OF THE many conversations I was blessed with lately was with Timuay Lucenio Manda about how a ritual performed to bless the memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the Pegsalabukan Gukom de Bayog (PGB), the traditional Subanen governing council and the mining company TVI almost cursed the Indigenous Peoples (IPs) of Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur.
Lucenio, became a “timuay” of the Subanen tribe of Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur when his father, Rosendo, passed away. A “timuay” is the highest honor or rank given to a tribal chieftain and akin to the “datu” of the Moslems.
A timuay maintains order between families in the community as he is authorized as a mediator to resolve conflicts. Indigenous governance also requires that the timuay is also an expert in the tribe’s traditional mores, as well as their indigenous beliefs.
In 2008, Timuay Lucenio Manda and his Subanen community saw how small-scale miners ravaged the hills of Bayog, polluted the rivers and turned lifeless the Dumaguilas Bay to extract iron ore and gold. Manda and the PGB protested any mining then so when the government granted a mining permit in 2008 to 168 Ferrum Pacific Mining Inc, the IPs had no choice but to engage in mining.
As soon as the PGB obtained recognition and filed a CADT, they filed a protest against TVI for drilling in the ancestral domain without permission.
“During a CCA (Community Consultative Assembly), in front of the NCIP, we asked the TVI representatives, what they would think if I would suddenly enter their posh condo units in Manila without permission. And no one answered.”
When they took a no to mining stance, according to Manda, the Subanens had the support of various anti-mining groups. But when they decided to engage in mining, some of these groups “abandoned” the Subanens.
“We didn’t understand it at first because the more we needed help.”
“During the MOA signing in 2014, the NCIP advised us to postpone signing the thick document. But that would mean also suspending the Subanen ritual and the elders feared a curse would fall on the tribe. It was only during the RRT that we found out that the provisions that we deleted, revised, or have rewritten in that lengthy meeting was still in the document that we signed. We signed the unrevised agreement.”
“Were it not for the NCIP en banc and the validation activity our community would have lost a lot in the negotiations. That would have been the curse we brought upon ourselves.”
When he was invited by a group of NGOs to attend the Mindanao IP Summit on Extractive Industry at Davao City, Lucenio Manda was enthusiastic about hearing how other indigenous peoples have been doing with the intrusion of mining projects in various ancestral domains in Mindanao.
“Our MOA stipulates that we can ask for cash advance after the approval,” Manda claims. But he adds that they have not done this. “We have decided that we will not withdraw or accept anything until we have drafted and created a financial management system. We have learned from the experience of other IP communities who have engaged in mining. Because of money, the community has become fragmented. Because of money, the tribe fight each other. As a timuay, I do not want that for Bayog.”
Lucenio knows what he is talking about. He paid the steepest of prices in 2012, when he lost his eldest son, Jordan, in an ambush which he felt was related to his anti-mining mining stance.
Even only 11 years old, Jordan joined his father in meetings when schoolwork allowed. This meant travelling with Lucenio and other timuays to other places for meetings. And on that road between Conacon and Bubuan in Bayog, the land that Lucenio promised the diwatas he would protect, he lost his son.