The mountain dwellers of Kibungan town in Benguet province may soon enjoy well-paved roads that would allow them easy access to medicines, education and electricity.

Food and education will be the least of the problems of the Badjaos, the boat-dwelling people in Sulu, Basilan and Zamboanga, while residents of a war zone in Agusan del Sur will slowly regain control of their homes and lands.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is reaching out to three of the most neglected communities in the Philippines with its newly launched project that aims to empower indigenous peoples.

The launch of the project on 10 July came a day after CHR Chair Leila de Lima ordered an investigation into alleged human rights violations committed by mining firms against indigenous peoples in the provinces of Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya.

In partnership with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission, the CHR’s three-year “Human Rights Community Development Program” seeks to improve the plight of the three indigenous groups.

The two commissions will pilot the project among the Kankana-ey of Kibungan, Benguet, the Higaonon of Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, and the Sama Dilaut (Badjao) of Sulu, Basilan and Zamboanga.

The program aims to support communities to identify and investigate local human rights violations and to verify, document and monitor these violations. It also seeks to help communities identify their human rights priorities—whether civil, political, economic, social or cultural— and then advocate for them.

Not front-page news

De Lima said that indigenous communities were “far more susceptible” to human rights abuses but they have been sidelined by cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.

“The indigenous communities do not share in the spotlight of the front-page news. Their susceptibility is not the subject of mass actions, pickets and protests that assemble in the name of victims from other sectors,” she said.

Unknown to many, the Kankana-ey have become vulnerable to human rights abuses due to the Cordillera’s winding dirt roads that make travel to the community difficult.

Detailing some of the problems faced by his tribe, Bernard Paleng-awan said two of the barangays (villages) in his town “without road access” had yet to be reached by electricity.

Men in their communities have resorted to planting marijuana for a living after mining companies “siphoned” off their resources and left them with barren lands, Paleng-awan said.

He noted that the Kankana-ey had yet to be awarded ancestral land titles.

Malnutrition, illiteracy

Residents have been left homeless due to “defunct mines,” which have not been rehabilitated, while children continued to suffer from malnutrition due to a lack of access to medication and food, and from illiteracy due to lack of teachers.

Records from the CHR showed that in 2000, 19 per cent of the 2,609 children who were weighed suffered from first- to second-degree malnutrition.

Datu Ducu Aquilino Lidanhog of the Higaonons lamented how their homes had been used as war zones and how armed groups—the rebels and the military, and some politicians—had sowed fear among their community to pursue their own interests.

Murdered tribal leaders

Various forms of intrusion into indigenous ancestral domain have been recorded in the area, as justice remains elusive for murdered tribal leaders while standards to determine ancestral claims are still vague.

The Higaonons have also been repeatedly excluded in the planning and implementation of development projects in their territories, according to the CHR.

Buhali Adjilani, the tribal chieftain of the Samu Dilaut in Basilan, hoped that through the project, their children would be given access to education and that their “panglima” justice system be recognized by mainstream society.

Discrimination

The boat-dwelling Samu Dilauts or the Badjaos remain in the “fringes” of Muslim society and “are experiencing multi-tiered discrimination as indigenous peoples and as minorities as well,” said the CHR.

The persisting conflict in Mindanao, which disturbs its waters, has rendered the tribe susceptible to aggression and violence, driving Badjaos out into the land where they have formed squatter colonies, the commission pointed out.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer