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Southeast Asia Policy Research Working Paper No. 19

Issues in Community Resource Management In Northern Mindanao

Augusto B. Gatmaytan

8 March 2001

Keywords Agusan del Sur province; Ancestral Domains; Bukidnon; Bukidnon province; Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC); Community Based Forestry Management Agreement (CBFMA); Community Based Resource Management; Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR); Higa-onon; Land Tenure; Manobo; Misamis Oriental province; National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS); Philippines; Tala-andig. Acronyms Used

ADMP Ancestral Domain Management Plan BZ Buffer Zone CADC Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim CADT Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title CBFM Community Based Forestry Management CBFMA Community Based Forestry Management Agreement CENRO Community Environment and Natural Resources Office CoE Council of Elders CRMF Community Resource Management Framework DENR Department of Environment and Natural Resources GM Geographic Rediscovery of Endangered Environment and

Nature in Mindanao or Green Mindanao ICRAF International Centre for Research in Agroforestry IP Indigenous Peoples IPRA Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Rep. Act no. 8371, 1997) KIN Kitanglad Integrated NGOs MKRNP Mt. Kitanglad Range Nature Park NCIP National Commission on Indigenous Peoples NIPAS National Integrated Protected Areas System (Rep. Act no.

7586, 1992) PA Protected Area PAF Poverty Alleviation Fund PAMB Protected Area Management Board PSTFAD Provincial Special Task Force on Ancestral Domains RGS-TFM Religious of the Good Shepherd-Tribal Filipino Ministry

INTRODUCTION

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Community-based resource management strategies have officially become the Philippine government’s principal resource management strategy. One of the principal modes by which this shift in strategy is realized is the implementation of a program for delineating the ancestral lands and domains of IP communities, as well as the CBFM program. What impact has this delineation program had on the IP communities it purports to assist?

This paper seeks to answer this question. Project Concept More particularly, this paper attempts to see how useful the CADC instruments issued under the delineation program have been in improving IP communities’ management of their local lands and resources. I am presuming that these communities are managing their resources, and the point is to see how much securing a CADC has helped them in this. The most persuasive evidence in this regard would be a comparison of the quality of the local environment and resources before and after the issuance of the CADC. Unfortunately, and as will be discussed further below, this was not doable. The next best thing then is to look at how well the CADC enhances or builds upon actual community practices or institutions for purposes of resource management. Or if it does not, we should consider whether the changes it introduces are needed or useful innovations in management practices. Conversely—though this would not be the focus of this study—it would be interesting to see how well communities that do not have a CADC fare in comparison. Towards this end, this paper will focus on tenure issues and practices. This approach grows out of the conviction that control of resources—which is what tenure is ultimately about—are significant in successful resource management (cf. Bromley and Cernea 1989). More importantly, the state’s stance vis-à-vis indigenous tenure is a critical issue for most IP groups, communities and organizations. Any serious effort to empower them—as the state purports to do—must address it. A key question therefore will be how well the CADC enhances local tenure in terms of resource management. This meant that field-work in communities which applied for a CADC had to be conducted. For this purpose, five IP communities were initially identified as study sites. Each community is in northern Mindanaw. This was for operational and methodological reasons, most important of which is ensuring that these communities belong to more-or-less comparable ecological settings, historical experiences and cultural backgrounds. Outline of the Paper

I begin by considering some technical matters relating to the relevance and scope, theoretical framework, methodology and limitations of this study.

Next is a consideration of the literature on several linked issues which are closely related to the problem addressed by this project. These are common property, land and resource tenure among a number of swidden groups in, or adjacent to, northern Mindanaw, culture and the environment, and the history of state legislation and policies in respect to the question of tenure rights of the IP.

This will be followed by a presentation of the case studies derived from field-based research. Each will have a brief profile of the study-community, a section discussing local tenure patterns, followed by a discussion of the findings. Patterns derived from broad comparisons of the experiences of the different study-sites will then be discussed, leading on to the conclusion of the paper.

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RESEARCH THEORY, METHOD AND PRACTICE

RELEVANCE AND SCOPE While it stops short of recognizing IP rights of ownership, the ancestral domains delineation procedures under DENR Administrative Order no. 2 of 1993 remains innovative in terms of the rights it extended to them over lands and resources. Despite the significance of this regulation, and the great interest it generated among IP communities and organizations as well as NGOs, it has received little attention in the literature, particularly in terms of its actual impact. After more than five years of implementation, it is time to redress this situation. Even though the DENR has suspended implementation of this program, I believe that the experiences of the communities that applied for CADCs has much to offer us today.

In this way we may derive material for advocacy, dialogue, and policy planning and development. It was also important that a paper should present the findings of the assessment or study, the better to serve as a starting point for discussion. As I have pointed out elsewhere, Mindanaw is one vast tenure experiment; the learning it affords us can be useful only if it is made accessible to others.

The study is timely as well, in the light of recent legal developments. As of 31 December 2000, the Supreme Court has ruled that the IPRA is constitutional. This law reiterates some of the concepts and procedures pioneered by DENR Administrative Order no. 2. Assessing the latter’s impact might be useful in identifying lessons that may guide the implementation of the IPRA.

A full study of the impact of DENR Administrative Order no. 2 would demand a nation-wide scope, with a representative number of study sites selected randomly for study. The logistical requirements of such a project were simply unavailable. As a compromise then between the need to review the delineation procedures and available resources, the scope of the assessment was narrowed down to northern Mindanaw, where contacts and existing resources could be tapped for the project. Methodologically, this also affords us some room for comparing the experiences of the various community-sites. It was also necessary to narrow down the number of approaches the study could take. Ideally both quantitative and qualitative measures would be used in the study, specially in terms of assessing how useful the CADCs issued under the Administrative Order were in helping communities manage local resources. However, there is no existing base-line data for the five target sites that can be used to compare with any measurements made in the course of the study, making quantitative approaches inapplicable.

RESEARCH THEORY Theoretical Framework In this paper, human actors will be viewed as reasoning, acting beings (Giddens 1982:8), rather than as "cultural dopes" unaware of the nature or consequences of their actions. Operationally, this means we do away with arguments that cultural practices have a ‘hidden’ or implicit functional or ecological value.

Secondly, the state, IPs or specific communities will not be viewed as undifferentiated or homogenous entities. Rather, they will be seen as internally divided networks of thinking and acting individuals and groups with their own respective interests (Rueschemeyer and Evans 1989: 52, Li 1996).

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Thirdly, the fact that groups and individuals have their own interests means that they will have differing interpretations of cultural, political and historical ideas and experiences (cf. Long and van der Ploeg 1994, and Arce, Villareal and de Vries 1994). These interpretations or constructions are either acts of production—the development of new or alternative cultural ideas or applications thereof—or reproduction—the reiteration of old or existing cultural ideas or uses thereof. I apply this stance to myself. My own notions of social reality determine what data I gather, and I will have my own interpretations of these available data. I take a largely first-person voice in making this paper to do away with any pretense of being a completely objective and therefore authoritative observer. This is not to say that I will not be objective, nor try to be, but that I am merely self-conscious about my work, thus reducing the possibility of imposing my own values on others’ notions or practices. In the same way, materials will be subjected to critical reading, to underscore their premises or assumptions or the authors’ possible motivations.

Fourthly, the continuing process of producing and reproducing cultural and political ideas means that neither the communities nor the state can be seen as static or unchanging. In consequence the view of indigenous cultures as immutable, timeless or as largely untouched survivals from the past must be rejected. They must be seen as contingent, fluid responses to the problems confronting groups and individuals (Bourdieu 1977, cited in Li 1996:509).

An implication of this and the previous point is that I accept that there will be no single, generalizing representation of the character, meaning and substance of government laws nor of indigenous cultures. Fifth, and as a consequence of the multiplicity of voices and views that characterize society at any moment, the question of power—what forms it takes and how it is employed—becomes important as a determinant of which of any number of interpretations of law and culture will prevail.

I accept that the state, with all the resources available to it, has both the imperative and means to establish its hegemony, particularly in terms of control of land and resources within its borders (Alonso 1994: 382, Merry 1992: 364). This means the state as an actor will have its own interests and agenda, as opposed to its constitutive parts. Hence, the state’s use of its power to produce or favor one or another interpretation of law or cultural ideas cannot be ignored (following Skocpol 1989).

At the same time, I accept that the power of the state is exerted unevenly over time and space. There is thus space for resistance against the state by communities or other sectors of society. The groups and individuals comprising the IP do utilize this space for their own disparate interests, though in varying ways and times, and with varying success or unintended consequences. On Tenure

Laws and indigenous norms, rules and values are invoked, modified or rejected by actors in the pursuit of their interests. These sets of rules are structures, employed by strategizing, knowledgeable actors, and are the thus both the medium and outcome of human action, agency or praxis (Giddens 1982:10).

Tenure is one such set of rules or structure. They are formed by that aspect of social relations which constitutes persons as productive agents and directs their purposes (Ingold 1987:130-131). It is only by belonging to a community—understood as a field of social relations—that a person acquires a relation to a determinate portion of natural space (Ingold 1987:139). In this sense, tenure involves the ways in which a resource is worked or bound

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into the biography of the subject, or into the developmental trajectory of these groups of which he or she is a member.

From this it follows that tenure is the social appropriation of resources and results in "exclusivity of access" devolving on specific persons or groups (Ingold 1987:157). In this paper, the focus will be on the ways such exclusivity of access is articulated and practiced at the community level.

This underscores the methodological need to focus on human agency, action or praxis. While their articulation of their tenure rules and practices are also important, we must keep in mind that this research project is operating in an area where land and resource rights are highly politicized, particularly in relation to the state. This will have an effect on how they structure the discourse on tenure. Exploring the Possibilities

The decision to use approaches associated with post-modernism was made after a

difficult period of internal debate, as it meant relinquishing certain long- and deeply-held stances, such as the comparative sustainability of cultural vis-à-vis legal perspectives. The alternative would only reiterate a dichotomized tension between the state and its laws and agenda on one hand, and indigenous peoples and their culture and interests on the other. The analysis would then be reduced to how well the two “fit” each other within the framework of given tenure structures. I think however that the experiences of indigenous communities in dealing with tenure problems has more to teach us than this.

The simplification intrinsic to a non-post-modern approach here runs the risk of making and perpetuating unwarranted assumptions that would result in a misrepresentation of the study’s findings (following Li 1996). More importantly, it might obscure significant data that may prove more useful in interpreting the realities in which the state and indigenous communities are located. Hence this study’s theoretical stance.

In closing, it is appropriate to note that while post-modernism is not without its problems or even abuses, it still constitutes an advance in the way social phenomena are interpreted. This is particularly so in a discursive context where much of the literature has stagnated in materialist or functionalist modes of analysis whose weaknesses have long since been pointed out. The work of Antonio Contreras (2000), among others, are suggestive of the potentials offered by these new perspectives.

METHODOLOGY

Research Methods An initial objective of this project was to assess the impact of the government’s tenure security program—the ancestral domains delineation procedures under DENR Administrative Order no. 2 of 1993—in terms of supporting community initiatives in protecting the environment.

On field, the research project involved mainly the conduct of intensive interviews with key informants and informal focus groups, the principal data-gathering technique for the project. Selection of key informants relied mainly on the existing contacts of the NGOs working in the communities, though opportunistic use was made of the temporary or chance presence of individuals or groups. All interviews were conducted using a semi-structured format. Due attention was paid to office protocol.

Direct- and participant-observation, the "traditional" anthropological methodologies, were employed to the extent possible, though the short research period limited the effectiveness of this approach.

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Supplementary field methods used were biographical research, historical reconstruction, sketch-mapping, and the triangulation of information using differing sources of information. Audio and photographic recordings were also made.

Off field, considerable use was made of the available secondary data. This consisted mainly of municipal government and DENR data and records, files of the NGOs assisting the various communities, and existing literature by both local and foreign scholars. In sum, this study is unavoidably, explicitly qualitative in character, using both empirical and archival data.

Operational Conditions The original plan called for research to be conducted in five selected IP community-sites in northern Mindanaw. These were the Higa-onon communities of Aposkahoy and Minalwang in Claveria, Misamis Oriental; the Manobo community of Manguicao in Brgy. Lydia, La Paz, Agusan del Sur; the KALASAG area in Surigao del Sur, controlled by seven Mamanwa and Manobo communities, and the Mt. Kitanglad range area, home to Higa-onon, Bukidnon and Tala-andig communities.1

These communities were selected for two reasons: First, in terms of the richness of experience and insight each site affords on its own, or in comparison with the others. Towards this end, the history and current situation of each site was carefully noted. Second, and on a more pragmatic level, each one had to be host to an NGO that could facilitate entry and research. Unfortunately, the KALASAG group declined to participate in this project, citing heavy military operations in their area. Also, field work in Aposkahoy was called off repeatedly because of scheduling problems until it simply became impossible to set a trip within the time limits of the project. Finally, the size and scale of the Mt. Kitanglad national park area demanded early on that the study focus on one particular community in that area. I decided that Sitio Lantud, Brgy. Sagaran, Talakag, Bukidnon province would be the study- community. As stated, all selected communities are assisted by NGOs. These NGOs facilitated entry into the communities, and provided valuable support to this project. Indeed, working with these organizations was unavoidable, as local residents/informants would most probably not have entertained my questions without the NGOs’ backing or recommendation. These organizations are GM for Minalwang; KIN for the Mt. Kitanglad area; RGS-TFM for Manguicao; and ICRAF-Claveria for Aposkahoy. Communities assisted directly by the DENR were also considered, but no contacts were generated within a reasonable time. The three remaining sites—Minalwang, Lantud and Manguicao—each represent differing conditions in relation to tenure and legal recognition thereof. Physical access to these areas did not impose any real problem, although my principal informant in Lantud seemed over-anxious about my travelling to his community.

OPERATIONAL LIMITATIONS

The most significant operational limitation was the brief time period allowed for fieldwork. The original terms of the research project allowed only two months’ fieldwork. Fortunately, my request that this period be extended by another month was approved.

1 For purposes of this paper, these three groups shall be treated as closely related groups

whose differences reflect cultural autonomy and localized changes rather than strict cultural or ethno-linguistic differences.

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Operationally, this meant that inquiries and on-field validation could not be pursued to the extent desired. This also affected the time available for further or deeper studies of certain issues such as women's constructions of tenure.

This limitation was mitigated, to some extent, by the fact that my entry into the communities was facilitated by NGOs active there. They shared much valuable information, experiences and insights. Also, the available secondary literature—principally government and NGO records and academic sources—was maximized. Finally, my own experiences and learnings from working intensively with different groups in northern Mindanao since 1993 proved useful. Using these resources, I could focus quickly on the research problem, and did not have to expend too much energy on the usual preliminaries of field research.

In hindsight, a research assistant should have been employed for the project. This would have allowed work to be done simultaneously in two or even three different sites. This would translate to data of more depth, since more time could be devoted to each site. This is particularly true in a situation where, as in this case, much time was expended in traveling from point to point. I had planned to get an assistant, but the recruitment process was taking so long I feared the already limited time allotted to the project would be further diminished. Again in hindsight, this may have been an error.

I am not fluent in Minanobo, and even less so in Banwaon-Higa-onon, but language did not pose as great a problem. All community members encountered were either bilingual or trilingual, such that much of my interaction with them—as well as my notes—was in Cebuano Visayan.

I encountered some difficulty in securing the women’s perspectives. I do not just refer to the fact that I am male, which already introduces a risk that women's responses will be colored by their attitudes towards men. It was also difficult to arrange opportunities to talk to women outside the presence of any men, to ensure that their responses would be spontaneous. I think research into women’s perspectives on tenure is a potentially rich area for further inquiry.

Finally, I harbor no delusions of being an objective, distanced researcher. The highly political nature of tenure rights virtually ensured that my very presence and interest was duly considered by strategizing respondents when they discussed matters with me.

This is particularly so because I believe I have been ascribed a certain position of power, resulting from the confluence of a number of factors: first, I was introduced to the study sites through the local NGOs working there, which implicates me in the existing power relations between these groups and the community; second, most informants knew I am a lawyer, a member of a profession accorded some social and political prestige particularly in rural areas, and viewed as wielding considerable transformational capacity; third, I am a male, as I have already noted above; fourth, I am a lowlander, which plays on historical upland-lowland distinctions, tensions, and power relations; and fifth, I appear wealthy, particularly when compared with some local residents.

In short, I was conscious that I was located, and was perceived to be located, in a social site imbued with power. It would be no surprise if this research project proves to be another arena for playing out of interests linked to land and resource rights. Summary By necessity, this is only an exploratory study, which indicates areas or issues for further, future study. In this, a case study format has been adopted, as to allow a concise presentation of the research findings, as well as to facilitate analysis. The project focuses on three communities, and their experiences in engaging the state over the issue of tenure by applying for CADCs from the DENR. Caution should thus be exercised in interpreting the findings as representative of all other communities of a

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particular indigenous group, or in northern Mindanaw, or on the entire island of Mindanaw, or of the Philippines. On the other hand, the fact that these communities are in the situations they are in does mean that other communities may be similarly situated. This draft has not yet been validated at the community level. It would be helpful if this draft would also be subjected to the critical appraisal of readers.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

COMMON PROPERTY Problems of Definition

A distinction must first be drawn between "common property" and "open-access"

resources. "Open-access" resources are "res nullius"; i.e., "no one's property." These are

resources owned or claimed by no individual or group, and are thus open for use, appropriation, or access by anyone at all (see Bromley and Cernea 1989). Almost always, there is no system for controlling, regulating, or otherwise managing such resources.

"Common property," in turn, is "res communis"; i.e., “shared” or "group property". Common property resources are the private property of "social units with definite membership and boundaries, with certain common interests, with at least some interaction among members, with some cultural norms, and often their own endogenous authority system"; individuals belonging to that group have respective rights within that framework (Bromley and Cernea 1989:15). There is thus an element of exclusivity, as nonmembers of the social unit or group are not ordinarily allowed access to those resources. Moreover, common property regimes generally have systems of sanctions and incentives to ensure the respective interests of the members of the group (Bromley and Cernea 1989:17).

Bromley and Cernea have constructed a typology of property regimes, marred principally by their conflation of "private" property with ownership by individuals (1989: 12). They did state that "(c)ommon property is in essence 'private' property for the group" (1989: 14), but they failed to reflect this in their typology. Such problems appear to be typical of the literature.2 As one economic anthropologist found, conceptual and terminological problems characterize the discussion of common property (Halperin 1994: 234, 237). In fact, a seminal conference on common property systems was compelled to address the difficulties of defining its terms (cf. Ostrom 1986). In this light, the number of qualifiers Bromley and Cernea used in their definition of common property, cited above, is suggestive.

Problems of definition are reflected in the difficulty in defining or delimiting the group said to own the common property resource. Whereas Bromley and Cernea seem to take community membership as unproblematic, Fortmann and Bruce (1988: 109) argue persuasively that::

“(N)either community nor community membership is so easily defined. Even if

we are conservative and take community to mean a geographically specific place, community membership can be defined by present or previous residence, by property ownership, or by kin ties. Using various definitions, a single individual could, were it advantageous, claim membership simultaneously in a number of communities.”

2 One dimension of the problem is that groups may not agree on the status of the land or

resources in question. A tribal may see an area as communal property, a migrant as open-access, and the state as its patrimonial, private property, all at the same time.

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Otherwise stated, the task of determining community affiliation is difficult because of

the essentially negotiated character of membership, a discourse that relies on the contingent, strategic use of social principles of identity, and of exclusion and inclusion.

Neither is the spatial or geographic definition of property owned by a group easy. Ingold (1987: 143-144, 150) points out that while many indigenous groups do have notions of territoriality, these may not be well-defined or exclusive in character. He also describes resources which are said to be individually owned but which in practice are never denied to anyone who asks for access thereto (Drucker 1939, cited in Ingold 1987: 159). He thus educes nuances that complicate the task of defining the spatial extent of the resource in question.

There is also the danger of assuming that a sense of territoriality or ownership applies to all the resources within a given territory. Rai (1990: 82) describes Agta hunters and gatherers who showed no concern over the intrusion of logging and mining companies, as these were pursuing resources the Agta themselves had no active interest in.

In sum, determining the existence of a common property regime is not a simple task. We need to be precise and critical of our own terms, and of those employed by informants. This is particularly important in areas where informants have learned to describe local tenure in a dichotomized contrast with the state, for example. Moreover, we need to be sensitive to the reality of change, as it pertains to tenure practices.

For purposes of this paper, I adopt Bromley and Cernea's definition of "open-access", and of "common property" resources as one where land is a free good for members of a specified social unit, and tenure is by usufruct only (following Conklin 1957: 35).

By "individual" ownership, in turn, I mean ownership by a natural person, although, in practice, control may actually be extended to the competent members of the owner’s family. The core distinction from a communal property regime then is that in the latter, ownership as opposed to use is vested in the members of the community as a group, although they may delegate management or authority to their representatives or leaders. Lessons from Common Property Discourse Wade (1988: 215-216) speaks of the conditions under which common property-based systems or organizations can become successful. His treatment is structured as an opposition between “private”—or more properly, individual—vis-à-vis common property tenure. This may obscure the possibility of a community having a mix of both individual and communal tenure rules in dealing with different resources within its territory, or that within a single community there are those practicing individual, and others communal, tenure systems. Indeed, his discussion is based on one community dealing with one resource. Still, his summation is instructive, and identifies characteristics an ideal community-based resource management system may be expected to have.

First, the smaller and more clearly defined the boundaries of the resources, the greater the possibility of success.

Second, the higher the cost of excluding outsiders, the better the chances of success.

Third, he discusses the relationship between the resource and its users. This relationship must be characterized by the following: (1) There is a close overlap between the location of the resource and the residence of the users. (2) There is—up to a limit—a great demand for the resources, which must also be vital for the survival of the users. (3) The users must have knowledge of sustainable possible yields. The fourth focuses on the users themselves. (1) The fewer in number the users are, the better. (2) The boundaries of the group are clearly defined. (3) Among the users, the

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sub-group that benefits from retaining the commons is more powerful than that favoring enclosure or individual tenure. (4) There are well developed arrangements for discussing common problems. (5) The users are deeply concerned about their social obligations and reputations. (6) There are effective rules against rule-breaking. Fifth, is ‘noticeability’; i.e., it is easy to notice or detect violations of rules. Sixth, the less the state can, or wishes to, undermine locally based authorities, and the less the state can enforce individual rights effectively, the better the chances of success of common property-based systems or organizations. All of this, of course, presumes that a common property regime does exist in the particular community under consideration. As has been pointed out, this might not be the case, so it is necessary to first inquire into the actual tenure practices of the community’s members. The fact that there is a sense of community shared by local residents “does not imply that this is the relevant level at which resource allocation or management takes place” (Van Den Top and Persoon 2000: 172).

