SITIO Sangab situated in the upland village of Pichon, Caraga, Davao Oriental is being considered as one of the outstanding culturally rich IP communities in Southern Mindanao that has stood the test of time. This includes the other 12 sub-villages that comprise the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title-01 (CADT-01).
The 20th Kalindugan Festival celebrates the unity, strength, and pride of the Mandaya community in the face of many adversities, showcasing their love for their culture and bond as a tribe.
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) Commissioner for Southern and Eastern Mindanao Atty. Leonor Oralde-Quintayo, who in 2014 personally awarded the title to this Mandaya community, expressed her awe to the community’s strength and resiliency despite the challenges they have faced, including the murder of the late tribal chief Copertino Banugan in 2016 by New People’s Army rebels and the leadership crisis within the tribe that ensued.
“You overcame and solved the challenges based on your customary laws. That’s the true meaning of the Kalindugan,” Quintayo told a crowd of Mandaya natives as she congratulated them on their celebration on Saturday, October 27.
Moreover, this community continues to be vanguards of peace by defending their territory against outsiders such as the rebels and also functions as guardians of their bountiful natural resources and lush protected forests from illegal miners and loggers.
In the whole Davao Region, this Mandaya tribe was the first to be awarded a CADT, recognizing their autonomy over their territory as an ancestral domain. “This only means that your community is strong,” she added.
Having started the Kalindugan Festival only one year after the Indigenous Peoples Right Act (IPRA) came to be enacted in the country, she said the IP community here has a gone a long way in terms of protecting their ancestral domain, in promoting their culture, and exercising their leadership and self-determination.
She said she is proud of what the CADT-01 community has accomplished over the years as they have built a model community that portrays the image of what an IP community should be “vis a vis to their ancestral domain, culture and self-governance”.
Despite the high stakes, the community has successfully surmounted the odds that not only led them to survive but enabled them to continue to flourish. And with the leadership of its young leader, the late chief’s daughter Christine, the Mandaya community is back on track as it now looks forward towards the future.
Tribal chief Christine Banugan said that despite the trials, her people remain determined to exercise their rights through the customary laws as she also entices the young Mandaya generations to continue to preserve their way of life which are slowly vanishing elsewhere amidst the backdrop of the modern times.
Under her watch, the young Banugan vows to continue her father’s legacy of developing and protecting their Mandaya community.