On the corner of Cagayan del Oro City's Tiano and Del Pilar Streets a band of Higaon-on Lumad ("Lumad" being the generic one size fits all label for Animist Hilltribes of Malayan stock on Mindanao) encamped on Thursday, September 1st, 2011. Leaving their homes in Bukidnon Province they travelled all the way to Misamis Oriental Province to hold a vigil outside the premises of NCIP-10, or the National Commission for Indigenous People Office for Region #10 in order to protest what they adamantly maintain is a bogus FIPC by Ernesto Villalon, ex-Mayor of Kibawe, a small municipality in Bukidnon Province and among other things, a cattle rancher in the neighbouring municipality of Malmag. FIPC, or Free and Informed Priar Consent is a pre-requisite before a lease, or tenement is given for the exploitation of natural resources. Overseen by the NCIP who in theory acts as the advocate for the Lumads who obstensibly hold the power to give, or withold, their signature to any perspective FPIC.
According to a Leftist peasant organisation, Panalsalan Dagumba'an Tribal Association, or PADATA in shorthand, that FPIC had been rendered by a group having nothing to do with the land in question. PADATA's 500-odd members are all Higaon-on and Ta'alandig Tribesmen whereas the signatories to the FPIC, the Barangay Captains of Barangays Dagumba'an and Panalsalan and a female chief, Bae Victoria Jakosalem Pangahin are Manobo Tribesmen and therefore, "not of that place." According to PADATA the Manobo are not originally from that immediate area although Bae Pangahin is the daughter of a reknowned and infamous Manobo chieftain, the late Datu Antonio "Salem" Jackosalem whose clan has farmed the immediate area at least since the first Bisaya settlement was founded in the 1840s. PADATA meanwhile can only prove a presence there dating from the 1990s with a direct connection to the Villalon Tenement merely dating to the Summer of 2008 when the organisation sponsored one hundred of its members in an infiltration of the ranch.
Using "grave hunger" as its raison d'etre the hundred farmers staked out a clearing atop a rocky promontory in the middle of the 480 hectare ranch. Quickly pitching plastic tarps as "homes" and sharing a single carabao (water buffalo) as a beast of burden to plow a 5 hectare plot in which they intended to raise corn the farmers attempted to re-write history, a common pursuit on this strife torn island. As their primary rationale for "taking possesion" of the ENTIRE ranch they arrogantly told anyone who would listen that because the Villalon Tenement, FGLMA #1816, of Forest Grazing Land Management Agreement #1816, expired in 1997, and because Villalon had failed to promptly renew his agreement, the land within that tenement had reverted to Public Lands. Moreover, as Indigenous People they are given automatic preference in any competitive application process so that EVEN IF Villalon subsequently decided to apply for an agreement renewal PADATA's applications for that land would be given first priority. However, PADATA was a bit slow on the uplink...
Ernesto Villalon is perhaps best known as the politician who sat in the centre of a legal precedent concerning Electoral Fraud. In the 1967 Elections Villalon ran against the incumbent, Mayor Arturo Serina in the municipality of Kibawe, immediately adjacent to the town of Malmag, wherein lies the tenement I am discussing. Villalon had bribed the Municipal Treasurer who was doing double duty as the town's Municipal Election Officer. As Election Officer this gentleman was given sealed ballot boxes from all of the municipality's voting precincts. Opening the ballot boxes he would then tally each vote and record it on an official form from which the higher officials within the electoral system would declare the winner. An alert town official however noticed that the Election Officer of Kibawe had already filled in the tally for Precinct #20, despite the fact that that ballot box had not even been picked up yet, much less delivered.
In those dark lonely days before the advent of affordable computers the written word held much more sway. The Election Officer had signed off on the overall tally with the endgame having been succesful in getting Villalon into office as the new Mayor of Kibawe. Naturally outgoing Mayor Serina didn't take this news lightly and wasted no time at all in petitioning the Courts to have the election results from Kibawe vacated and Villalon removed from office. The two politicians wasted each others' time and that of the Philippine Courts up until the mid-1970s and while Villalon managed to win re-election the rivalry turned Kibawe into yet another Mindanowan cliche, a pissant backwater town beset by politically inspired paramilitary violence.
Like most such rilvaries it ended up fading into obscurity as a new generation of greedy and bloodthirsty politicians came of age and strong armed themselves onto the Philippine political stage (I can even blog in verse! Perhaps I should try Haiku?). For his part, ex-Mayor Villalon concentrated on his farming interests which of course brings us back to the present and the "disputed" Villalon Tenement.
PADATA is but one of an umpteenth number of like minded peasant organisations who together form the "Alyansa Bukidon," or the Bukidon Alliance. The Alliance serves as an umbrella group directly reporting to Task Force Malapad, an organisation billing itself as an NGO devoted to advocating for landless peasants. In truth TF Malapad is a constituent organisation of the NDFP, or National Democratic Front of the Philippines, itself an umbrella organisation created by the Communist Party of the Philippines, or as it is commonly referred to, the CPP. Founded in 1974 the NDFP was designed to help the CPP retain its premier role in the Philippine Left as the CPP had been declared illegal at the end of the last decade by then-Dictator Fredinand Marcos who saw the CPP and its armed wing the NPA or New Peoples Army, as the nation's pre-eminent threat.
At the turn of the 21st Century the NPA's Northcentral Mindanao Regional Committee, or NCMRC sought to expand and solidify its mass base of support and concentrated on southern Bukidnon Province as the key sector in which to concentrate this effort, enter PADATA, stage left. With the group's infiltration of the tenement in 2008 an inevitable confrontation had been set in motion. Practically no tenement on Mindanao, whether for agri-business as with Mr.Villalon, logging, or even mining is entirely bereft of "Informal Settlers," the Philippine Government's Politically Correct label for rank squatters, thieves of land, resources, and in the end initiative and energy that may have been invested in any paricular tract. Usually though a Tenement holder will come to a mutually beneficial agreement if not ignoring them outright.
The 2008 infiltration didn't take place without a lot of forethought and posturing taking place with regard to a winnable strategy. Therefore Villalon was generally aware of PADATA's ill intentions and so was jolted out of his complacency and finally re-filed his application for renewal of the tenement. After his initial FGLMA lapsed in 1998 Villalon carried on unperturbed in the least. It wasn't until 2002 that Villalon began breaking out of his inertia as the Alyansa Bukidnon began concentrating on tenement holders in the Kulkul Mountains. In 2003 Villalon filed for his re-newal only to have it fall through the cracks as is so often the case on Mindanao. Satisfied that he had met the legal onus Villalon then concentrated on his cattle operation.
By 2007 PADATA was on his doorstep and with more than a modicum of urgency Villalon re-filed his application for renewal. It was months later that Padata sponsored the aforementioned infiltration and significantly upped the ante. In 2008 PADATA itself applied for a CBFMA, or Community Based Forest Management Agreement for an 800-odd hectare tract that encompassed all of the Villalon Tenement. Citing the causes I touched upon earlier in this entry, severe hunger and the farmers' status as Indigenous People. Just as with all permiting, liscencing and Governmant involved contracting PADATA's application lethargicaly began its long climb through the Philippine bureaucracy but Villalon had had a considerable headstart. In early 2010 Villalon Ranch received its new FGLMA, good until 2035.
Now desperate PADATA filed for a CAD, or Certificate of Ancestral Domain, the first step in a process that would, if sucessful, offer PADATA, via a member acting as a claimant, Title over a tract of land that would- just as with their CBFMA- encompass the Villalon Ranch Tenement. However it is of little import to Villalon since the now elderly rancher cannot be forced out of the Tenement until 2035 and because its issued to his privately held corporation, Villalon Ranch, the Tenement will remain in his family's control after his death.
Knowing that they have little or no chance of gaining total control of the land, PADATA has taken its fight to the media and as shoddy as the Philippine Media is it has served them very well. There is no pretence of objectivity in the Philippines. Journalists here either do as their publishers instruct then or, as is usually the case, seek out a soundbite and concentrate on who says the most. In this case the Villalon Clan will say absolutely nothing. PADATA however is an efficient cog in an extremely well oiled machine. The parent organisation, TF Mapalad, Left of Lenin (or in this case Mao) is quite adept at propaganda bordering on histronics.
Bukidnon, especially the southern portion of the province bordering on North Cotabato Province is largely un-Titled, full of Public Land entirely devoid of tenements such as the FGLMA at the centre of this land dispute. It is an under populated area so that in reality a group representing "landless peasants" whould have no difficulty whatsoever in finding arable land sufficiently suited for any demographic. To try and shove their way into an existing tenement is nothing more than a headline grabbing stunt. As noted, Ernesto Villalon is no angel but that is neither here nor there. I mean, if we are going to be absolutely factual the NPA has mass graves all over the island and its Kampayang Aho (Garlic Campaign, discussed in my recent "NPA Armed Contacts for the Third Quarter" entry covering the resurgence of Front 4B discussed it in detail) was concentrated in THIS part of the island. All the shtick about "big compradores" (landlords) and "enemies of the people" and "counter revolutionaries living off the lifeblood of the people" is nonsense. The Left is just as corrupt as the Right and has done just as much harm to people on BOTH sides. In fact, THAT can't even be said of the Right who only target the Left...
The 2010 Push concentrated on a mixed bag of "class enemies." By infiltrating a tenement held by the Del Monte Corporation the "Alyansa Bukidnon" was able to exercise a neat sleight of hand that had people concentrating on "evil multi-national corporations" while local businessman were extored to the nth degree in order to avoid being targetted by the CPP/NPA's multi-sectoral front lapdogs, like PADATA. Villalon was of course targeted during the Push with "Indigenous farmers at risk of losing their land" coming under gunfire from "goons" who for my two centavos must be the worst shots in the world to miss each and every one of the "peasants" crowding into a tiny tent city that is supposed to represent an "established settlement" inside the Villalon Tenement.
Indeed, these "persecuted" farmers were able to farm corn in a fenced in section of what is legally supposed to be a cattle ranch. In fact, PADATA was so successful in this endeavour that by August of 2011 a third corn crop was ready for harvest. Villalon engaged PADATA in a series of public dialogues, "Forums" as they are commonly called in the Philippines, to try and minimise friction and prevent any violent confrontations, knowing that "peasants harvesting corn to feed their starving families" could only lead to a propaganda nightmare IF Villalon and his men even attempted to prevent it.
Fast forward to Agust 24th, 2011 and the forum in question, where PADATA members were politely asked to leave all weapons and bags at a central point away from the actual meeting site. The media reported the shooting death of Welcie Gica as yet another poor landless peasant murdered by goons in the employ of landed gentry. Facts however, as I hope I have shown, paint a very different picture. Perhaps the larger tragedy is Mr.Gica having died in vain. His death changes nothingon either side. PADATA and by relation the CPP/NPA/NDFP are just as predatory and just as callous as they ever were. Mr.Villalon and his family STILL control 480 hectares (well 475 when one subtracts the 5 hectares consigned to the PADATA thugs) and will do so until at least 2035. What a waste.
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