Moreover, we must be careful not to conflate local or indigenous political or legal authority with control of allocation and use of resources. A community may be led or governed by a datu or a council of (male) elders, but this does not necessarily mean that they also control local resources. Rather, resources may actually be in the hands of some other institution, such as indigenous corporate units, clans or even individual land-owners.

INDIGENOUS TENURE

The literature on the economic and tenure systems of IPs is extensive, if of varying scope and quality. Sahlins (1968:29) notes that swidden agriculture is widely distributed over the world, highly varied, and, in some locales, marvelously intricate. Land rights in swidden societies are exclusive, set at family, hamlet, lineage, or community level, or several of these simultaneously, although rarely at a higher level (Sahlins 1968:32).

In some swidden societies, land is held communally. In Indonesia however most swidden groups allow individuals or households who clear land to claim ownership of it; only in a minority of groups do the lands ‘revert’ to the community once beneficial use of it ceases (Dove 1988a: 14). Thus, Li’s work on the Lauje (1996); Freeman (1992) and Jessup and Peluso (1986) on the Iban; and Dove on the Kantu’ (1988b), all discuss swidden-based groups where land is held by individuals or households, rather than by a village or community as a group.

Closer to home, Gibson (1986:38) compares the literature on five Philippine swidden groups—the Gaddang, Buid, Hanunuo, Subanen, and the Tiruray—and concludes that while the Buid, Hanunuo, and Subanen allow only usufructuary tenure, terminating with the end of beneficial use of a clearing, the Gaddang and Tiruray allow some rights to abandoned swiddens. Maceda’s survey of “landed property concepts” among local IP groups found that in “upland shifting cultivators” like the Higa-onon and Manobo, land ownership is controlled by individuals or families (1974: 9). Jocano’s survey of the literature on Philippine IP groups found that the Manobo land ownership is “not clearly defined”; while among the Higa-onon-Bukidnon, land is communal property, though individual rights to access, cultivation and harvest are recognized (1998: 135, 154).

There is thus considerable variety in terms of indigenous tenure systems, as well as in the interpretation of these systems. In the following section, I focus on indigenous groups in northern Mindanaw and the neighboring regions that originally relied on swidden agriculture as their principal economic strategy. Manobo

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The Manobo are found not only in the Agusan region but also in Surigao del Sur, Bukidnon, and the Davao and Cotabato regions (cf. Beyer 1917: 55; Lebar 1975: 45; and Tiongson 1994: 120).

Again, the available materials took Manobo property relations as unproblematic. The focus, early on, was on their swidden cultivation and the resulting need to transfer farms and residence over time (Blumentritt 1882: 126; Pastells 1887; Philippine Commission 1911: 368; Worcester 1913: 1220).

Fr. Saturnino Urios, S.J., was the Jesuit missionary who worked hardest and longest at converting the Manobo to Catholicism, and at settling them in villages or reducciones. On 20 May 1883, he wrote to his superior, specifically describing the Manobo of Adgawan River in the Agusan region:

“I say then that in conformity with the ideas that common sense has taught or

exposed them to, each family or hamlet (rancheria) believes that the territory they occupy, work and in which they hunt and fish, is theirs. And no barefoot friar can dissuade them from this belief, being as they mark for themselves mountains and rivers and large tracts of land as their property, for the common use of everyone in the hamlet; and there is no one alive today who can intrude therein without enduring a contest of arms, leading frequently to wars; and many times I have had to mediate, and help in paying fines imposed for having encroached on the bounds of their territory (rancheria) to fish in the rivers, for if this is not paid there would be occasion and cause for great disturbances and shedding of blood.

“Well then, when we unite various hamlets to make a reduccion, there results a segregation made by those in whose lands the reduccion is established, who consider themselves superior to the rest who are new [to the site of the reduccion] . . . so despite our sermons they prohibit the new arrivals from hunting, fishing and foraging (sacar) in the land . . . .

“What is more, though content to have nothing to live in better than a poor hut open to the four winds, they also want to live in and have the fields they cultivate in the places many leagues around their familiar roads, trails and (atujos), as much for hunting as for the moment they always believe will come when they have to hide themselves for having offended others, or to defend themselves.”

This suggests that the Manobo have a strong sense of territoriality over land. It appears as well that the land is for the common use of the members of each rancheria or settlement, and that hunting, fishing, and other economic activities within the settlement’s territory are similarly restricted to those same members. Trespass by non-members on these rights were taken very seriously.

John M. Garvan, an amateur American anthropologist, is generally considered to have written the "classic" ethnographic description of the Manobo of the Agusan river area. He states that:

“Manobo land . . . is divided into districts, well defined, and in case of hostility,

jealously and vigilantly guarded. These territorial divisions vary in extent from a few square miles to immense tracts of forest and are usually bounded by rivers and streams or by mountains and other natural landmarks. Each of these districts is occupied by a clan that consists of a nominal superior with his family, sons-in-law, and such other of his relatives as may have decided to live within the district. They may number only 20 souls and again they may reach a few hundred (1929:139).”

This provides a good idea of his frame of reference in discussing territoriality and

resource tenure. In his chapter on Manobo "customary laws", he states:

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“Each clan and, in some cases, one or more individual family chiefs, have districts which are the collective property of the clan or family. Theoretically this ownership gives hunting, fishing, agricultural and other rights to that clan or family to the exclusion of others. In practice, however, anyone who is on good terms with the chief who represents the family or the clan in question may occupy a portion of the land without any other formality than that of mentioning the matter to the proper chief (1929:159).”

This contrasts with the fiercely possessive Manobo that Urios describes. Where Urios

mentions tensions over land and resources, Garvan claims that in all his travels throughout eastern Mindanaw, he "never heard of a single instance of a land dispute among the non-Christian peoples" (1929:160). Indeed, he lists only four causes of "war” among the Manobos: vendettas, private seizure, debts, and sexual infringements (1929:146-148).

According to Garvan, within the clan or family territory, the individual Manobo has only usufructuary rights to land he or she clears for farming:

“From the moment of occupation, then, till the abandonment of the site the occupant is the sole lawful owner of the land and has full rights to proprietorship of all that it produces. When he abandons the land he still retains the ownership of such crops or plants as may be growing on it. Hence betel-nut palms, betel plants, bananas, and other plants, belong to him and to his descendants after him. Even such fugitive crops as camotes are his until they die off or are destroyed by wild boars (1929:160).”

With respect to other resources, Garvan says that others may fish in waters located

within a clan or family’s land, with the stipulation that a share in the catch will be given the owner. When two groups are in good terms, the territory of one may be used by the other for hunting, apparently without question (1929:159). Wild fruits theoretically belong to the clan or family which owns the land where the fruit-bearing trees are located, but in practice anybody can help themselves to the fruits (1929:160). Finally, his notes on Manobo inheritance do not include land or rights thereto (1929:167).

In sum, Garvan describes a tenure system that is communal in the sense that a family or clan owns a territory. Within that area, members of the family or clan, or outsiders who gain permission have only usufructuary rights to land they cultivate. Hunting, fishing, and picking wild fruits are theoretically restricted to members of the family or clan, but in practice access is not controlled rigidly.

Yumo (1989:19) categorically states that land among the Manobo is not individually owned, and that villagers have only usufructuary rights. Largely paraphrasing and quoting Garvan without attribution, he adds that the right to fish, hunt, and farm belongs only to the inhabitants of a particular district, to the exclusion of others, but in practice this exclusivity is leniently enforced. This he attributes to the fact that land is relatively abundant (1989:20).

According to him, property is held by the group over which the datu presides. He closes his brief discussion of Manobo tenure rules with a generalizing comparison: Where the Manobo think of land as belonging to the group, to the Christian it is a matter of individual ownership (1989:21).

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Bukidnon/Higa-onon

The Bukidnon people claim much of Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental provinces as their ancestral territory. While they have been described since the 19th century (see for example, Clotet 1889) or even earlier, little attention was paid to their resource tenure practices.

The American anthropologist Fay-Cooper Cole conducted his study of the Bukidnon—whom he asserts are basically identical with the Higa-onon (1956: 5)—over the first seven months of 1910. With regard to their property relations, he found that:

“Land in and near to permanent settlements is owned by individuals and families. The same is true of material objects and animals, but land once abandoned can be taken up and used at will. Land offers no problem at present since the sparse population can make use of but a fraction of the land available (1956: 81).” He makes no other reference to land tenure. Note the ambiguity of his statement;

what does he mean by “abandoned” or “taken up”? The lack of precision reflects a general tendency in the literature to consider indigenous tenure as unproblematic and undeserving of deeper inquiry.

Seventy-nine years later, this situation still holds true. Fumitaka says:

“The term tulugan in the Bukidnon dialect is generally used to indicate a specific locality. . . . This territory is composed of a hamlet where the local people live, and the swidden and the forests which surround the hamlet. . . . In general, the members of a particular local community open their new swiddens, go hunting, fishing and gathering wild food within this territory (1989:215-216; underscore added).”

By itself, the quotation suggests that land is held in common by members of the

"local community." However, Fumitaka seems perplexed when further on he makes the following observation:

“Actually, the available territory for swiddens is roughly shared among the influential senior persons of the local community. Although traditionally the Bukidnon lack the concepts of legal right of ownership or of private land, these senior persons maintain the privileges pertaining to the utilization of the land for swidden agriculture. Every year each of them plays the leading role in deciding which part should be cultivated. Ordinary families only have to go and consult one of the senior persons and get his agreement or permission to use a certain part of the forest which is under his influence (1989:217-218).” Unfortunately, Fumitaka failed to look further into why "the influential senior persons

of the local community" had control of access to land within the tulugan. It seems to me—from my experience with the Manobo and Banwaon—that these "senior persons" are actually owners of private land within the tulugan, but Fumitaka could not bring himself to say so because this would contradict his presupposition that indigenous Bukidnon tenure is communal.

With regard to tenure over other local resources, we have already noted how "hunting, fishing and gathering wild food" is reportedly conducted within the territory of a tulugan. Note, however, that this does not necessarily imply that such activities may not be conducted outside of the tulugan.

Finally, Cairns’ study of the Mt. Kitanglad area notes the Bukidnons’ “apparent carelessness with their ancestral lands”, which he explains in part by citing other materials to

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the effect that indigenous tenure was originally communal so that the Bukidnon were unprepared to deal effectively with migrant settlers (1995: 11, 13). Banwa-on The Banwaon are a small ethno-linguistic group concentrated in the Maasam and upper Adgawan river basins in Agusan del Sur province. Garvan (1929: 5) believes that they are a branch of the Bukidnon3 who crossed eastward across the Pantarun range into Agusan del Sur. Many Banwaon today find it easier to communicate verbally with Higa-onons rather than with Manobos, indicating closer linguistic, historical and cultural ties with the former group. Banwaon communities are south of the Higa-onon communities of the province, in the Libang river basin.4 The Banwaon are negligibly represented in the literature. One of the few materials that discuss them was prepared by a Butuan City-based IP-support NGO, Silingang Dapit sa Sidlakang Mindanaw (SILDAP-SIDLAKAN). The datus and elders they interviewed stated that the land is owned by the Banwaon people (“katawhang Banwaon”) or their lineage (“ilang kaliwatan”) who inherited the land from their ancestors who first cleared the forest (1996: 57). The male community members they talked to said that the land is owned by the different datus, “tungod kay gitugyan kini ngadto kanila sa mga katigulangan” (“because the land was given to them by the ancestors”) (1996: 58). The women stated that the land was owned by the datu, along with (“inubanan sa”) the sakop or community members, in as much as it is the people who cultivate the land (“silang katawhan man ang nagtikad sa kayutaan”) (1996: 58). The datu and fathers allocate (“apod-apod”) land to each newly-married couple, so that the latter has an individual claim over that land, which they cultivate (1996: 57). Unfortunately, SILDAP’s report does not seek to reconcile these different perspectives. While none of them are irreconcilably contradictory to each other, none of them are necessarily compatible with each other either. Neither is Banwaon social structure used to clarify statements regarding people and lineage, datu or elder, and community member. The result is that it is possible for the reader to interpret Banwaon land tenure as either communal (by focusing on the Banwaon as a group, or the various lineages or clans) or individual (by focusing on the datu, the couples, or all those who work the land), or even a combination of the two. Mandaya

While today the Mandaya seem largely restricted to the Davao provinces of southeastern Mindanao, Spanish and American colonial resources noted their presence in the Agusan valley in the later half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th (see Schreurs 1989: 349, citing an 1884 census of the Agusan region; Philippine Commission 1911: 70; and Beyer 1917: 53).

As with the Bukidnon, little attention seems to have been paid to Mandaya tenure until relatively recently. Yengoyan states that among the "upland Mandaya":

3 Like Cole (1956: 5), Garvan believes that the Bukidnon and the “Higa-unon” or “Higagaun”

are one (1929: 5). 4 The Higa-onon informants from Minalwang, Misamis Oriental have close social and cultural

links with those in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, which straddles the Libang river basin.

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“Land is regarded as a free good, and tenure is established by the application of labour. A family’s claim is not to land under cultivation, but to the cultigens which the family has planted. As long as cultigens are productive, the family maintains rights to all swiddens occupied, past and present (1971: 366).”

However, his article also notes how tenure rules are changing as a result of

involvement in abaca cultivation and marketing, particularly by "foothill" Mandaya. He describes the fencing-off of swidden areas, the development of strategies for retaining and consolidating land, and use of government-backed surveys and titles (Yengoyan 1971: 370-372). He also notes that while inheritance of land is virtually nonexistent among the upland groups, those in the foothills have developed inheritance rules to ensure that a specific kin-group retains control of land it uses for abaca production. This indicates that, at the very least, there has been some movement away from the communal land tenure system he ascribes to the upland Mandaya.

As regards other resources, Yengoyan states that hunting and gathering may only be undertaken in one’s neighborhood, or in other neighborhoods during visits to relatives (1971: 368). Bagobo

In Fay-Cooper Cole’s study of the indigenous peoples of the Davao region (1913), he makes the following concise statement regarding land tenure among the Bagobos of (as he spells it) Cibulan:

“Each settlement is recognized as having property rights to all adjacent lands. Within these recognized limits, its members may take up as much land as they need, provided it is not already in use, but when a field is, for any reason, abandoned it again becomes the property of the community (1913: 99).”

This describes traditional Bagobo tenure as communal; individual rights to land end

with beneficial use thereof, after which any other member of the group or community may use it.

This passage is parroted in an unattributed passage in Gloria’s 1987 study of the Bagobos of Sibulan:

“Each settlement has property rights over territorial lands. Within this, individual members of the community may take up as much land as needed, provided it is not already in use. When a field is abandoned, its ownership reverts to the community (1987: 46).” Thereafter, Gloria makes no other direct reference to land tenure. However, in her

subsequent discussion of the traditional Bagobo "social system," she says: “The only possible exception to the more or less equitable order of wealth-owning was the datu, who had more land, more animals, more slaves, and in addition could support a band of fighting men, the warriors (1987: 117; emphasis added).”

If land is the property of the community, and members only have usufructuary rights

to the land they actually till, how is it that the datu is described as owning land? Gloria provides an explanation that succeeds only in underscoring the contradiction:

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“A datu had more land than anybody else by virtue of his being first to arrive and establish residence at a place. Succeeding settlers must henceforth seek his permission to settle and clear their own farmsteads. Oral sources in Catighan state that there was no limit to the size that a man or his family may till, and therefore own (1987: 117; emphasis added).

Gloria has thus completely contradicted herself. While stating that land is

traditionally owned by the community as a group, she asserts instances of individual ownership by a datu or even "a man or his family." Her own data suggests that traditional Bagobo tenure, in fact, allows individual ownership of land, in contrast to the passage by Cole which she unthinkingly quotes.

Similar contradictions plague E. Arsenio Manuel's study of the "Manuvu" (1973), apparently referring to a subgroup of the Bagobo (cf. Lebar 1975: 47), further north from Sibulan, which Cole studied. Based on the fieldwork conducted in 1956, 1960, 1963, and 1964, he asserts that:

“[L]and ownership is recognized and its corporate nature could be studied definitely. This is the property that the members share equally and nobody else but they can use (1973: 84; emphasis added).”

Much further on, he reiterates this point: “The corporate nature of the village organization lies on more solid grounds than the family or kinship group. It owns all the lands within its own boundaries exclusively, that is, the people own these lands. Thus any villager can occupy any unoccupied land within the village territory without the authorization of village officials. On the other hand, a non-villager must ask the permission of village authorities (datus) to settle and own land within the village jurisdiction (1973: 206, see also pp. 142-143, 166-167, emphasis added).”

However, his text has references to individual or family ownership of land. In the

above quoted paragraph, for example, there is reference to ownership of land by individual "non-villagers." In another section, Manuel says:

“[I]n Manuvu' culture, the betelnut tree and the kinarom tree are symbols of land ownership. . . . The palm trees serve . . . to indicate ownership and a notice to the outside world that the land is owned by someone . . . . The trees are pointed to later as planted by so and so and the people ascribe the ownership of the land to such and such a man or his family (1973: 163, see also p. 167; emphasis added).”

Similarly, he declares elsewhere that territorial ownership is subject to distribution to

villagers (1973: 167), and describes specific cases which involve family and individual ownership of lands (1973: 140-141, 143-144, 172, 181-182) and the datu's lack of authority to divide or otherwise allocate land "subject of previous ownership" (1973: 141). At one point, he explicitly discusses ownership of private land within the context of the village (1973: 111).

Again, despite a categorical assertion of corporate ownership of land by the "village organization," there are counter-indications within the very same text. The corporate nature of ownership thus seems to be restricted to descendants of the original settler. As individuals from outside the community are allowed to settle and are "given a parcel of land" (1973: 182), and as lands are subdivided among heirs (1973: 140-141), it seems that the

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land which initially was corporate property of the original settler, his kin and successors will fragment over time.

In discussing tenure over other resources, Manuel says that village corporate rights cover forest-gathering rights, including wild fruit, nuts, rattan and housing materials; hunting rights within the boundaries of the village; and exclusive fishing rights in the smaller streams (1973: 167). In contrast to Fumitaka and Yengoyan, he explicitly affirms that violation of village boundaries amounts to trespass, such that hunting and gathering of wild fruits "can not be done" within the territory of another village (1973: 142-143).

Finally, Manuel noted that the introduction of abaca cultivation during the latter part of the American colonial period introduced "modern concepts of property ownership," principally in the form of increasing sedentarization. Even greater tenure changes have most probably occurred among Bagobo communities since then.

Cracks in the Communal Curtain

A few points derived from this brief survey should be given stress. First, there is a tendency in the literature to view indigenous tenure as unproblematic.

The result is the manifest lack of attention paid to this issue. This translates to outdated or insufficient data for policy analysis and formulation; ironic, as the state is now trying to come to terms with its relationship with indigenous peoples (cf. Leonen 1998: 24).

One reason for the lack of interest in tenure is exemplified by Gloria’s paraphrase of Cole’s statement on tenure, despite her own findings. This suggests among other things, a disturbing attitude towards early, largely colonial ethnographic accounts. It seems that because Cole said Bagobo tenure is communal, Gloria followed suit, never mind that her own data indicated otherwise. This uncritical acceptance of early ethnographies as virtual holy writ can only contribute to the misrepresentation of IPs. At the very least, she should have been aware of the reality of change instead of treating Bagobo culture as a survival from the past.

It is true that early anthropologists made their studies at a time when local IPs were comparatively less entangled with external actors and forces. This in itself, however, does not guarantee truth of their observations or interpretations. We need to be critical of our own ethnographic heritage and our "anthropological" or "ethnographic ancestors."5

Secondly—and this also serves as a partial explanation for the lack of interest in tenure studies—there seems to be a largely unquestioned assumption that swidden-based IP groups in the Philippines have communal ownership of land (See for example, TRICOM 1998; Royandoyan and Atillo 2000; Gaspar 2000). This, despite the fact that researchers themselves find empirical indications that tenure is not or no longer communal, or at least, that local tenure systems are more complex than a the term "communal" indicates.

Even recent scholars like Sajor who have made a point of challenging such assumptions (cf. Resurreccion and Sajor 1998) appear to have trouble breaking away from this mind-set, as shown by his generalizing statement that indigenous tenure rules “are rather often simple”, sweepingly characterized by “rights of first occupants, common property, individual-use rights” (Sajor 2000: 67, emphasis supplied). Still, there are those writers who assert that certain IP groups do have individual- rather than group-tenure.

We can see how, whenever scholars have seriously considered local tenure systems, even of a single ethnic group, their interpretations of the data may vary considerably. For example, as noted in passing above, Maceda sees Higa-onon tenure as family- or individual-based, while Jocano sees it as communal.

5 This notion is borrowed from Larcom (1983).

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Third, and somewhat less contentiously, there is the fact of change. Yengoyan and Manuel, for example, are clearly aware that the tenure patterns they described are subject to change even as they make their observations. Global and other conditions being as they are, indigenous tenure patterns are subject to even wider, more intense internal and external influences today. I believe that indigenous peoples are aware of the importance of change and adaptation, otherwise they would not have survived the colonial and neocolonial experience.

In viewing the terrain mapped out by the literature, we need to be conscious of certain factors. First, we should note the time during which various studies were conducted, and the specificity of each site. Thus the Bukidnon described by Cole cannot be the same as those described by Cairns. Second, not all communities belonging to a particular IP are the same, given their different locations in space. Yengoyan thus describes two contemporaneous Mandaya communities with different tenure rules (see also Schlegel 1994: 76). Third, we should note the subjective interests and points of view of the different writers.6 This brings us back to my observations regarding the unquestioned presumption of communal tenure.

All of which support this paper’s methodological focus on praxis as the best way to identify the character of a tenure system. In so doing, we avoid the question of whether current practices are traditional or were adopted from outsiders. Paredes warns that there is little to be gained in trying to discriminate between what researchers consider “authentic” or “inauthentic” in indigenous cultures; what our own cultural biases determine to be “inauthentic” may actually be genuine, or vice-versa (2000: 88). We must not allow ourselves to remain captives of our past, nor of our notions of the anthropological other's past.

This means that we must avoid a view of indigenous practices as survivals of a timeless past, and realize that these practices are constantly undergoing testing, experimentation and change. We may also need to transcend the tendency to think in terms of a dichotomy between an indigenous communal tenure system on one hand, and a privatized, state-backed system on the other. The materials available in fact suggests that such dichotomies are simplistic. Local tenure systems are complex and changing. Also, today’s uplands are characterized more by legal syncretism, rather than a tension between indigenous and national laws between which communities must make a choice (cf. Wiber 1993). It may even be argued that debates over individual versus communal tenure may be a matter of perspective.

CULTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

It is striking how in the considerable literature on common property systems, swidden

agriculture is very poorly represented. Perhaps this is because swidden systems rarely have the requisite system of “sanctions and incentives" that so fascinate common property scholars and advocates.

There is little in the literature on local IPs that can be described as conscious regulation of kaingin (swidden) agriculture for sustainable ends outside of Conklin’s by now outdated study (1957) of Hanunuo Mangyan cultivation, which in any case may not be representative of all other swidden systems in the country. What controls there are on

6 It is intriguing that contrary to what is perceivable in the field, juxtaposing different

descriptions of tenure tends to show increasing communality. Garvan’s Manobos have clan or family-property, and Yumo’s have communal; Cole’s Bukidnon have private property, Cairns’ have communal.

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cultivation seem to be mainly religious in character (e.g., Olofson 1996: 97; Magos 1996:105). Here we shall treat indigenous religion as a metaphor for culture, embodying as it does fundamental notions of cosmic and social order, values, ethics and morality, among others.

Regulation based on religious beliefs do not necessarily emanate from an underlying conservationist ethic (Van Den Top and Persoon 2000: 170-171; Vayda 1992: 297-298). This challenges a tendency in certain branches of the literature to ascribe to indigenous religions a character supposedly incompatible with capitalism and the exploitative view of nature it embodies (cf. Bennagen and Lucas-Fernan, eds. 1996). The belief that spirits dwell in trees like the balete (Ficus benjamina), for example, is thought to inhibit tree-felling or logging.

However, the literature itself provides evidence that spirits’ residence in, or ownership of, trees does not prevent their being felled, provided ritual precautions are taken. Thus, Fay-Cooper Cole (1913:176-177) describes how the Mandaya would cut down the balete trees, the favored dwelling of spirits, after a ritual. In the same vain, he details how the Bukidnon also cut down balete trees (1956: 97-98). Garvan suggests as much when he asks:

“Should a balete tree have to be removed from the newly selected forest patch, who else could coax its spirit dwellers not to molest the tiller of the soil, if not the bailan?” (1929:200)

All over Mindanaw are stories about loggers or road builders meeting accidents or dying while trying to cut down an old tree, until some elder is called in to make offerings to the spirits, after which the tree is felled without further incident. For me, what is striking about these tales is not that the tree is shown to be the dwelling of a spirit, but that it was cut down in the end.

Among the Adgawanon Manobo I lived and worked with, the fact that a thing or place is considered "sacred" or the dwelling or property of spirits does not remove it from the sphere of human economic activities. In fact, it is the function of Manobo ritual to enable humans to exploit resources owned or controlled by spirits; the "sacredness” of an animal or place may be described as negotiable with those spirits. If the Manobo allowed the notion that spirits live in or own almost all aspects of nature7 to prevent access to resources, they would have been effectively disabled from surviving at all.

Perhaps the error of interpreting indigenous notions of sacredness as inaccessibility comes from an imposition of our own notions of the sacred on observed practices. The limokon dove is the foremost omen bird in Mindanaw, and as the bearer of the spirits’ messages is as close as they get to a sacred animal. We would expect that the animal would be treated with reverence. Instead, there is a trapping technique designed specifically for capturing this quite culturally edible animal.8

7 The large class of tagbanwa or spirits of a place may be subdivided further on the basis of

where they reside. Thus, there are tagbanwa who live underground and in piles of fallen leaves, vines, trees, fern banks, cliffs, and cliff tops; depressions in the face of cliffs, creeks, rivers, and rocks in the rivers; holes formed by the uprooting of a toppled tree; and hills and forests, grass, and caves.

8 Among the Manobo, this technique is called panambang, and uses a captured limokon as a ‘stool-pigeon’ to call other limokon, which then draw near and perch on branches smeared with sticky resin, and were thus caught. I recall how when I was first offered a limukon which had been shot dead to cook and eat, I wondered aloud whether I would be ‘punished’ (gaba-an) by the spirits for

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That something is sacred therefore does not in itself mean anything, ecologically speaking. Evidence presented to the effect that sacred sites act as a wildlife or other refuge appear to me insufficient. To act as a reserve or refuge, the sacred site must be shown to have strategic ecological value in terms of size, location and species composition. The fact that so many sacred sites, forests or mountains have been destroyed indicates the weakness of this principle as a regulatory mechanism (Olofson 1996: 98; Van Den Top and Persoon 2000: 171). In the same way, I am not aware of any taboo animals in the strict sense of the word. Assuming that there are, they must be shown to be a key species in the local environment, and that their taboo-status does not merely shift economic pressure onto non-taboo species.

The point is that indigenous religion does not necessarily operate as a mechanism for controlling resource use. In fact, Lewis (1992:64) showed how Ibaloy indigenous religion actually encouraged them to engage in an environmentally risky venture, specifically, converting forests for use in chemical-intensive commercial vegetable gardening.

In part, advances in generating public support for IP issues grew out of some communities’ involvement in the environmental movement, which swept through the country during the mid-1980s and early 1990s. The literature of this time began to include studies that argued that indigenous peoples are ‘inherently’ competent managers of forest resources (see for example Lynch 1983a; Lovelace 1984: 196; and Montillo-Burton 1985), an academic theme that has continued to today (see for example, REPIKKA 1993; Bennagen and Lucas-Fernan, eds. 1996). On the other hand, there are a number of studies, beginning in the 1990s, that have increasingly questioned this generalization (cf. Vayda 1992: 297-298; Sajor and Resurreccion 1998: 8-9).

While such studies helped shatter the stereotype of the IP as destructive kaingineros, it merely replaced it with another stereotype, that of the ecologically-attuned animist (following Li 1996). It may be a better, more politically correct stereotype, but it is still a stereotype, with all its generalizations and misrepresentations.

This is not to say that indigenous or native religions have no positive contribution to environmental management. What I am saying is that social and other scientists have to do better in presenting evidence to that effect. I believe some cultures do have an environmentalist ethic, but that not even these cultures realize this ethic similarly, across time and space. We need to focus not on a priori assumptions about indigenous religions and cultures, but on actual human actions and their intended or unintended concrete environmental consequences (Vayda 1992: 298).

THE STATE AND INDIGENOUS TENURE The Colonial Period

Until the end of the 19th century, relations between the various local ethnic groups revolved principally around the formation of an upland-lowland divide (following Scott 1982). This process was based on a historical distinction between groups who were willfully or otherwise aligned with the conflated Catholicism, colonial control and commerce brought by the Spaniards, and those who were not.9

eating one of these omen-birds. An old woman from a family of baylan or shamans sitting nearby scoffed; as if to say, “Don’t be superstitous!”

9 The conflation of Catholicism, colonial power and commerce is reflected in the terms used to

refer to the upland populations; i.e., “infieles” or unbelievers. This was carried over into the American colonial period, which referred to the upland groups as “non-Christians.”

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During the Spanish colonial period, the country still had a large frontier and a relatively small population. Land and resource conflicts were ‘resolved’ by population movements into, or within the slowly shrinking frontier. There were Spanish laws that guaranteed the rights of “Indians” to land, but it was only towards the end of the Spanish colonial period that efforts were made to systematize the land titling system through the introduction of the Maura Law of 1894 (Gatmaytan, D. 1992: 45-46; see also McLennan 1980: 220). This may be taken as an indicator of the growing scarcity of land, particularly in the lowland and the central island provinces, and the consequent rise in tension over agrarian and other land issues (Bankoff 1996: 77-78, 81).

When the Philippines became a colony of the United States at the turn of the century, there was strong interest in the local ethnic groups. Much of the government and scholarly literature at this time seem obsessed with drawing distinctions among and between the local indigenous groups (cf. Philippine Commission 1903 and 1911, and Worcester 1913). By representing the various ethnic groups as primitive and mutually hostile, ethnographic studies of this period helped justify America’s colonial hold of the Philippines (cf. Drinnon 1980). It was thus during this period that local ethnic groups were ultimately classified as lowland or “Christian” on one hand, or upland or “non-Christian” on the other. During the early part of the 20th century, the principal response to question of IP tenure was the establishment of government-owned reservations for them. This is consistent with the general paternalistic attitude of the colonial government, which saw the “non-Christian groups” as needing education, religious conversion and protection, even against their own weaknesses. Some reservations simply set aside an area for IP communities to live in, as they learn the arts of Christianity, citizenship and “civilization” at their own pace. A number were designed to assimilate these communities by providing mechanisms for titling. The reservations are reflective of the Americans’ ambivalent policy—swinging between differing forms of segregation and assimilation—towards their “tribal wards”. This occurred within the framework of the American colonial project of state/empire-building, which required the appropriation and partitioning of space and the resources they embody (following Alonso 1994). It was during this period that the Regalian Doctrine and the government’s land classification system were given explicit form principally through the 1935 Constitution. Another dimension of this same state/empire-building project was the promulgation of land laws10—there was a series of titling or cadastral laws, culminating in the Public Land Act of 1936—to encourage agricultural expansion into frontier areas (cf. Abinales 2000: 72, 74). At the same time, the American colonial government began to encourage migration to, and settlement of Mindanaw, starting with Act no. 2254 (1913) (May 1992: 127; Cortes, Boncan and Jose 2000: 311-313; Anti-Slavery Society 1983: 37-38; Rodil 1994: 37). This combination of developments set the stage for the litany of dispossession that forms the other, hidden history of Mindanaw.

10 Act no. 496 or the Land Registration Act (1902), Act no. 926 (1903), Act no. 2874 (1919),

Com. Act no. 141 (1936).

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The Post-War Years In the decades after World War 2, the population and construction boom caused an

intensification of the contact between indigenous communities, land-hungry migrant-settlers and companies, and the state (Kummer 1992: 78). From the mid-1950s onward, IP communities began losing their lands to outsiders at a faster pace, prompting spontaneous, sporadic micro-rebellions by “marauding bands” of tribal “outlaws” (Abinales 2000: 101,125; May 1992: 127-128, 132-133; MMNS 1993: 86-87; TRICOM 1998: 8-9; Gaspar 2000: 121). This trend lasted into the 1990s,11 and sometimes merged with the larger Communist-led insurgency.

The 1964 Manahan amendments12 and Presidential Decree No. 410 (1974), which theoretically extended a measure of tenure protection to IPs, may be read as further indicators of the rising incidence of land grabbing. The state could no longer afford to be seen as ignoring the increasingly destructive impact of its own colonial usurpation of indigenous territories.

These statutes, however, simply assumed that the IP’s growing tenure problems could be addressed by having them apply for titles. Questions regarding the actual, economic and cultural accessibility of these legal remedies were not considered. The legal system's adherence to the medieval notion of jus regalia also introduced a distinction between land and resource ownership, which is at odds with the complex, often overlapping configuration of some indigenous tenure systems.13

What discussion there was then was severely blunted by the prevailing economic and political interest in maximizing resource use, principally in the form of ranching, plantation agriculture and logging during the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, much of the Philippines’ forests were converted to agricultural uses, or logged over (Sajise and Tapay 1996: 18, 20; Boado 1988: 167-168). It was in this context that indigenous culture in general, and kaingin agriculture in particular, were attacked by government officials as backward and destructive, and a law was in fact promulgated to outlaw the practice.14 This only justified government and corporate control of the uplands (Payuan 1983: 648; Bennagen 1983: 266). In sum, while there were individuals or factions within the government who felt it was important address emerging IP issues, there were very strong economic and political interests that ensured that any move made by the state along this line would remain superficial.

As a result, neither of the two statutes were effectively implemented by the Marcos administration.15 Instead, then Pres. Marcos issued Pres. Decree no. 705 (1975), sec. 13 of which legally deprived IP communities of their territories by deploying a slope-based land-

11 Among the latest was the 1994 Ata-Manobo pangayaw against Alcantara and Sons, Inc.’s

29,000 ha. tree-plantation in Talaingod, Davao del Norte (cf. SAGIP 1996: 8). 12 Rep. Act no. 3872, which amended provisions of Commonwealth Act no. 141 of 1936,

otherwise known as the Public Land Act. 13 This distinction between lands and domains, the definitions of these notions used, and the

context within which they are articulated, is a key element in the current variety of constructions of ancestral lands and domains.

14 Rep. Act no. 3701 (1963), the so-called “Anti-Kaingin Law”. 15 Only in 1986, after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, were the Manahan amendments

applied in law, and erroneously at that (Gatmaytan, D. 1992: 66).

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classification system. In effect, most of the upland areas where the IP live were legally classified as forest lands, a form of state or public property. Pres. Decree no. 705 thus became the basis for many IP groups’ complaint that in law, they were “squatters in their own homeland”.

In response, some IP communities and representatives petitioned the government to “give” them land or titles, or as was my experience in Mindoro, to have their lands reclassified from forest to agricultural, to allow it to be titled. This trend has survived through the 1980s and even into the 1990s.

On the other hand, other communities or their members opted for a more activist approach in protecting their ancestral territories. One of the more dramatic instances of local activism was the fierce opposition to the World Bank-funded Chico Dam project by Kalinga and Bontok communities in the northern Cordilleras, which lasted into the early 1980s. The IP were also strongly represented in the growing armed insurgency, particularly in the northern Cordilleras and the Sierra Madres, as well as in various parts of Mindanaw (May 1992: 135; Anti-Slavery Society 1983: 163).16 This reflected among other things the growing resistance of upland communities against the unjust land and resource laws and policies of the Marcos regime.

The mid-1970s and 1980s was a period when the level of discourse on IP issues developed. There were debates about appropriate or ‘correct’ ethnic and collective names; distinctions were made between ancestral lands and domains; and formulations of the IPs’ problems17 were tested. The Regalian Doctrine—the basis for the state’s hold on the tribal territories—came increasingly under critical scrutiny. Scholars then began publishing studies advocating support for the IP and their interests (see Fernandez 1980; Lynch 1981, 1983b; and Aranal-Sereno and Libarios 1983).

More importantly, IP groups were organized; initially through the pioneering efforts of the Catholic Church’s Episcopal Commission for Tribal Filipinos, but later on at their own initiative.18 In the process they began to assert their identity, which was seen as bound up with their lands or territories. To note, not all IP groups and communities even today are organized, and those that are differ considerably in terms of their level of organization and awareness, and political alignment and sophistication.

The more politically refined leaders and advocates began to demand state recognition of IP right to self-determination (see for example, PACT 1983: 39; Anti-Slavery Society 1983: 167). These groups were the first to stop asking the government to give them land, but instead demanded that the state recognize their already vested ownership of their ancestral territories.

The involvement of many members of the IP in armed insurgency; the surge in self- and NGO-organizing of indigenous communities during the 1970s and 1980s; the indigenous peoples’ growing skill in articulating their interests and mobilizing support from churches, NGOs, the media and politicians; the national and international respect they won for their

16 The National Democratic Front’s Ten Point Programme for a National Democratic

Revolution at this time acknowledged the right of Moro and “national minorities” to self-determination, democracy and autonomy.

17 Examples would be “development aggression” (cf. TABAK 1990), and later, from the

Cordillera groups, “ethnocide”. 18 Aside from the ECTF, the 1970’s saw the formation of the first NGOs focused on

organizing and providing services to IP communities. Among the oldest surviving such NGOs are Philippine Association for Intercultural Development (PAFID) based in Manila, and Silingang Dapit sa Sidlakang Mindanaw (SILDAP-SIDLAKAN) based in Butuan City.

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vision and sacrifices; the growing relevance of consultative processes and the social sciences in the formulation of policies, legislation and regulations; and the resulting general acknowledgment of the legitimacy of IP struggles, rights and aspirations all had a cumulative effect on the state.

I would argue that the results of dissent in the form of advocacy and other work by indigenous peoples, and groups and individuals supporting them have contributed to a slow process of gradual legal recognition of IPs’ rights by the state. The incremental gains made by IPs were won from a grudging state through a difficult struggle, resulting in part in the constitutional recognition of IPs’ rights to ancestral lands in 1987. From that point on, there was no longer any legal doubt that IPs had rights to ancestral territories; the question was how these rights would be defined and recognized.

Partly in reaction to this gradual political development, and partly perhaps as a growing realization of the limitations of state-centered resource-management, the government began offering in the 1980s19 legal mechanisms that allowed upland communities—indigenous or otherwise—a measure of tenure security (Gibbs, Payuan and del Castillo 1990: 259-260; Contreras 2000: 149). Among these are the Integrated Social Forestry Program, the Community Forest Program and latterly, the Contract Reforestation Program.

None of these tenure programs recognized the IPs’ right of ownership of their ancestral territories (Gatmaytan, A. 1992: 24-25). In fact, it may be argued that entering such agreements legally negated their claims of ownership. On the other hand, they did lay the foundation for further “people-oriented” programs within government and policy circles.

As already pointed out above, support for IP issues was generated by linking their struggles with the environmental movement of the mid-1980s and early 1990s. A number of NGOs reinforced this use of environmentalist rhetoric to support indigenous claims to land and resources. One consequence has been the conflation of the environmental movement with the struggle of the IP for their rights to their territories, two movements that are not necessarily compatible with each other.20

The 1990s

In the 1990s, after the stabilization of the post-Marcos government, there was a

series of administrative regulations that pioneered the documentation of indigenous rights to land. First of these was DENR Special Order no. 31 (1990), which set up a Special Task Force in Baguio City assigned the task of certifying areas occupied by ancestral claimants in relation to the processing of town-site applications (Leonen 2000: 78-79). From this very modest beginning grew an entire field of legal and cultural discourse and practice.

The idea of delineating ancestral lands and domains was then gradually implemented by the DENR in a few other provinces, and even found its way into legislation during this period.21

19 LOI nos. 1260 (1982) and 1474 (1985), and MNR Admin. Order no. 48 (1982). 20 It must be said that while most of the deforestation in the country was caused by logging

companies, these companies could not have had such an impact without the cooperation of at least some local IP members. Yet it is ‘politically incorrect’ to link IP communities with logging. If we are to accept the IPs’ right to self-determination, this must include their taking responsibility for any errors they may have committed.

21 See in particular, Rep. Act no. 6657 (1988), the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, and

Rep. Act no. 7586 (1992), which set up the National Integrated Protected Areas System.

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In 1993, the DENR issued Administrative Order No. 2 (1993), as a result of internal and external initiatives and pressure (Leonen 2000: 80). This administrative order provided a procedure for documenting IPs’ ancestral lands and domains claims, culminating in due course in the issuance of a certificate in favor of the applicant. It vested the holders of these certificates with some control over their lands and resources that had not as yet been otherwise appropriated.

The result, perhaps ironically, was an intense, at times hostile, debate within and among indigenous communities and organizations, and their support groups. There were groups—unquestionably in the majority—who hailed the order as a step towards full recognition, as it gave communities historically unprecedented legal rights over lands and resources. The more naïve even saw in the regulations the answer to all their tenure problems. Other groups condemned the delineation procedures as “inutile” (cf. CPA and Dinteg 1998: 29).

DENR Admin. Order no. 2 does have serious defects (Gatmaytan 1996: 26). For one, it merely certified that a given area is claimed by a certain group as their ancestral land or domain; it does not certify that group’s ownership of the area. The regulations thus refuse to address the principal issue of ownership of ancestral territories. Indeed, implicit in both the wording of the regulation and in the way DENR implemented it was the idea that this was essentially a stop-gap measure while legislation on ancestral domain rights were awaited.

Second, even when an applicant group receives a CADC, it will not be allowed to adversely affect concessions, licenses, leases, patents, permits or other rights which had previously been secured by commercial companies over the area claimed.22 In other words, the community must respect the rights and interests of the companies usurping their land or resources. This is a serious problem in areas like Agusan del Sur, where ancestral territories have long been carved up among logging and tree-plantation companies (cf. Gatmaytan 1995).

Third, the entire process bureaucratizes the notion of ancestral lands and domains (see Gatmaytan 1999); it is an enclosure of the cultural frontier. Whereas the definition of ancestral rights had hitherto been defined by the various IPs’ particular histories, cultural ideas and community praxis, now it is defined by administrative standards set by the state (Foucault 1980: 131).

Bureaucratization has three inter-related consequences for the IP. It gives the state—with all its own political and economic interests—a vital role in deciding who has what rights to which areas. This means the government can use it to form alliances with local leaders willing to collaborate with its state-building programs and policies (following Breuilly 1993: 158). This also provides the state a means to gather information on local resources, communities and their leaders, and thereby control them (Giddens 1985: 117).

Moreover, the state’s inherent “dread of difference” will compel it to standardize or genericize the notion of ancestral lands and domains, and rights thereto (Claestres 1974, cited in Nagengast 1994: 110). Previously an Agta’s notion of ancestral domains would differ from an Ibaloy land-owner. Now all IP groups legally have the same set of rights, irrespective of their respective cultural backgrounds and political and economic settings. Such a homogenization of space facilitates the state’s assertion of control over land and resources, as it is easier to manage uni-form ‘ancestral domains’ subject to uniform rules than a mosaic of complex, dynamic and internally-differentiated tenure systems (Alonso 1994: 382).

Finally, the state’s involvement at this level intensifies the commodification of ancestral lands and domains. By defining one set of rights and obligations for all ancestral

22 Art. 4, sec. 2 of DENR Admin. Order no. 2 (1993).

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domain owners, it sets the stage for contractual transactions over these lands and resources. This means a further growth of the state’s role in maintaining a legal order where such rights and transactions may be exercised and protected (Merry 1992: 364). From 1993 onwards, I see an increasing openness on the part of the state to consider various degrees of privatization of so-called public lands.23

As of 6 June 1998, a total of 181 CADCs had been issued by DENR, covering a total of 2,546,035 has. of land (DENR 1998). A larger number of CALCs have been issued. In terms of sheer quantitative output, it would seem that delineation is one of the more successful DENR programs.

No full study has as yet been made of the policy, cultural and political impact of ancestral domains delineation under DENR Admin. Order no. 2, although I have elsewhere noted problems in its implementation in Agusan del Sur province (Gatmaytan 1996: 27-28). Unless strictly monitored, ancestral domains delineation could become a mechanism for land grabbing by individuals with connections in the DENR, commercial firms or with government or military officials. In Agusan del Sur province, where a community can generally claim at most about 3,500 sq. has. as its territory, six individuals have secured CADCs over 6,310, 51,000, 14,225, 74,827, 7,478 and 6,095 sq. has., respectively (DENR 1998). One can only wonder how many communities’ territories were legally usurped by these six CADCs, or if they are even aware of the fact and its consequences for them.

The abuse of DENR Admin. Order no. 2 is not unique to Agusan del Sur. Western Mining Corporation, an Australian mining firm, funded and prepared the ancestral domain applications of B’laan communities within its mining area in the southern Cotabato region, basically in exchange for their consent to the company’s operations. Where the B’laan communities opposed the company, it tried to designate residents who were in favor of the company’s presence as “community leaders” (Florentino-Hofilena 1996: 114).

