self-determination can begin,” Maentz said.

Aside from the 218 photographs and 18 essays, Homelands reflects on indigeneity as cultural identity. The book tells of the diverse concerns of the communities – about the clash between self interests and shared interests; the submerged history of political resistance; food sovereignty, the challenges of land recognition and modern developments.

Development for whom?

Perhaps, there’s no single solution to the threats faced by indigenous communities. How do we develop a place without taking away a people’s homeland? How do we modernize without erasing the past? How do we strike a balance between big businesses’ agenda and the concerns of the marginalized?

These and more are questions that hound this nation of 110 million everyday and yet we still haven’t found the answers. Or perhaps, we simply do not allow ourselves to be hounded by such questions.

But Homelands challenges us to ponder on these questions.

“Large-scale dams may produce so-and-so amount of megawatts to power the country, but they flood our lands and destroy our centuries-old rice terraces, which we consider to be the dust of our forefathers. This is why we will always say no to this kind of development project, because it destroys our sacred rites – just as a Catholic or a Protestant would say, Do not destroy that church, because that is where we worship,” says the Kankanaey Sagadian Giovanni Reyes who imagines his hometown of Sagada for us, as narrated in the book.

There are many similar narratives in Homelands which highlight society’s misunderstanding of land and those who hold it sacred.

It is time really to change this, to change some of the ways by which we appreciate our communities, our land, our peoples’ homes, our homelands.

We need to protect our protected areas and we need to protect our communities.

And the first step toward this is to understand our Indigenous Peoples and to let them lead the way. They are, after all, as Homelands shows us, the ones who hold the line for us in these yet still wild and abundant places.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.