On the other hand, there are scattered reports of how the delineation regulations has helped local communities defend their territories.

Legislation after the issuance of DENR Admin. Order no. 2 in 1993 tended to recognize the implicit need to document the claims of IP communities. Rep. Act no. 7942, the justly condemned Mining Act of 1995, could not afford—despite its clear bias in favor of commercial exploitation of mineral resources—to ignore IP communities’ rights.24

In the meantime, the other “people-oriented” tenure-programs of the DENR continued to be implemented or modified, and new ones developed. By the mid-1990s, the DENR had on offer a smorgasbord of tenure programs that included the Forest Land Management Program, Community-Based Rattan Plantations, the Socialized Integrated Forestry Program and the Community-Based Forest Management Program, aside from the earlier social forestry, community forestry and ancestral domains delineation regulations, and still other area-specific projects. All of which made discussing tenure options at the community level tedious for the lawyer and confusing for the community. To note, none of these programs addressed the question of IP ownership of ancestral territory.

Exec. Order no. 263 of 1995 formally adopted community based forestry management as the national strategy for forest resource management. This is a remarkable development in the government’s approach to environmental management and tenure

23 The idea of privatizing public forest lands however is not new. I recall that during the

debates over the various log ban bills in the late 1980s and early 1990s, spokespersons for the logging industry were arguing for ownership of forest lands by companies, citing among others the Japanese forestry system. DENR and other government officials were then unreceptive to the idea.

24 See sec. 16, Rep. Act no. 7942 (1995).

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issues in the uplands. The Exec. Order’s implementing order, DENR Admin. Order no. 29 of 1996, consolidated some of the government’s tenure programs, and offered upland communities a choice between the CBFM, Certificate of Stewardship Contracts and the CADC.

However, these changes seem to have had little impact beyond the initial restructuring of the DENR’s tenure programs. Very tellingly, the DENR’s budget profile shows that it continues to prioritize commercially-, rather than socially-oriented, programs or projects (Leonen 1998: 33-34). On the ground, industrial tree plantations in the early to mid-1990s and mining applications after 1995 continued to threaten indigenous communities’ rights to their land and resources.

I think that the notion of a state-implemented community-based forest management program is a contradiction in terms. The state and each community both have different historical, political and cultural perspectives on land and resource management, and the only way to reconcile these is on a specific, case-to-case basis rather than on a program level.

Others have criticized the idea as a mere “hijack” or appropriation by the state of the rhetoric of an articulate and distrustful civil society as a hegemonic ploy to retain its legitimacy (Contreras 2000: 150-151), or as a means of absolving the state of responsibility for forest management (cf. Van Den Top and Persoon 2000).

The IPRA

Even while the DENR was implementing its programs, individuals in government and

IP organizations and support groups were working for the enactment of a law that would recognize IPs’ ownership of ancestral territories. This loose alliance drew force from policy initiatives by particular IP communities, NGOs and legislators dating back—across more than a decade of passionate advocacy and activism—to 1988, as well as from the growing social acceptance of the legitimacy of the indigenous peoples’ demands.

Discussions of the IPRA have centered almost exclusively on the tenurial dimension of the issue; very little note was made of the environmental aspects of ancestral domains delineation (see for example Pavia, ed. 1998; Leonen 1998). I read this as reflective of the presumption that IPs are capable of managing territories for ecological vis-à-vis economic ends.

Discussions of indigenous tenure were often presented in terms of a dyadic contrast between indigenous concepts, and that of the laws or legislators’ (Pavia, ed. 1998: 14-15). This is an ongoing theme in the literature, particularly among advocates of IP rights (cf. Gaspar 2000: 117-119; Rodil 1994: 28-29; TRICOM 1998: 10-13; Kaliwat Theatre Collective 1996: 101-102; Royandoyan and Atillo 2000). The efforts of this loose alliance of advocates culminated in the promulgation of Rep. Act no. 8371 of 1997, also known as the IPRA. This law purports to provide for the rights of the IP, particularly over their lands and resources. An important feature of the statute is a procedure by which an (unproblematized) indigenous cultural community or indigenous people, or members thereof, may apply for documents of title as evidence of their ownership of their (unproblematized) ancestral lands and domains.

These documents of title are the CADT and the CALT. They are in themselves an improvement over the certificates—of rather dubious legal effect—issued under DENR Admin. Order No. 2 (1993). However, by contenting itself with replicating the latter's provisions on tenure, it replicates the same weaknesses. Specifically, if a mining, logging, or other company or project has already secured legal rights to lands or resources which are only now being claimed as ancestral domains, the rights of a CADT holder will be substantially limited. There is also a specific provision that states that IPs’ rights under the

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IPRA are subject to existing “property rights”, which could be made to include titles, leases, licenses, permits, concessions, and patents, among others.

Moreover, the surveillance, homogenization and commodification of IPs and their territories noted in the discussion of DENR Admin. Order no. 2 above are intensified under the IPRA. The IPRA’s titles and titling procedures signal the administrative enclosure of the notion of ancestral domains, and the increasing privatization and commodification of what had hitherto been public lands. The promulgation of the IPRA gave rise to further discord within the ranks of the IP and their advocates and supporters. I think most communities and organizations are at least open to exploring the avenues offered by the new law. On the other hand, a number of communities raised the point that they were not consulted in the crafting of the IPRA. More substantively, others saw the statute as merely ratifying the state’s intrusions into communities’ control of land and resources (cf. SILDAP 2000). On 25 September 1998, even before the IPRA could be effectively implemented, its constitutionality was questioned before the Supreme Court, by a former Justice of that Court, no less.25 In essence, the petitioners attacking the constitutionality of the IPRA argued that the IPs cannot own upland areas and natural resources because these are the property of the state by virtue of the Regalian Doctrine. This is an atavistic reversion to the colonial period, one that directly attacks the consensus on the legitimacy of indigenous peoples’ rights to their land.

This legal challenge also reflected the heterogenous character of both the state and the industrial sector. As was revealed during the course of the trial, there were government officials for and others against the IPRA, and corporations which were averse to it and which have actually exploited it.

Implementation of the statute was—quite improperly—suspended pending the resolution of the case. During this time, as well, the DENR stopped implementation of DENR Administrative Order no. 2 (1993).

Only recently,26 the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the IPRA by the narrowest possible legal margin; i.e., a deadlocked vote of seven Justices ruling for, and seven against, the constitutionality of the law. Since the rules require that a majority is needed to declare a law unconstitutional, the deadlock meant that there was in fact no majority, and the IPRA just barely survived this (initial) assault on its constitutionality. As of date, the case is still pending consideration by the Supreme Court, on the basis of a motion for reconsideration filed by the defeated petitioners.

SYNTHESIS The general trend that runs through this brief history is a gradual development of mechanisms for state recognition of the rights of the IP, and the parallel process of experimentation with the definition and elaboration of their tenure rights within the state’s legal framework. This should be seen within the context of a larger policy framework that—thanks to the integrative, entrepreneurial global capitalism of today—increasingly works by a liberalizing and privatizing imperative and logic. Ancestral domains delineation under DENR

25 Isagani Cruz and Cesar Europa v. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources,

Secretary of Budget and Management and Chairman and Commissioners of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

26 G.R. no. 135385, dated 6 December 2000.

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Admin. Order no. 2 and the IPRA may be interpreted as an entrepreneurial response to a very political demand. It is a mode of privatization of local resources that allows the state to address the IP’s demands for resource ownership or control and at the same time set the procedure by which they may be integrated through contracts into the global capitalist system. Despite the considerable advances the IP have made in asserting their rights, it should be stressed that as a group, they are not homogenous. Individuals, communities, organizations and networks within the ranks of the IP and their supporters have differing positions on such issues as their analysis of their situation; working with the state, its agencies and officials; applying for documents under DENR Administrative Order no. 2 (1993), the IPRA or other government tenure programs; and their visions of a more just and prosperous future, among other things. This raises questions of representation. Who are the IPs? Who among them can speak for the others? How does one choose from those who do speak out those whose analysis and demands are reflective of the rights and interests of most or all others? The matter is complicated by the fact that not all IP communities and organizations are similarly situated. Today, there are communities where global commerce and culture have made no substantial inroads, and others where the IP are now indistinguishable from non-IP groups. Some would even deny that they are descended from IP ancestors, others proudly assert it. Many have lost all or some of their lands, a few others have deeds of title dating back to the American period. Some groups seek more government or corporate presence in their areas, others are staunchly against any form of cooperation with the state, many are somewhere between these two extremes. Some communities boast of a core of well-educated members, others have shockingly low literacy rates. Most are poverty stricken, but others are among the country’s or at least the local elite. Any attempt at a definitive statement on the situation of the IP today must gamble that the subjective judgements they make—unavoidable in making generalizations or representations of who the IP are, what their situation is, and how are they to further their rights—have some meaningful basis. This has relevance to the previous discussion of communal and individual tenure, culture and the environment, indigenous tenure and state policies on tenure. Because IP communities and groups are not a homogenous collectivity, we are made aware that simplistic categorizations are problematic. There are groups or communities where communal tenure is the rule, others where it is individual, and still others where it is a syncretic, possibly shifting combination of different systems. These may be true between and within IP groups. The better ethnographies cited—Yengoyan’s and Manuel’s works—also remind us of the reality and inevitability of change. As others have pointed out, ethnographies by their nature are outdated, and whatever descriptions they present may no longer hold true, particularly for the older works. And this is assuming that the descriptions or interpretations had empirical basis in the first place. We have seen that a scholars’ received or unquestioned assumptions affects the way s/he sees a community’s practices and re-presents it. In turn, such re-presentations may also affect the way others in the future will conduct their own observations and descriptions, as was the case of Gloria. Sensitivity to context and specificity acquire great importance in description and prescription. This is the key to understanding the apparent ambiguities regarding tenure, such as the description of Banwaon tenure. There are cultures or aspects of cultures that can contribute positively to environmental management, and there are those that cannot. In the discussion above, indigenous religions were the focus, serving as a metaphor for culture itself. There are many materials that try to show how religion is an environmental good—though I am not

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persuaded by the evidence thus far presented—so it was unnecessary to present such materials. What is stressed is how an assumption that indigenous religions, and cultures by extension, are environmentally sensitive cannot be made at any level. Questions about communities’ tenure or cultures’ environmental sensitivity can only be answered on a case-to-case basis. In consequence, great care must be taken in formulating generalizations and recommendations. I reiterate the need to transcend dichotomies in analysis or description. Dichotomies obscure too much of the nuances and dynamics of IP and other communities; limiting what we can observe, and hence, learn. But if representations cannot as consequence be seen as authoritative, is there any value in study and description? To clarify, what we ought to be wary of is viewing any one description as authoritative for all indigenous communities at any level of generalization. What is true for one community may not be for others, even though they may be from a single ethno-linguistic group, region or country. It may however be authoritative for the specific communities studied, at a specific point in time. This leaves us effectively with a statistical sample of one. What is the value of one? It is a starting point for discussion and comparison, for illustrating what—among all the many permutations of actors and factors—is possible.

CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDY 1: MINALWANG Profile

Barangay Minalwang of the Municipality of Claveria, Misamis Oriental may be seen as a political and geographic unit that unites a cluster of six largely autonomous Higa-onon sitios or communities; Minalwang, Impadiding, Lakbangan, Kalahaan, Mandalawat and Malunsagay. Together, these communities cover a total of 28,465 sq. has. of classified timber land (Mun. of Claveria 2000a: 14-15); nearly one-sixth of the municipality’s land area (GM 1997: 2).

Claveria itself holds much of the remaining forests of the province (Mun. of Claveria 2000a: 1), and these are concentrated mostly in Minalwang, where a “large portion” of the area “is still covered by old-growth forests” (GM 1997: 3). Much of the terrain ranges from rolling hills to steep slopes, with a few level areas adjacent to rivers or creeks. Areas adjacent to the six community sites are covered by farms, fallows and secondary growths; more remote areas are still forested, in many cases with old-growth stands.

The barangay has a total population of 3,518, divided into 649 households. With only 12 persons per sq. km., it has the second lowest population density in the municipality, which itself has the lowest such statistic among the municipalities of Misamis Oriental (Mun. of Claveria 2000a: 15-16, data cited is from 1998). While 79 % of the residents in the municipality are Cebuano (Mun. of Claveria 2000b: 47)—indicated by mother-tongue—Minalwang is described as 74 % Higa-onon (GM 1997: 10).27

In 1995, about 93 % of the municipal population were Roman Catholics (Mun. of Claveria 2000b: 48). Catholicism and other Christian sects have made inroads into Minalwang—there is a Catholic chapel at Minalwang proper—and while indigenous rituals

27 Non-Higa-onon are referred to as “dumagat”; i.e., “from the sea”, alluding to their migrant

origin from beyond Mindanao.

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continue to be practiced,28 many community members and observers have expressed concern over whether traditional beliefs and values are being transmitted to the next generation. The Higa-onon of Minalwang are traditionally swidden-farmers. Today, agricultural systems and technology are mixed, with different households using irrigated paddies, swiddens and tree-farms. Traditional crops like corn, rice and root-crops are mostly for consumption. Coffee and falcatta (Albizia falcataria) used to be an important cash-crop, but cultivation has declined considerably since the political tensions of the early 1980s. Fruit trees and vegetables, in addition to minor forest products,29 form an important source of income for residents. Farm labor and small enterprises are another source of cash. Beginning around the 1970s, local people were able to work as cutters or security guards for the two companies which acquired concessions over the area, Anakan Logging Co. (ALCO) and Nasipit Logging Co. (NALCO). Logging operations have been suspended since 1991, when a moratorium on logging in the province was declared. Much of the tree-cutting seems to have been done in sitios Impadiding and Kalahaan (GM 1997: 20), though some sources named still other sitios. The limited environmental impact of these logging operations, compared with so many other areas, is probably due to the fact that the two companies were more interested in areas beyond Minalwang; i.e., they wanted to log further areas, but had to pass through Minalwang to get there. No commercial logging of either large- or small-scale is conducted today in the Minalwang area. Rattan (Calamus sp.) has been an important source of cash for Minalwang since the 1970s. Before then, rattan had been largely for domestic use. Elders recounted that in gathering rattan then, they would not cut the stem but only split it longitudinally to allow the portion of the vine left to live on. This practice survives only in the memories of the elders. By the mid-1990s, up to 90 % of the adult male population was engaged in rattan-cutting (GM 1997: 20), conducted on an industrial scale and intensity. During the 1980s and the early 1990s, as many as thirty contractors and five rattan permit-holders were operating in the area (GM 1997: 30). As of December 2000, there were still two rattan-cutting permit holders with concessions overlapping portions of Minalwang’s territory.

I agree with the observations by members of the GM staff that gender issues need to be better addressed in Minalwang. As it is, community leadership and rattan cutting—the most important income-generating activity—is dominated by men. To note, the existing profiles of Minalwang do not present data that is gender-disaggregated.

28 One informant stated that rituals have been developed for logging, falcatta-harvesting and

commercial rattan-cutting. 29 These include inak-ak (wooden shingles), giyong, tikog, almaciga (Agathis philippinensis),

abaca (Musa textilis) and baliw.

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Land and Resource Tenure

The local tenure system is centered on the ga-op. While some sources describe it as communal in character, vested in a clan or lineage (cf. GM 1997: 16), almost all informants discoursed on it as if it were individual. That is to say, discussions of rights and access to the ga-op were centered on individuals; or more precisely, on male household heads. In no case was a family or lineage, or sitio or community named as the owner of a ga-op. Indeed, the very existence of inheritance rules strongly suggests that the land is not communally, but individually held (following Yengoyan 1971).

I do not know if this reflects a shift from communal to individual tenure, or if the ga-op has historically been individual, or If the system is actually much more complex than a simple individual vs. communal dichotomy allows. There was insufficient time to look further into its history and character. I will proceed with the my understanding of ga-op as individual in character. Ga-op is landed property, with two alternative bases. The first is inheritance, traced back across the generations to a pioneering ancestor who first cleared the area for farming.30 As is the case among the Manobo of Agusan del Sur (Gatmaytan 1999), being the first to clear a forest area for cultivation entitles the pioneer to claim the area and the surrounding land as his property. Today, informants can still name the clans with pioneering ancestors, and thus have land-holdings in the various communities of Minalwang. The second basis is “delegation”.31 There seem to be times when a ga-op holder would allocate lands among people—whether these were kin or not is unclear—who thereby become for all practical, day-to-day purposes, the owner of the “delegated” land. My impression however is that while the person who delegated land remains alive, s/he retains some residual control of the land. The assignee of land thus cannot fully assert her/his will as against the person who gave her/him the land in the first place. Moreover, the assignee cannot dispose of the land except through inheritance to his/her direct descendants. Inheritance rules are bilateral and in the direct line, allowing both male and female children to inherit portions of both parents’ ga-op. A number of informants asserted that all people in Minalwang had lands of their own, and that they each generally owned at least two, one from the father’s, and another from the mother’s side. Generally, children inherit equally, although the land owner has ultimate authority in apportioning the land among his/her children. There is strong emphasis on the descendants’ obligation to comply with the will of the decedent; which seems to have included in a number of instances prohibitions against selling land. One datu stated that even siblings cannot sell the lands they inherited to each other.

In theory, a woman’s lands remain her own property even after marriage; i.e., her husband cannot claim it as his own. I do not know how well-realized this rule is in practice (cf. Gatmaytan 1999); further investigation is indicated here. There seems to be no effective difference between land-holdings that are inherited or delegated; both have equal standing.

At present, all the lands in the barangay have been claimed as ga-op. Land-holdings range from about half a hectare to ten has., with the average at around 5 has. (MIHITRICO 1997). In theory, a person may have any number of holdings, depending mainly on how industrious her/his ancestors were in opening clearings, and perhaps on the generosity of her/his in-laws. Often, an individual’s different ga-op are located at some distance from each

30 As tree-felling is a male gender-role, these ancestors are uniformly male. 31 My informants used the term “gi-delegahan”.

33

other. Natural features such as rivers or ridges are used as boundaries between neighboring holdings.

It is thus possible to picture the area of each sitio to be actually subdivided into a patchwork of ga-op claims. Each individual or household opens its farms within his/her various ga-op. Where a ga-op is quite large—a number of them are more than 10 sq. has.—farm lots may only occupy a small part of the entire lot. Traditional group regulation of land use appears limited; individuals appear to have much leeway in terms of managing their respective holdings. In general, local people know who owns which lands, and seek the owner’s permission before taking resources in areas other than their own.32

Land ownership is expressly linked to resources found there; i.e., the owner of the land is the owner of resources therein. This is the basis for claims of ownership over rattan stands. One who wants to cut rattan must first seek permission from, and negotiate access-fees with, the person who owns the land where the rattan is located. Even at the peak of rattan-cutting, when rattan was highly commodified, cutters and contractors—who usually were locals—routinely sought the land holders’ permission. This practice is still extant.

Commercially valuable trees theoretically fall under the same rules, but the people of Minalwang were unable to assert ownership of trees vis-à-vis NALCO and ALCO. When elders agreed among themselves to lead an anti-logging barricade, these companies cited their government-issued concession-papers. Moreover, the loggers used as their negotiators the relatives of the elders who led the barricades. In the end, the Higa-onon gave way to the company. In fact, many local residents ended up working for the two companies.

Still, the people of Minalwang did win significant concessions from the loggers during the negotiations that followed the barricades. They had the company build a school house in Impadiding, they were allowed to use the logging trucks for personal transport or carrying their rattan,33 almaciga trees would not be cut in any case, and tree-cutting would be limited to that necessary for the construction of the road to those areas beyond Minalwang where the companies wanted to conduct their principal operations anyway.

In contrast with the rattan-operators, logging operators did not pay ga-op owners for access to timber on the latters’ lands.34 Perhaps this is because the people of Minalwang could not fully assert themselves against the logging companies owned by outside-based capitalists, whereas they could more effectively deal with rattan contractors and cutters, who in almost all cases were locals, relatives or Higa-onon. Hence, rattan cutting respected the ga-op system from the start. Hunting is generally done only within one’s ga-op; hunting or trapping in other’s lands requires the owner’s permission.35 One Impadiding elder declared his land absolutely off limits to hunters or trappers to help preserve game stocks. However, he was unsuccessful; the animals move beyond the bounds of the wildlife sanctuary he set up and were thus caught on others’ lands.

Fishing was formerly an open-access resource, but there seems to be a shift towards ga-op holders having more control of access to waters in their areas. This is perhaps a

32 For example, cutting down a tree for house-building. 33 The loggers did not offer any objections to the rattan-cutting operations of the local people. 34 This differs as well from the experience of the Higa-onon, Manobo and Banwaon of Agusan

del Norte and Sur provinces. 35 This is particularly true if the trapper uses la-is or balatik; a trap that when triggered

releases a spear and could thus cause serious injury or even death to the unwary.

34

reaction to negative experiences with people—locals included—who used chemicals to kill fish or freshwater shrimps in fishing in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Other, minor resources are treated as open-access, which may be used or taken by anyone. Seeking Legal Protection The Higa-onon of Minalwang know that they used to occupy the lands which now comprise coastal Gingo-og City. Perhaps this, as well as their helplessness in the face of the logging firms, impressed upon them the need for legal protection for their tenure. Their first experience in dealing with government over tenure was in 1991. Local leaders wanted to develop an area in Impadiding suitable for irrigation and wet-rice cultivation. They applied for assistance from the National Irrigation Authority (NIA), which signaled its willingness to help provided some legal documentation over the land be secured. Upon consultation with the DENR, it was decided that they apply for an Integrated Social Forestry Program project. After organizing the Higa-onon Farmers Association and securing a waiver from ALCO, 57 community members were granted individual Social Forestry contracts over an aggregate area of 60.2 sq. has. Interestingly, the land allocations of the 57 individuals were made by the elders; i.e., the ga-op owners.

After 1993, the elders and leaders of Minalwang encountered individuals who were involved with CADC applications under DENR Administrative Order no. 2 (1993). These included Datu Migketay of the Mt. Kitanglad Range National Park, who was then planning the unified ancestral domain claim for that area; the paramount datu of Mintapud, a neighboring community, who had filed a CADC application; and Butch Dagondon of GM. Encouraged by these contacts, they conducted initial discussions with the DENR.

The DENR was then promoting the CBFM program rather than the CADC. When the younger leaders read the implementing regulations for the latter, they were impressed enough to argue for applying for a CADC, rather than a CBFMA. The DENR expressed no objections despite their initial position, and work on the application began. The original plan called for the application to cover only sitio Impadiding and its approximately 12,000 sq. has. of land. On hearing of the plan, leaders and residents of the five other communities of the barangay persuaded Impadiding’s leaders to broaden the scope of the application. For purposes of the application, the local people established the Minalwang Higa-onon Tribal Council, Inc. (MIHITRICO).

With assistance from GM, the application was filed with the PSTFAD of Misamis Oriental. The application met with two serious problems. First was opposition from the Mayor of Claveria, who had to be persuaded by the elders that the grant of a CADC would not deprive the municipality of political jurisdiction over the area. The second was a boundary-conflict with Brgy. Eureka, which claimed a portion of the area covered by the application. This conflict was resolved through arbitration by elders and local government officials.

In 1997, MIHITRICO was awarded R-10-CADC-114, covering 20,500 sq. has. They hurriedly complied with the legal requirement of submitting an ADMP. They did this by asking each of the six sitios to come up with a list of projects for its respective members, which were then compiled and repackaged under a single framework. They were thus surprised to learn that the ADMP—which many informants thought of as a “rush job”—reportedly won recognition from the UNDP as a “model ADMP” in 1999.

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The ADMP is remarkable for its deceptively brief form; there are essentially only ten provisions.36 Behind these ten concise provisions however is the entire body of Higa-onon traditional law, the Bungkatol ha Bulawan nang Katas ha Lana (see MIHITRICO 1997). Thus par. no. 1 seems to simply enjoin us to “(o)bserve good values or rules”, but reading this in conjunction with Bungkatol ha Bulawan brings to bear the entire complex of knowledges, values, beliefs, traditions and practices known to the Higa-onon of this tulugan.37

Of interest here is par. no. 4, which states that “(e)ach group of lumad is responsible for guarding their own land”. I interpret this to mean that each of the six communities constituting the barangay responsible for their respective territories. This reflects the traditional autonomy of each of the six communities. In the same way, the process of allowing each sitio to plan for itself in the formulation of the ADMP also reflects a respect for traditional community autonomy. This mutual respect among the six communities underscores how the entire structure of MIHITRICO rests on express negotiations and agreements between community leaders.

In sum, the ADMP shows considerable concern for environmental considerations, expressed in mandatory rules or prohibitions, or restrictions on land or resource access and use.

Implementation of the ADMP was made the task of sitio-level tribal councils led by sitio-datus. Within each sitio, land utilization, care for timber and rattan stocks, access to local resources and agricultural development are at least partly in the hands of the ga-op owners. There is thus a link between the implementation of the ADMP and local tenure.

The ADMP is also notable for how carefully the Higa-onon matched existing governmental structures—the elective Barangay Captain and Councilors, who are usually assigned the task of overseeing the welfare of particular sitios—by setting up an elective ‘Supreme Datu’, sitio-councils and –datus (see GM 1997: 14). All but one of MIHITRICO’s officers are also barangay officials.

A few months after receiving their CADC, the people of Minalwang were surprised to learn that funds for livelihood projects were available to them through the government’s Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF), administered by the DENR. The PAF was originally intended as a response to the El Nino phenomenon, and targeted at CADC-holders, among others. MIHITRICO is using P 1.4 million in livelihood funds from the PAF to finance the implementation of its ADMP. Many informants said that if this fund had not come along, they would not know how to secure capitalization for their local projects.

As of December 2000, almost all respondents expressed general satisfaction with the CADC, which had made access to livelihood funds possible. Agriculture is being improved

36 These are: (1) (Observe) good values or rules; (2) The sale of land is prohibited; (3)

Newcomers with interest in land, such as dumagat, may not enter the area; (4) Each group of lumad is responsible for guarding their own land; (5) Companies interested in logging or mining may not be allowed to return or enter; (6) Do not keep transferring residence; (7) Clearing or cutting young rattan growths is prohibited; (8) Do not poison waters; (9) Birds must be cared for; and (10) Punish violators (the original provisions are in Cebuano; translations are mine).

37 The term tulugan refers to a region comprising any number of communities who adhere to

a particular form or interpretation of indigenous batasan or laws. Thus there will be differences in the batasan of two Higa-onon groups from different tulugan. The region’s extent is often conflated with a river system’s watershed area. Equivalent terms are talugan in Banwaon, and salugan or sayugan in Manobo. The term should not be confused with the community meeting house, also known as talugan.

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and cottage industries established as alternatives to relying on the extraction of forest products.

Logging is no longer done, and rattan-cutting is regulated by MIHITRICO. In particular, the two remaining rattan-cutting permit-holders’ rights would be respected provided they respect tribal and DENR regulations. At the expiration of these permits, MIHITRICO will apply for the rattan-cutting permit over their area. In any case, securing permission from, and payment to, the ga-op owner and to MIHITRICO must be done. Rattan seedlings are not to be damaged. Rattan cutting is prohibited in designated sacred areas. Various sources noted that there were cases of violations of the rattan-cutting regulations, but barangay officials are actively prosecuting or penalizing violators.

At present, there are discussions of coordinating the implementation of the ADMP with that of neighboring Higa-onon communities, particularly Mintapud, whose ADMP is said to be similar in many respects to Minalwang’s. Issues in Resource Management The experience of Minalwang illustrates the limitations of viewing tenure issues—in this case, the government’s CADC system as against the Higa-onons’ ga-op—in terms of dyadic oppositions, with the political implication that a community either resists the state by asserting its indigenous tenure system or collaborates by applying for and securing a CADC. Perhaps this is because the people of Minalwang do not view tenure issues in this

manner. They seem to have, as Butch Dagondon puts it, a more “pragmatic” attitude. When

they saw the practical benefits of securing a social forestry contract or a CADC, they applied

for it. Having the CADC means that Minalwang’s relations with the state and other outsiders

will be governed by the appropriate state laws and regulations.

Behind that legal shell, within the area of the CADC, indigenous cultural ideas continue however to be practiced. Each community per the ADMP retains its traditional autonomy. Implementation of the ADMP rests in the hands of the various ga-op owners, who are thus in a position to modify it as necessary. That is, the ga-op system and its central role in determining access and use of land and resources is respected. Thus in relation to each other, the people of Minalwang are governed by the ADMP’s ten commandments, which have been rather cunningly linked to their indigenous Bungkatol ha Bulawan nang Katas ha Lana. What we have here is a politically astute community with the confidence and capability to exploit what the state itself offers, while at the same time maintaining its valued practices behind the legal shield of the CADC. Rather than a clear case of collaboration with the state, Minalwang’s use of the legal system reflects an attempt to protect indigenous tenure by masking it with a legal form. It is in fact an act of resistance; an assertion of rights using the state’s own poetics against the state. It is thus significant that the elders took such a pivotal role in various phases of their application for a CADC, as they control most of the ga-op.

It should be clear that such a result was not contemplated by DENR Admin. Order no. 2 (1993). Its invocations of respect for indigenous culture are cosmetic motherhood statements intended to give way to the assumption of political and bureaucratic supervision

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by the state and the administrative requirements imposed by the regulations.38 This is illustrated by various reports of DENR resistance to explicitly culture-based territorial concepts and ADMPs. We cannot deny that their actions come with costs, principally in terms of greater state involvement in decision making, at least at the level of the CADC and its ADMP. My sense however is that such potential areas of contention are seen as open to future negotiations; whether this is true is yet unclear. Minalwang’s actions are strongly characterized by the element of agreement. The elders agreed to barricade the logging road; they agreed on the allocation of lands among the social forestry beneficiaries; they agreed to expand the CADC application beyond Impadiding; and they agreed on the provisions of their ADMP, with its safeguards for indigenous laws, autonomy and tenure. I think this grows out of the fact that each ga-op owner enjoys a large degree of autonomy in relation to land and resource use. There being no political institution that transcends families or clans,39 not to speak of the six sitios, the only way to achieve unity of action is to negotiate explicit agreements among the elders or ga-op owners. This underscores the beauty and fragility of their achievement. If any elder or ga-op owner refused to cooperate, only moral suasion can be employed to persuade her/him to rethink his/her position. Fortunately, the elders in this case were all interested in preserving their respective landholdings and their heirs’ rights thereto through the CADC application, within a moral and social economy that demanded personal compliance with agreements. Thereafter, they were bound by social norms requiring they honor their commitments. Having achieved their goal, ga-op owners grew more passive, particularly in the implementation of the ADMP. After all, they had their legal shell to protect their interests. Supervision and administrative work was then largely shifted to barangay and younger MIHITRICO officials, many of whom commented on the elders’ growing passivity.

A potential problem area here is if the moral and social economy on which consensus over the entire CADC project is based is not internalized by the younger barangay and MIHITRICO officials. Indeed, transmission of traditional cultural values and practices was a perceived problem area on the part of the elders, as well as staff members of GM. If the MIHITRICO which is largely run by the younger leaders proceeds unchecked on its current trajectory, dominated as it is by local government and DENR regulations rather indigenous values, it is possible that a future rift between the two groups will develop.

More particularly, there may be a tension in terms of the basis of how future questions of resource allocation are to be resolved; MIHITRICO—in representation of all community members—and its government regulations on one hand, or the individual elders and their agreements on the other. This will become increasingly evident as the various actors begin to explore the relationships created within the CADC framework. Can MIHITRICO punish, for example, a man for cutting rattan when he has the permission of the ga-op owner, but not of the organization? Conversely, can MIHITRICO allow operators to cut rattan despite a ga-op holder’s opposition? Can it impose regulatory measures on ga-op owners? In short, what are the respective rights and powers of the ga-op holders vis-à-vis MIHITRICO?

38 See art. 6, secs. 3 and 4; art. 7, sec. 1.B. 39 While the various sitio-datus would seem to transcend families or clans, their role is not

programmatic in the sense that they do not actively set agendas and administer the communities. They become active only when there is need for them; e.g., conflict-resolution or representation of the community to outsiders. Otherwise, they farm and cut rattan like any one else.

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Informants respond to such (for now) hypothetical questions with confident assignments of roles between implementing individual landholders and a supervisory, monitoring MIHITRICO. How such structures cope with actual conflicts have yet to be seen, however. An interesting development in terms of resource management is the growing perception of the need to coordinate efforts at larger scales or levels. The experience of the Impadiding elder who set up a game refuge on his own initiative is illustrative. There is thus a growing realization that traditional boundaries—whether at the ga-op-, sitio- or CADC-level—may not necessarily be the best spatial framework for resource management. This is seen in the ongoing discussions about coordinating environmental management tasks with neighboring communities like Mintapud.

Finally, does possession of a CADC further enable the Higa-onon of Minalwang to better manage their land and resources? The answer in this particular case is “yes”, in the specific sense that the CADC is being used to assert indigenous tenure systems, and by extension, community control of land and resources.

Whether or not these indigenous tenure systems are ecologically astute practices is another matter altogether. Once we—as we must—disengage the issue of ownership and control of resources from an assumption that all IP communities are ecologically sensitive, we see that possession of tenure instruments do not in themselves guarantee sustainable management of local resources. In this light, I think it is the level or character of organizing work that is important in ensuring sustainable management, rather than tenure programs or instruments. In Minalwang’s case, a large part of the communities’ success lies in their ability to work together on the basis of their agreements; underscoring the importance of organized action particularly at the level of the ga-op holders and sitios.

Fortunately, and thanks no doubt to the activism of GM, the people of Minalwang are conscious of the need to integrate environmental perspectives and practices into their management of land and resources. Their ten-point ADMP clearly shows the presence of a strong environmentalist ethic. Whether these perspectives and the practices they engender are indigenous or not does not really matter in the end; certainly it is not problematic for the people of Minalwang.

In closing, I cannot avoid remarking how fortunate Minalwang is, having secured a CADC over a well-stocked forest area, and then being offered a timely source of funds for implementing its ADMP. This obviates the necessity of having to deal with corporations, for example, to get capitalization for its much needed livelihood projects.40 To this extent, its experience is unlike that of many communities which also applied for a CADC, whose territories are severely damaged by logging, mining or other operations, or who have had to negotiate with the DENR, commercial companies and settlers about the size of their claim area, or who have yet to receive their CADC, or have had to come to compromise with outsiders to generate capital needed to develop their areas.

40 As a poverty indicator, the Barangay Captain of Minalwang sadly admitted at a Barangay

meeting I sat in on that their barangay has the highest child-mortality rate in all Claveria.

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CASE STUDY 2: LANTUD AND THE MKRNP Profile When Cole conducted his ethnographic survey of the IP of Bukidnon in 1910, he chose as one of his study sites the “pagan village” of Dagondalahon (1956: 16). Dagondalahon is, according to local sources, one of the oldest Bukidnon or Higa-onon communities in the Talakag area. It is the mother barangay of Barangays Cosina and Sagaran. Lantud is a sitio of Barangay Sagaran. Much of the Municipality of Talakag—of which Sagaran, Dagondalahon and Cosina are part—is public land; only 35,659 out of the municipality’s 83,370 sq. has. of land are certified as alienable and disposable (Municipality of Talakag, undated: 39)41. Sitio Lantud is located within a classified national park area, one of four categories of public lands. It is within the buffer zone (BZ) of the 40,176 sq. ha. Mt. Kitanglad Range Nature Park (MKRNP) about an hour’s walk from the park’s protected area (PA). The BZ area is formed by rolling hills covered with brush and grass, and small, scattered farms and tree stands. As one approaches the PA however the slope grows steeper, and the forest cover gradually improves. Parts of the PA adjacent to the area of Lantud are in such a forested condition that the local population of wild pigs has increased to a point where they pose a hazard to crops and livelihood projects. The wild animals’ depredations have forced many local people to transfer their residence further from the PA. The municipal profile of Talakag states that Sagaran has a population of 954 in 201 households, a territory of 4,100 sq. has., and a resulting population density of 0.23 (Municipality of Talakag, undated: 2, 4, 29). Local estimates of Lantud’s population were 50 families in 1990, down to not more than 20 families in 2000. No data is available on the size of sitio Lantud’s political territory or jurisdiction.

In Talakag, 54.50 % of the population are Bukidnon, on the basis of mother-tongue, with Cebuanos coming in a distant second. Sources from both Dagondalahon and Sagaran say that the local population is “solid” Bukidnon or Higa-onon, with a few cases of intermarriage by migrant males. Still, the presence of migrant settlers is visible in lower Talakag, where many of them have purchased lands, and where a Barangay New Visayas has been established.

Lantud appears to have adopted many aspects of lowland-migrant culture, but my experience warns against making such an appraisal on the basis of only one visit. At present, thanksgiving and harvest rituals are still held, even for non-traditional or adopted crops such as coffee and falcatta.

Still, we should note the intensity with which American colonial officials conducted programs to assimilate the local IPs into the cultural mainstream in Bukidnon (Edgerton 1982: 370), in relation to the relative accessibility of Sagaran. One issue opened by my inquiries is the environmental impact of clashes between communist insurgents and government troops during the first half of the 1980s. The loss of all six of the locally known native rice varieties is traced back to the disruptions and hardships caused by the fighting. Corn, rice and root crops are the community’s traditional agricultural products. These products are generally for household consumption only. Cultivation of coffee, falcatta, abaca and fruits and vegetables are among the local sources of income. Coffee cultivation was extant by the early 1960s, while falcatta planting was introduced in 1974 by a local community leader.

41 The profile itself was under revision at the time I conducted my research; it bears no date,

but cites data from 1995 to 1998.

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When “Oloy” Roa and one or two other big-time loggers conducted their operations in Talakag from around 1963 to 1987—they even penetrated parts of what are now the PA of the MKRNP—a number of local people were able to find employment as laborers or security guards. Large-scale or commercial logging died out by the late 1980s, leaving much of Lantud very badly deforested.

Commercial rattan cutting began around 1975. Today it is occasionally practiced by an estimated one-third of Sagaran’s residents as a way to generate cash, particularly during the lean months of May and June. It is now restricted to the BZ area.

Hunting and trapping have declined as economic activities, beginning in the 1970s. This, despite the high local population of game animals based in the PA, particularly wild pigs. Apparently the local people have no means of killing the animals, even in defense of their farms. They do not have access to firearms, and the wild pigs seem to have learned to avoid the lit-ag or foot-snares set by the residents.

Fishing has similarly declined in importance. Land and Resource Tenure Sagaran’s land tenure system is similar to Minalwang’s, though considerably scaled down in size and scope. However, the term ga-op is not used by, or known to, informants from this area. I noted that in this area land-holdings are sometimes referred to as angkon-angkon.42 Land is held by individuals or households.43 These landholdings are usually inherited from parents or ancestors, who were first to clear and occupy the area. Inheritance is bilateral, from both parents, and restricted to direct descendants. The landholder has full control of the land, including the right to sell, give or otherwise dispose of the land or portions of it. At present, residents may have any number of lots of varying sizes, depending on the number of lots s/he inherited or otherwise acquired. The landowner and/or her/his household members may cultivate any of their own lots each year, although the trend is towards increasingly sedentary farming.

One informant, for example, is recognized locally as the owner of five different lots in Sagaran—a number of them quite a distance from each other—which together amount to an estimated eight sq. has. He plans to subdivide the five lots among all six of his children in the future. Most of these lots he inherited from his own father,44 with at least one other coming from his father-in-law.

42 The term literally means “claim-claim”. It is interesting in that terms repeated in this

manner usually connote a degree of insufficiency or even of falsity. Balay-balay, for example, means “house-house” or a hut, with connotations that it is unfinished, crudely built or rudimentary. The term angkon-angkon thus suggests to me a degree of local acceptance that the indigenous tenure system is legally deficient in some respect. To note, this term is not used in the two other communities studied by this research project.

43 A ba-e or female community leader from another community who listened in on one of my

discussions with people from Lantud said that since her childhood, she had never known of lands which were communally of group-owned. The communal projects existing in her home-area were donated by individual land owners for community use.

44 This informant’s father had more than 60 has. of land, which he subdivided among his six children sometime in the 1970s. Interestingly, the informant said that his father’s lands would amount to an estimated 100 has., if he included the lots now within the PA.

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This ‘appropriation’ of his wife’s prospective inheritance from her father was justified by the informant’s saying his wife would not have been able to make productive use of the land given her by her father anyway if not for his felling the trees there in preparation for farming.45 This reiterates the importance of the principle of first use—or more precisely, first clearing—in local constructions of land rights and tenure. Perhaps more importantly, it shows how women’s right to inherit land does not in itself guarantee their control of the land (following Agarwal 1994; and Risseeuw 1988). This dimension of gender in relation to local tenure systems deserves further study.

An exception to the generally individualized nature of local land tenure appears to be the panagana or community wood lot. This is a parcel of forested land from which members of the sitio or community may take wood and other resources for such domestic uses as house-building and firewood. The panagana is generally described as communal, but it was not clear whether this refers to ownership of the land, or the communal use of someone’s private land. Again, further inquiry into this matter is indicated. None of the residents of Lantud have documents of title. A number of them held real estate tax declarations, though many of these were unilaterally cancelled by the municipality in the 1970s. In any case, local residents are familiar with the respective landholdings of their neighbors. No actual conflict between the community and logging operators were recounted.46 Asked why, informants said that the loggers used their government-issued concession-grants to assert their interest over any local objections. This is apparently sufficient to diffuse any sense of trespass or violation on the part of the Bukidnon, assuming there was any such resistance in the first place.

It is interesting that Roa and at least one other logger were known for seeking out local baylan or shamans, whom they would ask to conduct rituals to ensure smooth logging operations. This attitude on the part of loggers has also been reported during the logging boom in parts of the Agusan and Surigao provinces. In any case, the Talakag baylans cooperated, and were sometimes given cash or other tokens of gratitude. Apparently, the rituals were effective, as Roa in particular was able to haul off trees so large only one to three logs could fit on the logging trucks' large loading beds.

Ownership of land today has been linked to the trees standing on it. Those who would cut down trees must seek the land owner’s permission first, particularly if the tree is to be sold commercially rather than used for local needs. Still, small-scale logging seems to be very limited in Sagaran, outside of the falcatta trees that residents themselves plant, and despite the relative proximity of the forested PA.

Rattan cutting is practiced in the area, “para tanan maka-bugas”; i.e., “so everyone can have (or buy) rice”. This may be done anywhere (“bisag asa p’wede”). My impression is that this form of resource utilization is relatively unregulated—even in the past—the idea being to maximize the families’ options for earning cash. Today, it is mostly restricted to the BZ.

Hunting and trapping was largely unregulated, particularly in the past, suggesting that game animals were considered open-access resources. It could be conducted anywhere in the area, and there were few effective restraints on it. The only exception was the use of la-is, which may cause serious injury or death if triggered by the unwary. This required the permission of the landowner where these traps would be set, as well as due notice to all

45 “Ako man, kay di’ man siya makapamutol ug kahoy”; i.e., “It’s mine, since she can’t fell trees”.

46 Lao’s (1996, 1995) historical surveys of Bukidnon province make no mention of any cases

of actual conflict between IP communities and logging companies in the post-war period.

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community members. At present, the limited hunting or trapping still practiced is restricted to the BZ area, though in the past game was captured within the PA area.47

Like game animals, fish and other aquatic resources seem to have been considered open-access resources. This partly explains how, during the 1960s and 1970s, there were cases of outsiders fishing in Sagaran using industrial poisons. Local stocks of fish and freshwater shrimps have yet to recover, thus helping to marginalize fishing as an economic activity.

Other local resources, referred to as gagmay or small, are free (“libre”) or open-access resources. Interestingly, the presence of the MKRNP within the local tenure terrain has had the effect of limiting community access to resources within the PA. Thus although Datu X and members of another local family have inherited lands within the PA, they only maintain its existing cultigens, and have no plans of developing their respective holdings. Asked whether he still considered himself the owner of the lot within the PA, Datu X said that areas within the PA are “dili p’wede hilabtan” (may not be interfered with), which suggests to me that he believes his rights are limited by the lot’s inclusion in the PA. It is unclear how the possible approval of the unified claim will affect his views. This is symptomatic of the confusion that the MKRNP has sown among the affected IP communities. Legally, the existence of the park does not, and should not negate the antecedent rights of the IPs to local resources, even those within the PA. The NIPAS itself has an express provision that “ancestral lands and customary rights and interests (within NIPAS sites) will be accorded due recognition”.48 The MKRNP The MKRNP was set up on the basis of Rep. Act no. 7586 (1992), which established the NIPAS.49

Ten NIPAS sites with high biodiversity were selected in the Philippines by the World Bank and developed through the Conservation of Priority Protected Areas Project or CPPAP. This project demanded cooperation among the funding institution, the DENR, local government officials, the various affected communities, and a “host-NGO” that mediated between all of these different actors.

The MKRNP was one of these ten priority sites. It covers a total of 40,176 sq. has., spread over contiguous parts of 28 barangays belonging to Malaybalay City and the municipalities of Baungon, Manolo Fortich, Impasugong, Lantapan, Libona, Sumilao and Talakag, all of Bukidnon province. This area coincides with much of the remaining ancestral territories of the IP communities in this area.

KIN, the host NGO in the MKRNP, is a consortium of NGOs based in Malaybalay City in Bukidnon. It organized a Council of Elders (CoE) composed of ten IP leaders selected by KIN and the PAMB from different areas within the MKRNP to help it in the implementation of the NIPAS within the park area, particularly as it affected local IP

47 Datu X’s claim to a lot within the PA is based in part on the practice of his grand-uncle on

his mother’s side, who used to set up a tala-ok near Baglindab falls. This was a small farm-area planted to sweet potatoes and other crops which was then fenced, but with one or more entrances rigged with dead-falls (pigis) to pin down wild pigs trying to get to the crops.

48 Sec. 13.

49 Pres. Proclamation no. 677 (1990). See also Pres. Proclamation no. 896 (1996).

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communities. The IP communities within the MKRNP have not been organized into a federation or similar association.

In accordance with the NIPAS, the park area is governed by a PAMB, on which the various levels of the DENR and of affected local government units, NGOs and IP communities were represented. At present, the large MKRNP PAMB is composed of 58 people, 8 of whom are IP representatives (World Bank 1998: 132). The zoning of the park area consists of a core PA where resource-utilization is either restricted or prohibited, surrounded by a belt-like BZ. Almost all of the affected IP communities are in the BZ,50 although they most certainly used land and resources in the PA for various purposes before the latter was established. Only one community is actually located within the PA. Beyond the BZ are areas which are usually referred to as “released” or alienable and disposable lands. Among the CPPAP’s objectives is providing security of tenure for the affected IP communities.

After consultations with up to 200 datus and other leaders within the park area, the CoE filed in May 1995 a CADC application in behalf of all the IP communities in the Mt. Kitanglad area. The application covered 4,500 sq. has., completely overlapping the whole of the MKRNP. As I understand the plan, the entire area would be covered by a single CADC/CADT, but implementation will be conducted by datus, leaders or organizations on a per territory or sitio/community basis. The CoE will oversee the entire area, to ensure compliance with the reconciled ADMP and protected area management plan.

Instead of acting on the application, the PSTFAD charged with implementation of DENR’s ancestral domain delineation in Bukidnon, referred the application to the PAMB. There, almost all the mayors of municipalities partly occupied by the MKRNP rejected the idea of a unified claim, and argued instead for separate CADC applications on a by-municipality basis (cf. Dagondon et al. 1997). The CoE—assisted by Datu Migketay of Songco, Lantapan, and a member of KIN—objected, saying that the unified ancestral domain claim is properly premised on culturally defined notions of territory, which antedated the existence of municipal boundaries.

In 1996, the mayors conducted their own consultations on the question of CADC applications, with the alleged result that participants favored CADC applications on a per-municipality basis. The CoE contested the validity of this consultation, and efforts were made to appeal for support from other sectors, including the World Bank, and on the promulgation of the IPRA, the NCIP.

Despite its avowed commitment to tenure security through the CPPAP however, the World Bank failed to act on the issue. The NCIP for its part was hobbled by severe budget constraints, bureaucratic squabbling at the capital (LRC-KSK 2000: 4-5), and later by the legal challenges against the IPRA. When the constitutionality of the IPRA was questioned before the Supreme Court in 1998, the mayors opposed to the unified claim or application happily cited this as an additional argument. Deeply frustrated, Datu Migketay resigned from KIN in late 2000.

The result was that the application for a unified claim was left pending. Given that this is the last year of CPPAP implementation, I can only conclude it has failed in its declared objective of “tenurial security improvement” for the IP within MKRNP. Since the shelving of the unified ancestral domain application, a number of separate, much smaller CADC/CADT

50 There are 2,512 individuals within the BZ, distributed among 451 households. 60.1 % of

these people identified themselves as Tala-andig, 23.5 % as Higa-onon, and 7.7 % as Bukidnon. Less than 9 % of the residents are migrant settlers (Mordeno, Canoy and Magbanua 2000: 5-6).

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claims have been filed by communities or families within the MKRNP area.51 In the Talakag area alone, there are now five separate pending CADC/CADT applications, not counting the unified claim filed by the CoE.

The tension over the configuration of ancestral domains in the MKRNP area—whether it should properly be a unified area or divided along municipal or other lines—has caused some tension between the CoE and the PAMB/DENR. Discussing the current situation, one organizer in the area directly contra-posed the NIPAS with the IPRA, DENR with the NCIP, the PA with ancestral domains, and the PAMB with CoE.

There are other indications of such a tension. After the zoning of the park area by the PAMB and the DENR, the CoE began planning the “cultural zoning” of the same area. Related to this was a program for establishing “cultural monuments”—concrete versions of the traditional wooden or bamboo altars—as an equivalent to the concrete monuments of the BZ and PA boundaries of the PAMB. The CoE has also been pushing for Cultural Impact Assessment, to parallel the implementation of environmental impact assessment within the park area.52 Finally, the CoE is currently developing a culture-based management plan for the entire ancestral territory, as contra-distinguished from the PAMB’s management plan.

All of this underscores the question of how the Mt. Kitanglad area is to be governed: Is it an ancestral domain area with high ecological value or a nature park where IP communities are found? Either way, a mechanism must be found to reconcile the need for protecting biodiversity and recognizing IP tenure rights.

All of this, however, is happening at the top management level of the MKRNP. On the ground, the inaction over the tenure issue has given the MKRNP an uncontested legal presence and claim over the various affected IP communities’ areas. Without an alternative framework, people are made conscious that the area is more a government conservation area, rather than their ancestral territory.

This may partly explain Datu X’s apparent helplessness about his land claim within the PA, and the instances where people of Lantud have limited their own access to resources they traditionally utilized, such as rattan and game. This, despite the fact that community use of forest resources is clearly a “customary right or interest” recognized and protected by the applicable laws and regulations.53 Many leaders and CoE members cited the advantages of the unified claim, and some of them even argued against individual, clan or community-based CADC applications similar to Minalwang’s within the park area. They cited the cost and technical difficulties of preparing the necessary supporting evidence on an individual or community-basis. More substantively, a number pointed out that ancestral “domain” should be understood as referring to the entirety of the IP’s territory, and not the parcels of hereditary landholdings of the various communities, clans or individuals, which are only ancestral “lands”. Parenthetically, following this logic, Datu X would have different ‘ancestral lands’ within the unified ‘ancestral domain’, including one lot in the PA. This means however that control of resources other than land would legally belong not to Datu X, as prescribed by actual tenure practice—i.e., the owner of the land is owner of local resources therein—but is assumed by either the CoE or an as yet amorphous grouping of concerned IP communities

51 According to Regional NCIP records, Region 10 has 72 pending CADC/CADT applications, the largest number nation-wide on a regional basis. Although no statistics were given, many of these applications were reported as covering areas at least partially overlapping the MKRNP.

52 Sec. 12 of the NIPAS. 53 See sec. 13 of the NIPAS, and secs. 44 and 49, in relation to sec. 70 of DENR Admin.

Order no. 25 (1992), the implementing rules and regulations of the NIPAS.

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and leaders, instead of Datu X. This underscores the largely unappreciated, problematic nature of what for me is an artificial legal distinction between ancestral lands and domains. The existence of the five other clan- or community-based CADC applications in the Talakag area—the regional NCIP office asserts that there are many other such separate, autonomous claims within the MKRNP area—suggests that the groups or individuals who filed these applications have notions of ancestral domains that differ from that advocated by members of the CoE. These applicants seem to have no problem viewing their particular landholdings or community/sitio territories as their ancestral domains. These actions question the comprehensiveness of the CoE’s consultations, the agreements achieved during those consultations, and even the CoE’s right to represent all IP communities in the park area. Still, the achievements and initiatives of the CoE are quite remarkable, given the constraints under which it operates. Particularly admirable are their organization of the Kitanglad Guard Volunteers (KGV), who monitor assigned sectors for violations of forestry and indigenous regulations, and their advocacy of a cultural impact assessment system within the park area. Both these initiatives, particularly the former,54 are well implemented and have a lot of potential for improving resource management. At present, the CoE is concentrating on refining what amounts to an ADMP for the entire MKRNP, to underscore IP capability for resource management and thereby support the unified CADC/CADT application. The CBFM Program While the PSTFAD improperly refused to act on the application for a unified CADC for the Mt. Kitanglad area, the DENR was promoting its CBFM program. Basically, this program gave applicants a total of 50 years’ tenure over portions of public forest lands, as well as access to loans for livelihood projects considered compatible with the DENR’s resource management policies. The program quickly became another point of contention between the CoE and the DENR. Almost all IP informants I interviewed considered the CBFM appropriate only for tenured migrants within the park area, particularly because it does not address the issue of ownership of ancestral territories. For IP communities, ancestral domains recognition through a unified CADC or CADT was thought to be the proper tenure instrument. Many noted how the CADT in particular served as legal evidence of IP ownership of their territories. This is well in keeping with their demand for recognition of their rights to traditional lands and resources, which were understood to be unrestricted to a 50 year- or any other -term. Members of the CoE asserted that IP communities or organizations should not be issued CBFMAs, or if they are, only within the framework of prior state recognition of IP’s ownership of ancestral domains through a CADC/CADT. However, a number of IP communities or organizations in the park area were attracted by DENR’s aggressive promotion of the CBFM program and entered into CBFMAs. Most informants in the CoE said communities were drawn to the CBFM program mainly by the prospect of securing funds for livelihood projects. When criticized by the CoE, DENR officials and personnel stated in their defense that they were merely following the instructions of their superiors, who had even made the issuance of CBFMAs a key result area in terms of implementation.

54 Most notably, the KGV detained a National Museum team for collecting botanical samples

in the park area without permission from IP communities. Another, rather backhanded, indication of its effectiveness is its appropriation by the PAMB, as alleged by Datu Migketay.

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Local government officials were described as generally supportive of the CBFM program. This is probably because the program’s silence on the question of ancestral domain ownership and control makes it far less threatening than the unified CADC claim. My sense is that certain local government officials might also have considered how projects established under the program could be parlayed into future votes.

In the Talakag area, two IP groups applied for and secured CBFMAs. These were the Sagaran Farmers Association, Inc. (SAFA) and the Dagondalahon Lumad Tree Producers Association, Inc. (DALTREPA).

SAFA has a project for tree-planting over 200 sq. has. of land in Brgy. Sagaran, including portions of sitio Lantud, issued in 1997. The 200 has.—which overlay the land holdings of various individuals—were divided into 20 contiguous blocks of 10 has. each, and planted over the years 1997 and 1998 to plantation tree-species using labor from outside the area. The trees were then “turned over” to the land owners, who maintained those trees planted on their respective lands. At the agreed cutting time, the profits from the sale of the felled trees would be divided among the land/tree owners (10 %), SAFA (30 %) and the government (60 %), in repayment for the project loan.

Fortunately for SAFA, all the land holders whose lands overlapped the 200 ha.-project area agreed after two consultation meetings to participate in the project. Conversely, the people with lands in Lantud, some of whom were non-residents, also had to agree on the use of the areas not utilized by the project, since the plantation operation reduced lands available for food-production.

DALTREPA also holds a tree-planting project, issued in February of 1998 and covering 2,215 has. of land in neighboring Dagondalahon (cf. DALTREPA 1999). The area was subdivided into 25 blocks, and planted to plantation tree species to be harvested at the rate of two to five trees per ha. per block per year. CENRO officials described DALTREPA’s project implementation as successful. It should be noted the project area is part of a larger 4,886.92 sq. ha. CADC application filed by the people of Dagondalahon in 1994, and still pending approval in Manila. The CADC application covers lands in both the PA and BZ of MKRNP.

Unlike the people of Dagondalahon, Datu X and the people of Lantud have not filed a CADC/CADT application for their own traditional territory. This may be due as much to technical and logistical difficulties, as to Datu X’s involvement with the unified claim at the CoE level. It is as if all local efforts in asserting IP rights to ancestral territories in Lantud have been made to depend entirely on the (languishing) unified claim application.

Datu X says that ancestral domains delineation is at war (“nagkumbate”) with the CBFM program. He favors the CADC/CADT over the CBFM for IP communities because it recognizes their tenure rights, although he concedes that if a community has no other choice it should consider securing a CBFMA. He criticizes the tree-planting project of DALTREPA, which he says did not go through proper consultations with the local residents and with the CoE; was controlled by non-residents and thus could not be called “community-based”; intruded outside of Brgy. Dagondalahon, its project area, into portions of sitio Lantud in Brgy. Sagaran;55 and planted its trees in what he described as a haphazard manner.

Interestingly, Datu X is a member of the CoE and an official of SAFA, a CBFM holder. I see him as embodying the differences in management and development discourse at the CoE and at the local level, and between the CADC/CADT and the CBFM programs. Even while he says he prefers the CADC/CADT for IPs on a policy level, he is drawn at the local level to the needed livelihood opportunities provided by the CBFM’s funding. Perhaps

55 While DALTREPA penetrated sitio Lantud of Brgy. Sagaran, its project area does not

overlap that of SAFA.

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he relies on the unified claim to protect his angkon-angkon, while remaining very conscious of the need to address economic needs, hence his involvement in the CBFM program.

When I asked Datu X if his link with SAFA contradicts his position on the unified CADC/CADT, he answered “no”. He explained that SAFA’s project area is too small to make any difference, and that the only way to really discover how good the CBFM program really is was to actually participate in it.

Given this context, his strongest comments against the CBFM program actually center on the long delays in the release of project funds, which have set back SAFA’s project implementation, rather than its relation to IP tenure rights. For him, the delays cast doubt on the government’s sincerity in implementing livelihood programs, particularly as SAFA had complied with the program requirements for environmental protection. His criticism of DALTREPA stems not from its being a holder of a CBFMA, but in its manner of implementing its project. He said DALTREPA’s operations intruded into sitio Lantud—his “area of jurisdiction” as a datu—and planted trees therein, on separate lots owned by three elder men56 who agreed to work with DALTREPA. Datu X confessed to feeling betrayed by the ‘defection’ of the three men not because their lands were now part of DALTREPA’s project—as owners, the land was theirs to use as they willed—but because they went back on the agreement about the use of lands in Lantud not covered by SAFA’s project. When I interviewed an officer of DALTREPA, he said the organization was operating on the traditional notion of Dagondalahon’s territory, which is only proper as the project area was derived from a CADC application. DALTREPA was thus using a notion of Dagondalahon’s territory that antedated and overlapped the inter-Barangay boundary with Sagaran relied upon by Datu X. Hence DALTREPA’s “intrusion” into sitio Lantud, Brgy. Sagaran.

Also, the apparent haphazard way of planting trees noted by Datu X—a stand of trees here, another there, instead of the clear block system used by SAFA—was the result of attempts by DALTREPA to accommodate the will of the different land owners.57 Some land holders wanted only certain trees to be planted only in certain parts of their holdings, hence the seemingly unsystematic pattern of tree-planting.

The officer claimed as well that all of DALTREPA’s officials were datus, and that it was thus community-based. As of this writing, Datu X was still looking for ways to try to redress his sense of trespass by DALTREPA. I cannot say how the conflict will be resolved. It suffices for the moment to note how this case illustrates subjective perceptions or constructions of issues or problems, and the consequent methodological necessity of counter-checking findings on the ground or else risk presenting only one side of an issue.

56 Of these three men, one is Datu X’s own father-in-law, who resides in Lantud. The other

two men live outside Lantud, but are locally acknowledged to have lands there. 57 The DALTREPA officer’s narrative was peppered with such terms as “kasabutan” (contract

or agreement) and “magkasinabtanay” (mutual understanding), underscoring the consensual basis of local tenure arrangements in relation to the CBFM project.

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Issues in Resource Management The situation in the MKRNP area is quite complex. The area is the ancestral territory of a number of autonomous IP communities; forms part of seven municipalities and a city; and is a declared NIPAS-site governed by a PAMB. The IP communities or their organizations here are not federated, reflecting traditional political and tenure autonomy. On the other hand, a CoE claims to represent them all, and as such has advocated a single, unified claim for all communities within the MKRNP area. The mayors oppose this, wanting instead separate CADC/CADT claims based on municipal boundaries. At the same time, a number of communities have filed CADC/CADT applications based on even smaller individual-, family- or community/sitio-boundaries. Within the park area, the DENR is promoting the CBFM program. Many communities have responded positively to the program. The CoE however considers it inappropriate for IP communities. In Lantud, there are individual angkon-angkon which are locally recognized. All attempts at gaining recognition of these landholdings by the state and other outside actors is made to depend on the unified CADC claim. Datu X, who is a member of the CoE, cannot see his way to filing an individual- or community-based CADC. At the same time, he is actively involved in the management of SAFA, which is involved in the CBFM program criticized by the CoE. In contrast, people in neighboring Dagondalahon have filed a community-based CADC, and are also running DALTREPA, a CBFM project. It is clear that all actors, including the CoE and IP communities are aware of the need to manage lands and resources within the park area sustainably. Thus, despite its challenges to the idea that their ancestral territories have been subsumed under the MKRNP instead of the other way around, the CoE has undertaken initiatives that are fully compatible with the ecological agenda of the state. What is contentious is the framework under which area management is to be undertaken. For the state, the area should be managed as a national park within which IP communities happen to be located; for the CoE, it is an ancestral territory the management of which will consider the ecological agenda. The objectives of protected area management and IP control of resources are not necessarily exclusive of each other (cf. Cairns 1995), indeed they may both be achieved under either framework. But it is precisely the political, and highly politicized, choice of the one governing framework which is problematic. While the IP, as represented by the CoE are asserting ownership of ancestral territory, the state, as represented by the DENR and local government units, is asserting political and administrative jurisdiction. To note, there is no legal mechanism for a co-dominion of environmental laws and those affirming IP rights. The legal system and our political history compels us to construct a hierarchy as between these two sets of laws and regulations; and it is at this level the standoff occurs. This tension could have been addressed at the level of the PAMB, on which the IP are represented. Unfortunately, the CoE can generate at its very best only about 16 votes within the 58-person PAMB. Thus, while the PAMBs set up under the NIPAS may be seen from one perspective as a marvel of stakeholder representation, it may also be seen from another as a mechanism that ensures IP representation without effective participation in decision-making. The very mechanisms of ‘democratic representation’ marginalizes the voices of the IP, who are a small minority within the PAMB.

By so privileging state and local government officials’ presence within the PAMB, it necessarily privileged their politics as well. Hence the bureaucratized administration of the PAMB, its deep respect for municipal boundaries and personality-politics, and its equally deep suspicion of leaders (such as Datu Migketay and the CoE) and administrative approaches which remain largely undefined by law (such as culture-based territories and management).

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Indeed, and as admitted by KIN’s Easter Canoy, the CoE’s leadership and representation of the affected IP communities has no legal basis, at least within the framework of the NIPAS. It cannot justify its claim to leadership as representatives of a federation of IP communities or organizations. Its leadership may in theory be disputed by the PAMB or DENR, given that a park-wide, inter-community organization is clearly not an indigenous political structure or institution. However, as KIN’s Easter Canoy correctly points out, the IPRA does provide a basis for arguing for better representation at the upper levels of park management or administration. Still, the fact that five CADC applications in one part of the Talakag area alone were filed without reference to the unified claim advocated by the CoE in effect contests the latter’s leadership.

The issues of management framework and IP leadership/representation highlight the relatively large scale of management involved in the MKRNP. At certain points, the differences in the development and management discourse at the park-level area and the at the community-level are quite marked.

At the level of the CoE, it assumes the right to represent the IP communities in the MKRNP, the NIPAS-CADC/ADMP tension is paramount, and the DENR’s promotion of the CBFM program is merely symptomatic of a more fundamental failure by the DENR to recognize the primacy of ancestral territory rights.

At the level of Lantud, however, the CoE is an abstraction in relation to day-to-day tenure practice. DALTREPA, for example, operates autonomously from it. More importantly perhaps the existence of the five separate CADC applications indicates a substantive difference in the way the notion of ancestral domains is understood at the level of the CoE and of the various IP communities, clans or individuals. Unlike the members of the CoE, these groups do not have a problem about applying for individual-, clan- or community-based CADC/CADTs, which like the unified claim also ignore municipal boundaries. This again shows the limits of a strict dichotomy between the CoE and its unified CADC claim on one side, and a PAMB dominated by government officials and their claims based on municipal boundaries on the other.

At the level of Lantud, as well, it is livelihood—the struggle for survival—which is paramount. While people do have some sense of the legal and tenure consequences of both the park and the CADC application, its import is overshadowed by the local need to secure needed economic assistance. This explains the appeal of the DENR’s CBFM program and the support it could provide to economic survival among many communities within the MKRNP.58 The way the CBFM program is realized at the local level, as in the experience of SAFA and DALTREPA, is also instructive. Members of the CoE see the CBFMA as an inappropriate tenure instrument for IPs, and a derogation of the unified claim to ancestral domains. Rather than necessarily eroding local notions of tenure however, the way DALTREPA and SAFA implemented their projects highlighted the continued relevance of, and respect for local notions of tenure.59 For them, a CBFM and a CADC are not necessarily mutually contradictory. DALTREPA’s CBFM project is in fact within a larger,

58 One community in Lantapan signed a petition for a CBFM project, but tried to keep it secret

from Datu Makapukaw of neighboring Songco, also in Lantapan, who is widely known to be active in CoE discussions and park-wide issues. The datu found out about it, and successfully had the project suspended, pending clarification from DENR’s main office.

59 Interestingly, Aposkahoy’s CBFM project exerts similar efforts to respect local ga-op

holdings; its Community Resource Management Framework makes explicit note of the need to coordinate implementation in consultation with the local ga-op owners (see PAGLAUM 1998).

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antecedent CADC application-area, the validity of which has not been contested by anyone, including the local CENRO.

In SAFA’s case, the problem of reconciling the quadrangular blocks of a plantation project with pre-existing indigenous land claims by individuals or clans was resolved by negotiation and agreement. All the affected landowners agreed that those parts of their land overlapping the project area would be governed by the project’s regulations, in consideration of a share of the future proceeds. This is quite a feat for Datu X and the other local leaders of Lantud.

In DALTREPA’s case, the affected landowners seem less amenable to having sections of their lands converted to plantation-blocks. Their solution to the problem was to plant only where the landowners allowed it, leading to the haphazard planting patterns criticized by Datu X.

Such arrangements among landowners could have weaknesses. One of these is the fragility of the basis of unity. If individuals go back on their commitments, there are very weak mechanisms for enforcement or imposition of sanctions. In Lantud, there was an existing agreement that the rest of the lands not covered by SAFA’s project area would be utilized for farming. Datu X thus felt betrayed when three men with lands in Lantud used their lands for DALTREPA’s project, but found no way to discipline them. First, sanctions do not seem to have been discussed at all; enforcement was not thought of as problematic. Second, compared with Minalwang, Lantud is more socially fragmented; there are no strong social or cultural mechanisms to compel compliance with agreements, or to build solidarity behind a common plan of action. Third, there is on the other hand a tradition of tenure autonomy, so there may be difficulties in implementing plans requiring coordinated action. What is SAFA that it should impose sanctions on landowners exercising traditional rights over their own lands? Attempting to see if a CADC application enables Lantud to better manage its resources is speculative, as no CADC had been issued. However, I think it is important to note that despite the absence of any CADC, the CoE and the people of Lantud have taken useful and important initiatives in improving lands and resource management. Indeed, it is quite possible that various incidents cited by KIN as illustrative of IP capacity for sustainable management most probably developed outside the framework of government tenure programs.

I believe that efforts to assert IP capability for sustainable resource management—as is evident from KIN’s publications—is a response to a specific context where territorial claims overlap a national park, as a way of convincing the state and its functionaries that recognizing IP ownership will not adversely affect the environment. The IP no doubt have either the actual or potential capacity to manage their territories sustainably. It should not however be made a legal requirement for an award of a CADC/CADT; just as, among most other applicant communities in other areas, it is not.

Does the CBFM program enable the communities to better manage their lands and resources? I think it enables the state to better manage communities within classified forest lands, by giving it a claim to the communities’ labor and limiting their resource-use options through CBFMAs. The program thus gives communities a carefully defined degree of control over an area they can utilize only as specified by their CBFMAs; i.e., it limits more than it enables.

I believe IP communities would gain comparatively more and better control of their territories through a CADC/CADT, rather than the CBFM program. I tend to agree with the CoE’s assessment that the CBFM program is inappropriate for IPs; it short-changes them in terms of the rights or entitlements they should by rights enjoy.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the CBFM’s attraction for IP communities; i.e., livelihood support, in terms of loans or projects. But this in itself is not incompatible with

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ancestral domains ownership. Livelihood assistance may be made part of the implementation of the IPRA. Alternatively, IP communities could be allowed to enter CBFMAs, but only within a larger framework of ancestral domains recognition by the state.

Note that we have been discussing control of resources; as distinct from the question of whether that control is exercised with a sensitivity to ecological considerations. Again, once we separate the issue of ownership or control of resources from the assumption that IP communities all exhibit ecological sensitivity, we see that tenure security or possession of tenure instruments do not by themselves guarantee sustainable management practices. It is the level or character of organizing in a given community which is crucial in ensuring sustainable management, rather than mere tenure instruments like the CADC/CADT or the CBFMA.

Even then, the readiness of IP communities to practice sustainable management practices, as clearly shown in the various initiatives undertaken by the CoE, argues for state recognition of the potential their history and presence represent. This is properly done by continuing the process of recognizing IP rights, specifically their rights to their lands and resources, to allow them to deploy these sustainable management practices. Whether such recognition should come in the form of government defined procedures such as the CADT is less clear.

This brings us to the next point; we should consider how the particular projects supported by the CBFM program relate to larger, strategic issues. The projects’ benefits in terms of income-generation and reforestation must be weighted against increased state intrusion into local resource access and use decisions, commercialization of attitudes and commodification of resources, and intensified integration into global capitalism. Unfortunately, the CBFM program is structured to achieve these state-building, capitalist ends, even more than ancestral domains delineation under DENR Admin. Order no. 2 (1993) and the IPRA.

CASE STUDY 3: MANGUICAO

Profile Manguicao is a sitio of Brgy. Lydia, La Paz, Agusan del Sur. It is one of the many IP communities along the Adgawan river, a tributary of the Agusan. Manguicao’s territory covers 1,358 sq. has. located within classified timber lands, which constitute 122,634.13 has. of the municipality’s total land area of 155,617.4 has. (Municipality of La Paz 1995: 2, 13).

A portion of the down-river side of the community’s territory is actually included in the grant-area of an industrial tree plantation. However, the company has conducted clearing and tree-plantation operations in only a small part of this area. Most of the area is covered by secondary growths, resulting from swidden farming and from having been extensively logged over from the 1960s until the early 1990s. However, a few sections still retain old-growth stands. Farm-clearings tend to concentrate along the banks of the Adgawan and its many tributary creeks in the area, but they can also be found among the hills further away from the river. The census conducted in 1993 in Manguicao for its CADC application found a population of 313. The latest available municipal profile of La Paz does not present population figures for its various sitios, but only for barangays. As of 1995, Brgy. Lydia was listed as having a rather unusually low population of 610, with a population density of slightly less than 1 person per sq. ha. (Municipality of La Paz 1995: Table nos. 1, 2). When I conducted research in Manguicao in 1998, there were 223 individuals in the community. This reflects not so much the problems of the various enumeration techniques, but the fact

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that the local populations are highly mobile, moving from community to community for various reasons. Ethno-linguistic affiliation based on mother-tongue shows that 64.45 % of the population of La Paz is Manobo, with Cebuano-Visayans coming in second at a distant 23.48 % (NSO 1997: 73). The entry of migrants is linked to the operation of logging companies in the 1970s (Municipality of La Paz 1995: 4). Manguicao is almost wholly Manobo. Only three men are from other ethnic groups,60 all of whom are married to Manobo women; their children are locally considered as Manobo. While the profile makes no mention of the indigenous religion (1995: 4)—it simply lists the Catholic church, 13 other Christian sects and Islam, all without statistics—Manguicao is locally reputed to be a center of indigenous religiosity.61 Here, indigenous beliefs are not an esoteric field known only to elders, or something to parade on important dates or occasions. Here, omens and dreams are taken seriously, ritual precautions no longer practiced elsewhere are taken, the actuations of spirits are taken as a valid explanation of events, and all households take their ritual obligations or tulumanon seriously. The Agusan Manobo are traditionally swidden farmers, and in Manguicao, farming remains an important activity. Principal crops are dry or upland rice, corn and sweet potatoes and cassava.62 They do not however rely on farming exclusively, nor is it even the principal economic activity.

From around the 1960s up until the early 1990s, working as cutters, haulers and security guards of the various logging contractors or companies in the Adgawan area was the principal source of cash. Beginning in the mid- to late-1970s, rattan cutting became increasingly important, just as local stocks of the valuable lawa-an trees (Pentacme contorta) began to decline by the 1980s. Today, small scale logging continues, though on a vastly reduced scale. Rattan cutting is now a more important source of cash for the residents.

Other sources of income are farm- and other labor outside the community, and cash earned by residents who are salaried workers. Planting falcatta and other tree plantation species for future harvesting and sale began in the 1990s, but local stocks have not yet reached harvestable size. Hunting and trapping are declining with the surrounding forest cover, but is still practiced sporadically by a group of 10 or so men using a variety of techniques. To note, catching game animals was not practiced by all men, even when the area was still heavily forested, and hunting and trapping were very important activities. Fishing in Manguicao has declined even more, specially when compared with data from Garvan’s account (cf. 1929: 81). Land and Resource Tenure63

60 One is Waray, another a Leyteno, and the third is a Banwaon. 61 A letter written by the Jesuit missionary Urios describes how the Manobos of the Adgawan

river were steadfast in their indigenous beliefs (Urios 1891). In Comota, downriver from Manguicao, I overheard one old Manobo joking to another that it is impossible to buy chicken in Manguicao, as all their chickens are ipo or sinugbahan; i.e., consecrated for ritual sacrifice.

62 While rice and rice-farming is highly valued, harvests rarely last a few months. Kamote or

sweet potatoes are actually the most important crop, in the sense that it is what sustains the local population for most of the year. Corn used to be a very minor crop, until a few families managed to get a plow and draft animals; marketing this crop began only in 1998.

63 Unless expressly noted, the data for this section is drawn from Gatmaytan (1999), updated

by field-visits in 2000.

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Land tenure in Manguicao is individualized. They do not have a term equivalent to Minalwang’s ga-op, but the notion of ugalingon or property clearly includes land.64 In the same way, there is no particular term for a land owner, though the word tagtu-un65 or owner may be applied in relation to land.

Land ownership is ultimately rooted in inheritance, which is bilateral and restricted to the direct line. The pattern seems to be for land to be inherited from pioneering ancestors, as is the case among the Higa-onon of Minalwang. Inheritance seems to follow two patterns (cf. Manuel 1973).

In the first, the land/s is/are passed on as an undivided whole to the heirs, though with one heir—usually, though not always, the eldest son—designated as an “administrator” who ensures access for all heirs and resolves their disputes. The siblings and their families all have equal rights of access to the land. In this strict sense, the land may be viewed as communally owned by the particular set of heirs, taken as a group. However, the administrator is usually referred to as the owner of the land, as he has the ultimate right to decide on disposition of the land. If he wishes, the administrator may subdivide the land among the heirs.

In the second, the land is subdivided by the landowner among his/her successors sometime during her/his lifetime. Generally, the division of land is done more or less equally among all male or female heirs, though some leeway in this regard is given to the land owner. As among the Higa-onon of Minalwang, the landowner’s decision in this regard66 is carefully observed; violations are thought to cause supernatural punishments, such as mysterious illnesses.67 Once divided, each heir is considered the owner of that portion of the land given him/her.

Until the immediate post-war period, the first system seems to have been the norm. Thereafter, and with their growing awareness of conflicts caused by land-hungry settlers and disputes among heirs, the pattern of inheritance has shifted to the second system. Only one family in Manguicao still practices the first form, and its members complain of not having well-defined rights to their hereditary land. As of 1998, all of the other individual land holders had already subdivided their lands among their prospective heirs, in anticipation of their eventual demise, as well as in fulfillment of local expectations that they ensure the welfare of their descendants.

An interesting development in Manguicao was how married men were claiming their wives’ inherited lands as their own. One man explained that as the husband of his father-in-law’s daughter, the man in effect becomes a son of the father-in-law, and thus ‘inherits’ the land alongside his wife. This trend—my research indicates that similar cases of husbands appropriating their wives’ lands existed by the 1920s or 1930s—is being contested by the women, though in an uncoordinated manner.

64 The Manobo of the northern half of the Agusan region use the term banwa to refer to their

territories, though I am not sure if this is meant in the politico-legal or the proprietary sense. 65 Both “u’s” in the word are pronounced with a short “u” sound, as in “cup”. 66 Panugon-tugon or panagumbilin.

67 U-tuk, with both “u’s” pronounced with a short “u” sound.

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As owners of land, individuals may gift, sell, exchange or lend68 land to others, including people from outside the community. In time, they can transmit the land to their own heirs. It is thus possible to own lands in other communities’ territories. A number of men have two to four large land holdings, and a much larger group have smaller lots, or none at all. Most of the latter however are children or sons- or daughters-in-law of the larger land owners, and are thus assured of tenure security in the future. At present, the entire territory of Manguicao has been subdivided among the various landowners.

Individuals or households may cultivate any of their various landholdings, or borrow other’s land for farming. As landholdings may be quite far from each other, families may move away for the agricultural season, thus helping cause the population fluctuations we have noted.

Traditional or culture-based group or community regulation of the landowners’ use or management of their respective ugalingon is somewhere between nil and negligible.

The absence of any mechanism for land allocation that transcends the various households; the currency of such land transactions as gifting, borrowing, inheritance and sale of lands; the fact that residents of Manguicao own lands within other communities’ territories; their own oral history, taken in relation to their social structure; their mapping of the various landholdings in Manguicao; and the way the people themselves discourse on tenure rights indicate that land is owned by individuals rather than by any group acting as such.

This means that questions regarding resource use and allocation are in the hands of the various land holders. Though described as community leaders, datus cannot substitute their judgements for that of the landowners’, outside of their own lands. In other words, political or legal leadership does not translate directly to ownership or control of lands.

“In the beginning,” said one datu, “there were no trees” (“Sa una, wa’y kahoy”); i.e., at first, trees were not seen—almost literally—as valuable resources. Trees were very plentiful then, and the Manobo had no particular economic interest in them; logging even facilitated the swidden farming their culture honored. Trees were thus considered nobody’s property, open to appropriation by anyone. When loggers began working in Manguicao, they met absolutely no resistance. Datus, baylans and elders welcomed them, local people would casually inform them of the location of good lawa-an stands, and rituals were even conducted to protect the loggers.69 Gradually, the Manobo began to undertake the various phases of logging work themselves.

Only after a number of years did the idea of owning trees develop, a notion adopted from communities in the Umayam and upper Maasam river areas that had developed the “time” system. Under this system, a logger pays the indigenous landholder for access to the trees in his/her ugalingon. By then however logging had passed its statistical peak in the

68 In Manguicao, lending and borrowing land—called pagpamae-id or pagbuyus—is highly

institutionalized, allowing households without their own land to have access to land for farming. In such cases, the crops belong to the borrower, but the land remains the property of the lender. No lease or share in the harvest, or other form of actual or even symbolic land rent is expected from the borrower. The borrower however may not plant trees, as this is considered a sign of ownership, and may not him/herself lend or otherwise dispose of the land s/he borrowed. Neither may borrowed lands be transmitted by inheritance to the borrower’s heirs should s/he die while cultivating a portion of someone else’s land. To note, there are many cases as well of land owners borrowing land for cultivation from other land owners.

69 One old datu and baylan who was active in logging bragged that the reason he suffered no

accidents during the many years he worked at this dangerous trade was that he conscientiously sought the permission of the spirits dwelling in the trees, who evidently gave way.

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lower to middle Adgawan. The “time” system is still being practiced today by the industrial tree plantations that succeeded the logging operators and companies in the area. Ownership of land was thus extended by the Manobo to include the resources therein. Where trees were once open-access goods, now they are the property of the landowner where they are found.

This holds true for rattan as well. Like the trees, they were originally open-access goods open to appropriation by anyone at anytime. In fact, it was once pamalihi or taboo to cut rattan for sale. When rattan became economically important however they ‘became’ the property, once again, of the landowners. Today, rattan cutters and contractors must first seek the owner’s permission and negotiate an access fee with her/him before they operate in the latter’s ugalingon.

Logging and rattan-cutting are activities dominated by the men. In fact, some women flatly stated that they were unfamiliar with the tenure rules with respect to rattan cutting.

Game animals, fish and other aquatic resources on the other hand are open-access goods. They may be appropriated by anyone, even non-Manobos. The men of Manguicao thus used to do their best hunting outside of their community’s territory. Conversely, hunters, trappers or fishers from other communities can work these vocations within Manguicao’s bounds. Indeed, they could only watch as a group of logging employees once used dynamite in fishing just upriver from Manguicao.

Other resources such as bayoy or pandanus leaves for weaving mats and baskets, wild fruit and edibles, bamboo, building materials and firewood, medicinals, wood for ritual furniture and betel-chew ingredients are described as ma-intuk or small, with the implication that they are of little value. These form a rather large category of open-access resources that may be taken by anyone, including non-community members.

Exploring the CADC Procedure Though the Manobos of the Adgawan river area did not resist the entry of logging operations, they did the industrial tree plantations. This was because, as a very old datu told me, logging companies only took the trees in Manobo lands, while tree plantations not only took the trees when they cleared the forest, but the land as well when they planted plantation species (cf. Gatmaytan 1995). One Manobo community, in particular, put up such stiff resistance during the 1980s that the company issued its security guards a shoot-on-sight order against all Manobos, reducing them to farming at night, by lamplight. This and other incidents of conflict instilled a sense of vigilance among the Manobo of Manguicao. From the late 1980s onward, they began seeking some form of security against the possible encroachment of tree plantations. When they heard of the ancestral domain delineation program through an NGO, their datus and elders sought its assistance in preparing the evidence needed to support a CADC application. They set up a community organization called MAHANONG or “peace”, whose membership consisted of almost all residents of Manguicao. The application was finally filed in 1995.

In 1998, the DENR offered the community livelihood funds through the PAF. Within the community, there was some debate about the funds. A few argued that the individual land owners ought to be allowed to decide what was best for their respective landholdings and families. Others said that the PAF was offered for community-wide projects, so that the response should also be done on the basis of a community-wide agreement.

MAHANONG finally answered that any projects established through the PAF funds should be within the context of ancestral domain rights, and that if the DENR truly wanted to help, it would expedite processing of their pending CADC application. After a period of negotiation—and some rather underhanded maneuvering by the CENRO—the talks finally broke down, and nothing more was heard of the PAF.

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Unlike Minalwang, the community’s application took a long time to be processed. When implementation of Administrative Order no. 2 was suspended in 1998, their application was still awaiting review at the DENR main office in Quezon City. Even then it was noticed that the surrounding tree-plantation operations became much less aggressive and more careful about possible transgressions on local landowners’ claims when they found out about the pending CADC application.

The long delay, along with the down-scaling of tree plantation activities in the area gave rise to a degree of apathy in Manguicao. They are still wary about any possible expansion by the tree plantations, but they no longer see the receipt of a CADC as a solution to the insecurity of their tenure vis-à-vis the tree plantations, and by extension, the state.

Even while the CADC application was pending approval, MAHANONG tried to introduce changes in local management of local resources. The organization prohibited fishing using chemicals or explosives and encouraged people to concentrate on farming. Most importantly, they tried to regulate logging and rattan cutting beginning in 1996. The rule was that neither activity would be allowed within the community’s bounds unless all members first vote at the start of each year to allow it,70 permission from the concerned landowner is secured, and access fees are paid to both the tagtu-un and the organization. These regulations discouraged outsiders from taking further interest in Manguicao’s landowners’ rattan stands. On the other hand, many said that a number of local residents—including at least one landholder—violated the regulations and that no action was taken against them.

The El Nino and La Nina phenomena, coming one after the other in 1998 and 1999, pressured the organization to lift its restrictions so that community members could earn cash to compensate for their ruined crops. After that, people had settled back into conducting rattan-cutting and small-scale logging, such that MAHANONG is no longer able to re-impose its restrictions. Reduction in the local forest cover is very apparent in the area.

In August of the past year, MAHANONG helped form a coalition of Manobo community organizations called KATIBOAN, meaning “unity” or “union”, to build a united front against tree plantations, and address other local issues. Two months later, they and other representatives from KATIBOAN joined a region-wide coalition of IP organizations called Kahugpongan sa mga Lumadnong Organisasyon sa Amihanang Mindanaw (KASALO-Amihanang Mindanaw), again to strengthen their efforts to protect shared interests (cf. SILDAP 2000).

This represents a growing, broader political perspective than the traditional village-centered outlook of most IPs. One female leader stressed how they cannot afford not to assist other communities anymore, saying “If people down-river lose their lands, they would come here (looking for land)”. A datu said, “It would be difficult if we alone act, we would be like an island”; i.e., they would be surrounded.

70 In 1997, when implementation of the rule began, and in 1998, the community voted that

small-scale logging and rattan-cutting be banned for the rest of the year.

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Issues in Resource Management Manguicao shows us that indigenous tenure systems may actually tend to be individual, rather than communal in character. That local tenure is largely individualized—as is the case today—does not mean however that access to land is restricted to landowners. The way private ownership of land is practiced in Manguicao allows landless farmers to cultivate lands for their needs, at no cost in terms of land rent. Individual tenure moreover is compatible with the continued observance of traditional practices and values, or with a strong sense of community. Manguicao also shows us that local tenure systems change. Where once timber or rattan were once open-access goods, they became the property of the existing landowners once their commercial value as commodities within the larger logging industry was realized. This change meant an elaboration of indigenous notions of ownership, which had until then focused only on land use for farming purposes. It is possible that other local resources—like wild duryan (Durio zibethinus) and bugka or lanzones (Lansium domesticum)—will in the future shift as well from being open-access to individually-owned resources as their commercial potential becomes accessible for the local people.

The question of whether or not the tenure systems I describe here are ‘truly’ or ‘genuinely’ indigenous is not only extremely difficult to ascertain given that Agusan Manobo history cannot be studied separately from global capitalism in the form of the abaca, timber and rattan trade (following Wolf 1982), but also ultimately pointless (Paredes 2000: 88). The fact is that their land tenure practices are largely individualized; we need to deal with this reality as a part of their evolving culture.

I stress that while the current tenure system in Manguicao does have many similarities to state or civil law notions of private ownership, they have striking differences as well. For example, the Manobo practice of landownersip is less exclusionary, allowing the landless to cultivate private lands; it includes not just the land itself, but the commercially valuable resources like timber or rattan as well; conversely it does not include open-access resources; it is ultimately derived from descent rather than titling; and it developed independent of the western notion of the state, so taxation and registration are not relevant aspects of land ownership.

The development of local tenure in Manguicao also cautions against using a strict indigenous vs. state law or culture vs. capitalist-intrusion dichotomy. The fact is that the development of local tenure systems—which are still quite distinct from civil law notions of property and property rights—and by extension, indigenous culture, is linked to the intrusion of capitalism in the form of the timber and rattan trade. At another level, the application for a CADC may be seen as collaboration with the government’s agenda of homogenizing and clarifying rights to space within its political frontier, but may also be seen as an act of resistance against the feared expansion of government-granted tree-plantation concessions. Such nuances confound simplistic dichotomies.

In this light, culture change does not pose that much of a problem. Setting aside questions about whether Manobo culture is ecologically sensitive in the first place,71 it should be noted that environmentally appropriate practices may be drawn as much from their own indigenous culture, from other cultures, as well as from non-IP sources.

71 There are some indications that it is not. Unlike Montilla-Burton (1985: 23), I think that

Manobo ideas or practices cited as indicative of a ecologically sensitive culture are derived more from an ideological framework that demands respect not so much for nature as for spirits. The difference is that spirits may be negotiated with, so that they may in theory be persuaded to accept any transgression on their ‘property’ or ‘domain’, such as farming or logging.

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We cannot say of course if a CADC enables Manguicao to better manage its resources, since they have not received one, and are no longer interested in securing one. However, the fact that MAHANONG was able to take initiatives in community-wide resource management even while the CADC application was still pending is suggestive; the community did not need a CADC in order to introduce sustainable management practices. The fact that MAHANONG’s efforts at introducing community-level resource management ultimately failed is instructive as well. In part, it underlines a lack of cohesion within the organization. Unlike Minalwang, organizational unity was based only on formal commitments made within the framework of an alien organizational structure, hence unsupported by strong social expectations of compliance. The cooperation of landholders and other residents implicit in the CADC project thus dissolved during the difficult El Nino and La Nina years. In trying to cope with the crisis, landowners and their ‘clans’ maximized use of their timber and rattan stands, with the result that forest cover in Manguicao was visibly diminished. At present, what land or resource management there is has shifted back from MAHANONG to the various landholders, whose ecological sensitivities naturally vary.

Parenthetically, neither does all this mean that an IP community left to itself cannot manage its lands and resources well, though I admit I found the results in this case initially disturbing. However, it should be remembered that the circumstances were unusual in this case. Manguicao was trying to deal with two straight years of crop failures due to El Nino and La Nina. The intensity with which they engaged in rattan cutting in particular is most probably unrepresentative of actual practice.

The fact that no actions were taken against clear violations of MAHANONG’s regulations also reflects organizational weakness. Evidently, it is difficult for a new organizational structure like MAHANONG to impose sanctions on land or resource use decisions which were traditionally controlled by autonomous landowners.

In terms of resource management therefore, Manguicao’s problem is not legal security of tenure but organization. A firmer basis for unified action, greater commitment to community-level resource management and acceptance of the necessity for internal discipline may have to be developed within MAHANONG. In addition, community organization should give greater attention to gender issues, given that men have dominated local developments up to this point, with rather ambiguous results.

Coordination with other communities at higher levels of organization, such as KATIBO-AN and KASALO-Amihanang Mindanaw can be useful in asserting shared rights. However, I believe that entering such venues when MAHANONG itself is still organizationally weak may pose a problem in the future.

PATTERNS AND CONCLUSION

AGENDAS The State

The Philippine government is compelled to address a number of issues, particularly the recognition of IP ownership of ancestral territories, as mandated by the Constitution itself; the protection of what is left of the country’s ecological heritage, as through the NIPAS; and economic development, defined more and more by intensifying privatization and liberalization. Its responses to these issues are influenced by its political imperative to assert control or power in each of these three inter-related arenas.

This is not to say that the state is a monolithic entity (cf. Long and van der Ploeg 1994). There are government officials and agents who, as was seen from the anti-IPRA

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case, were in favor of privatization of public lands through the IPRA, and those who insisted on a state-centered control of the same. We also saw the manifest intention of the legislators to recognize ancestral domain rights within the MKRNP, the opposition of the mayors to the unified CADC claim, and the apathy of the DENR, all of which were acted out within the PAMB. It is no surprise that despite its much publicized shift to participatory approaches in resource management, the state actually retains a strong political presence in land and resource management vis-à-vis communities. In fact its prioritization of the CBFM program over ancestral domains delineation—as seen in Talakag—determines to a large extent the possible range of legal tenure options available to IP communities. Beyond that, the CADCs/CADTs and ADMPs, the CBFMAs and CRMFs all act as mechanisms for state intrusion into resource use decisions that had hitherto been largely in the hands of community- and local-level actors (following Giddens 1985: 117). Hence the rhetoric of participation actually masks a surge in state rationalizing, homogenizing and administration of space/resources. This is complementary to the state’s emerging development strategy in relation to land and resources; i.e., increasing privatization of public resources, as an expression of liberalization. Within the last few years, we have seen the allocation of comprehensive sets of rights to holders of Industrial Forest Management Agreements in the wood industry, and Financial or Technical Assistance Agreements in the mining sector; the state’s development of a securitization scheme for forest lands; and the prioritization of a CBFM program with a strong entrepreneurial slant.72

This represents not so much a surrender of its control of land and resources as a redefinition of its role vis-à-vis the perceived need to encourage participation of the business sector; a power-sharing, if you will, between state and business in the arena of resource management. The state still retains control, which it chooses to exercise through programmatic and contractual arrangements with commercial interests. In the same way, although ancestral domains delineation and recognition may seem to be a surrender of the state’s claims over what had hitherto been considered public lands, it is merely a variant of the same privatization and liberalization logic. The state now views communities with CADCs, CADTs and CBFMAs as private, economic actors on the same level as other landowners and business corporations, whose inter-relations are governed by laws and regulations administered by the government. Ironically, delineation and “recognition” are being converted into mechanisms by which ancestral territories are made accessible to economic interests and the market.

Indigenous Peoples Philippine IPs are not a homogenous group or sector. There are those, for example, who are in favor of ancestral domains delineation and recognition as defined by IPRA; and those who are not. Such differences imply underlying differences in their analyses of their situation and problems, and by extension, their agendas.

In the MKRNP area, we saw IPs calling for a unified CADC claim and condemning the CBFM program as a derogation of ancestral domain rights; IPs passively supporting the unified claim but accessing the CBFM program; and IPs ignoring the unified claim, and filing a community-sized claim while at the same time managing a CBFM project lauded by the CENRO. For me, this illustrates how IPs themselves can manage to differ significantly in

72 I am grateful to Atty. France Begonia for this insight (pers. comm., 10 January 2001).

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their interpretation and perhaps the prioritization of ancestral territory rights, in relation to livelihood needs.

It is not possible to force these nuanced responses into a simplistic dichotomy where participation in government programs is equated with collaboration, and non-participation with resistance and assertion of indigenous culture. As we have seen in the case of Minalwang’s CADC and Lantud’s CBFMA, participation in government programs may actually be instances of communities exploiting the possibilities offered by the legal system for community-defined ends. In Minalwang’s case, this consists of legal protection of their various ga-op, and in Lantud’s case, access to capital.

While I believe that most IP communities consider land an important issue, I find it less easy to assert that all IPs are equally concerned with securing legal protection for indigenous tenure. Certainly it is an important issue for the elders of Minalwang and the CoE, but less so for Manguicao and perhaps Datu X of Lantud. In fact, the sense of importance accorded to the land issue may even shift over time, as when the elders of Minalwang grew more passive after the issuance of the CADC, or when the Manobo of Manguicao lost interest in their own application.

In any case, the primary motivation for coming to terms with the state appears to be political or economic, in the sense of asserting identity, protecting access to local resources or securing livelihood funds. This, in the context of intensifying economic pressure—usually expressed as a drive to earn cash for necessities and other expenses—observable in all three case studies. Parenthetically, I think no IP communities in the Philippines today are without material links to capitalism and other aspects of the ‘outside world’ (cf. Hoffman 1988: 112-113). In Manguicao, a community known for its adherence to indigenous religion, the development of indigenous tenure was linked to the logging and rattan trade.

Concern for ecology seems to be a secondary consideration for communities (Leonen 2000: 75), and may even have been adopted from the environmentalist discourse of actors such as GM, KIN and the PAMB. Indeed, in other areas, communities have been alienated by environmental projects perceived as endangering their economic security (cf. Utting 2000: 181).

Which brings us to a potential source of danger for the IPs: Generally, community-level decisions are made on the basis of short- or middle-term objectives (Vayda 1992: 296). I think there is a need to emphasize the long-term but no less real political implications of working within frameworks largely defined by the state. This does not mean that spaces for resistance will not be found by IP communities—many can draw on decades of cultural guerilla warfare—but simply that consciousness of developments at this level are necessary for the fullest expression of self-determination. This is a challenge to progressive government personnel, academicians and researchers, advocates and the IP themselves. Negotiating Common Interests? It is this ‘gap’ that disables IPs from conducting informed negotiations with the state, a process already problematic because of the heterogeneity of both state and the IPs and their communities, as well as their vulnerability to pressures from various sectors. This is not to say that the various agents of the state are conscious of the larger political implications of their actions. Like the members of IP communities, almost all of them act within the framework of short- to medium-term objectives, and may not even be aware of the state’s inherent hegemonic imperatives. An individual’s ‘knowledgeability’, to use Giddens’ term, is bounded. Any coming to terms regarding relations between the state and IPs—whether on a programmatic or a specific, case-to-case basis—seems to be conducted largely without reference to these larger political dimensions. Rather the focus is on defining the relations of

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the state and the community in reference to lands or resources, on varying levels or scales. That is, the discussion will be framed by the issue of tenure; i.e., who has what rights to what areas, at what times or under what conditions.

TENURE AND SOLIDARITY Conflicts in Construction Sec. 3 (h) of the IPRA defines indigenous peoples as “a group of people or homogenous societies … who have continuously lived as organized community on communally bounded and defined territory ….”. Sec. 5 reiterates this by stating that “(t)he indigenous concept of ownership generally holds that ancestral domains are the ICC’s/IP’s private but community property which belongs to all generations and therefore cannot be sold, disposed or destroyed”. Finally, sec. 55 of the statute imperatively declares that “areas within ancestral domains, whether delineated or not, shall be presumed to be communally held”.73 Setting aside the generalizing, essentializing character of these provisions,74 we see that the IPRA—taken as the state’s official, definitive construction of indigenous tenure—operates on the assumption that IP tenure systems are communal. No doubt the academe, NGOs and the media, and even some IP leaders or organizations are implicated in the production and reproduction of this construction. This conflicts with what we have seen of indigenous tenure in northern Mindanaw. All three case studies revealed local tenure systems with a strong individualistic character. True, it is unclear whether these systems have always been thus, but the fact remains that these communities’ cultures now define tenure on a markedly individual, or at least household or family basis. We need to think of culture not simply as something traditional, passed on from previous generations, and as such largely constraining, but as a practical outcome of groups and individuals confronting present-day problems (Pertierra 1995: 6-7). This is the problem with the state’s addressing the ancestral domain issue on the basis simply of received, unquestioned notions advanced by forces maneuvering for political ends. It could have been avoided or reduced by a critical awareness of the assumptions underlying the notions we deploy, and a policy and methodological reliance on the study of actual tenure praxis (following Vayda 1992: 298, 301). The apparent conflict between what is prescribed by law and what is actually practiced by the different communities as yet remains largely theoretical however, as IPRA has yet to be implemented. In any case, IP communities can choose to adopt or play along, or ignore the state’s construction of tenure, while seeking to achieve their own self-defined objectives.

This ‘pragmatic’ attitude is illustrated by Minalwang’s CADC application. As far as the state is concerned, the CADC area is owned by the people of Minalwang as a group. Behind this legal fiction however the elders continue with their largely individualized tenure system. Tenure on a day-to-day basis continues to be practiced as they wish it, and the state is seen as having no right to interfere at that level (following Von Benda-Beckmann

73 For its part, the CBFM program ignores the entire question of the applicant-communities’

prior or existing tenure systems, premised as it is on another fiction; i.e., that the lands applied for are state-owned forest lands and that therefore no individuals have any prior claim thereto.

74 One direction for future inquiry is into the impact of these provisions, in as much as they

amount to the construction of an official stereotype of IPs and indigenous tenure.

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1993: 123-124). Again, this comes with higher level political and bureaucratic consequences, but these are largely ignored, if at all considered.

It would seem therefore that some communities actually show a considerable degree of flexibility in re-presenting their tenure systems—in the sense of arrangements for land and resource access—when dealing with the state. True, there are cases where communities inadvertently mis-represent local tenure patterns through naivety or desperation. On the other hand, we cannot ignore other cases where communities ‘decide’ to exploit opportunities they find within the legal system for self-defined ends; even at the cost of mis-representing their actual tenure practices.

Given the ‘negotiable’ character of tenure, particularly in relation to the state, the focus of further study cannot be limited to how well state tenure programs ‘fit’ or ‘match’ the various communities’ tenure systems. Rather, the focal point should be the politics of decision-making at the community level. This should be undertaken with due consideration of the local context; i.e., the community’s social structure and values, history and political economy, and the various interests of the various individuals, factions and sectors within it. In short, with an awareness of the divided and negotiated character of communities.

This would allow us to understand how communities actually understand and practice tenure—and by extension, culture—in relation to the state. I think this provides better ground for future policy-analysis and -development than an abstract, often simplistic comparison of government tenure programs and constructions of indigenous tenure patterns stripped of their complexity and dynamic.

Arrangements One constant in all my discussions with informants was the references to, and extensive use of, “kasabutan” or negotiated arrangements. This can be seen among the elders of Minalwang, the landholders of Manguicao, and the CoE’s unified claim, which was based on consultations with different communities, as well as in the implementation of the CBFM projects in Talakag. These arrangements allow traditionally autonomous landholders to cooperate for

purposes of their application (cf. Van Den Top and Persoon 2000: 173). This is important

because in almost all cases I encountered, the technical requirements for a CADC/CADT

application were described as difficult and costly, requiring sharing of resources, including

links with NGOs or other partners. Arrangements may thus frame a sometimes-new

contracting ‘community’ at a level transcending land holding individuals and families, as in

Manguicao; or combining separate communities into a larger unit, as in Minalwang or the

unified claim filed by the CoE. Incidentally, this may only reinforce the misimpression that

tenure is communal.

Beyond application purposes however is the use of such arrangements in the implementation of ADMPs or CRMFs. It is the key element in reconciling the state’s notions

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of tenure with that of the community’s. By making agreements beforehand, they can define and limit the impact of a government tenure instrument on their own tenure system. In this, the arrangements underscore the continued relevance of, and respect for local notions of tenure; they reproduce what is local or indigenous even ‘within’ the alien government framework.

In Minalwang, for example, there are agreements inscribed into the ADMP that protected each sitio’s autonomy, each ga-op holder’s rights, and indigenous law, all of which reinforced traditional autonomy and tenure systems. Taken together, these provisions prevent MIHITRICO or the barangay government from asserting itself as a communal polity vis-à-vis these dimensions of the community. Such arrangements generally rely on existing or available social and political structures for their effectiveness. However, these structures are realized only through the action of human agents (cf. Giddens 1982), and are thus vulnerable to various internal and external pressures. A sense of solidarity is needed to sustain, and ensure compliance with, such arrangements. This is particularly true of those communities that have no experience in, or tradition of cooperation at the level of their CADC/CADT application (Van den Top and Persoon 2000: 173).

Arrangements may be based on shared interests and traditional values, as in the case of Minalwang. In such situations, the issue of cultural survival and transmission is critical to the continued effectiveness of the agreements.

Arrangements may also be made on the basis only of agreements within the framework of a new organizational form, unsupported by strong social values. As such, they are more prone to failure, particularly when there is low group solidarity and little provision for disciplining those who renege on their commitments. In the case of Manguicao, for example, the agreements were made in the context of an organizational structure with which residents had no previous experience, and thus could not readily be linked to traditional values and expectations. Its stability and integrity were further eroded by its failure to enforce its own regulations, so that when a crisis situation occurred, the organization all but ceded authority to the various tagtu-un. In the same way, Datu X felt helpless in the face of the ‘betrayal’ of the three landowners who ‘sided’ with DALTREPA. Despite their agreement on the use of lands in Lantud not covered by SAFA’s project activities, there was no social mechanism at hand with which he could redress his sense of trespass.

These would seem to suggest that these particular communities have a relatively weak tradition of cooperative action at a level transcending individuals and households; a possible indicator of individual rather than communal tenure. Contrast this with Minalwang, where the elders seem to be operating on the level of a moral and social economy that demands compliance with commitments, particularly between communities. Minalwang’s experience illustrates just what a community or group of communities can achieve, using its CADC. Using this legal framework, it has institutionalized resource management systems that not only ensure sustainability, but also respect or reinforce local tenure praxis. Such optimal arrangements however can be achieved only by well-organized communities or groups of communities; particularly, in this case, at the level of the different, traditionally autonomous ga-op owners and communities. These arrangements can also serve as a mechanism for expansion beyond ‘original’ community boundaries. The plan to coordinate action with Minalwang’s neighbors will most probably be framed in terms of similar arrangements, if the idea pushes through. As higher levels of inter-relation are negotiated and formed however the need for clear agreements regarding sanctions and their imposition becomes more critical, particularly as there are rarely traditions of cooperative action at these levels.

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This underscores the importance of community organizing in any attempt to treat with the state regarding tenure (Utting 2000: 189). As Manguicao’s experience shows, organizing must be directed at engendering or strengthening the strong sense of organizational solidarity needed to maintain a community’s autonomy vis-à-vis the state.

Organizing in IP communities should consider adopting, in the proper contexts, ‘new’ forms of organization or adapting existing ones (Utting 2000: 190). If a cooperative is a more responsive structure, why persist on relying on datuship, which in many areas has been seriously eroded? Culture, as Giddens says of structure, limits and enables. The trouble sometimes is that we limit ourselves with our notion of what is ‘culturally appropriate’, forgetting that culture, and indeed notions of what is appropriate, change or may actually differ, depending on specific contexts and actors’ differing interests.

This brings us to the matter of the divided community. Many have erred by taking the notion of community—at any level—as unproblematic, when it is riven by any number of social divides (Fortmann and Bruce 1988: 109). Such divides are compounded when considering different, traditionally autonomous communities as a group, as in the MKRNP area. Among relevant divides are class or property, age and lineage, geographic origin and political power, religious belief and ideology, and of course, gender.

It is necessary that gender in particular be addressed in organizing efforts, given the reality of gender-oppression and injustice among many indigenous cultures. We have seen, for example, married men claiming as their own their father-in-laws’ or wives’ lands in Lantud and Manguicao. It is difficult to imagine a solid sense of solidarity in a community where roughly half the population are disabled from contributing to planning, decision-making, project implementation or sharing in any benefits. One can only imagine what IP communities could have achieved had they tapped the full potentials offered by the women in their communities.

Each of these divides translate into differing constructions of tenure and other issues. Organizing begins with understanding how this is true for each community. This is necessary if arrangements or local alliances based on perceived, important mutual interests—the core of solidarity—are to be forged. Sustainable Management As has already been stated, IP communities tend to approach government tenure options like ancestral domains delineation with a political, economic or cultural, rather than a clearly environmentalist interest. Communities struggle for their land and resources to ensure their survival, not to demonstrate their skill in ecological stewardship. These are two distinct dimensions of the ancestral domain issue which while not necessarily exclusive of each other, ought not to be conflated either to avoid unfounded ideas and unwarranted expectations.

This introduces the need to disengage the issue of ownership and control of land and resources from the issue of sustainable management. The fact that communities secure control of their areas through CADCs/CADTs or CBFMAs does not necessarily imply that they will manage the area sustainably, or that they will be able to assert themselves against interests pursuing unsustainable modes of resource use.

I believe that the issue of ownership of ancestral territory and land tenure instruments are crucial in terms of the political, economic or cultural struggle of IP communities is concerned.

However, land tenure is an important but not decisive factor in sustainable land or resource use by indigenous communities (Persoon 1992: 258; Visser 1992: 313). Once we set aside the assumption that all communities practice sustainable resource management, we see that tenure instruments like the CADC or CADT by themselves do not guarantee

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sustainable resource management. They may strengthen community control of resources, but they do not ensure that that control is exercised with an eye to ecological sustainability. Tenure instruments mean little if the IP community or organization is itself unprepared to integrate environmental considerations into its management systems. A gap between community control of resources and community capability for sustainable management explains how a number of CADC-holding communities are reported to be practicing, or have allowed, unsustainable exploitation of their local resources.75

One wonders what would have happened in Manguicao had it been issued a CADC by the time the El Nino and La Nina phenomena affected them, given its relatively weak level of organization. Possession of a title such as the CADT can even be dangerous in such instances, as there will be rather weak constraints against possible abuse. A CADT is a powerful combination of elements of a document of title, with its connotation of complete control of property, and of self-determination, with its connotation of autonomy in decision-making.

Conversely, I would point out that the valid examples of sustainable resource management by IP communities in the literature were all developed and practiced outside the context of any government tenure program. In some cases, many such management systems were practiced before the advent of the colonial or post-colonial state.

In both the MKRNP and in Manguicao, the involved IP organizations were able to conduct sustainable management activities—mostly in the form of self-regulation and control—even without a tenure instrument having (yet) been issued. More to the point, Banwaon communities of the Maasam river area in Agusan del Sur also launched a log- and rattan-ban campaign a few years ago, and this without any expectation of a CADC or CADT, which their leaders have condemned as contrary to Ipo-an ko Pinaglaw daw Kiyala ha Batasan, their indigenous law. Duly oriented and organized, IP communities or organizations can and do conduct environmental projects even without tenure instruments.

I think the linking of community investment into environmental activities with tenure security grew out of a conflation of organizing with possession of a tenure instrument, and from experiences with non-IP groups that had to be given a stake in the land (for example, see Malayang 2000). In the case of most IP communities however they already know they have a stake in the land; it is in fact theirs. The problem is getting the state—with its ecological and other concerns—and other actors to recognize this. In the MKRNP case, this has resulted in attempts by the CoE and KIN to emphasize IP capability to sustainably manage resources, even though it is most emphatically not a legal requirement for a valid claim to ancestral territories.

The contributions that indigenous cultures can make to sustainable management should be recognized, where such contributions do exist. There is no clear evidence that the indigenous cultures we studied are intrinsically environmentally sensitive. For example, Manguicao, a community noted for its adherence to Manobo culture, has little in the way of traditional practices designed to achieve specifically ecological ends. On the other hand, numerous instances of such practices were cited in the MKRNP, although I could not

75 For example, the ADMP of the Pakuan Manobo Indigenous Cultural Community notes how

its interest in logging fueled its application for a CADC, covering 312 has. in Pakuan, Lanuza, Surigao del Sur, resulting in the issuance of the very first CADC in the Philippines, along with a cutting permit for 1,709.97 cu. m. of timber (PMICC 1994: 1-2). The ADMP of Kalihukang Nagkahi-usang Minorya—a group of Higa-onon communities in Lawan-Lawan and Las Nieves, Agusan del Norte province, holding R13-CADC-018 covering 8,001 sq. has.—is indistinguishable from a logging company’s operations plan (cf. KNM 1995). Incidentally, this ADMP also mentions that there are 33 “sectoral owners” within the CADC area (KNM 1995: 4), which from my work with the Banwaon and the Agusan Manobo, I understand to be the equivalent of the ga-op holders.

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ascertain if such practices developed to support the unified CADC/CADT claim, or if they actually antedated the MKRNP.

We cannot assume that indigenous cultures are all inherently environmentally sensitive (cf. Vayda 1992: 297-298). If only to be prudent, each community’s capacity for sustainable management must be ascertained, on a case-to-case basis. We thereby avoid unwittingly imposing expectations of sustainable management on communities that may actually be unready for the task.

In areas like the MKRNP, this means that a sweeping assumption that all affected communities are equally capable or willing to undertake environmentally sustainable management of resources is problematic. Awareness of the particularities of the various specific communities is needed to address possible problem areas in terms of actual capacity, and so achieve the unobjectionable objectives of the non-traditional national park framework.

Organizing work in this context should not focus on, or stop at, securing a tenure instrument for the community, but should continue on to inculcate greater environmental awareness where there is little, or to develop or guide it where it does exist. If we wish to ensure sustainable management by communities, community organizing and the education process it necessarily entails is more important than tenure security.

In any case, that these cultures may not in fact be ecologically sensitive does not and should not disqualify IP communities from enjoyment of their rights to ancestral territories, as their rights legally do not rest on possession of environmental knowledge. On the other hand, the fact that they have demonstrated their willingness and ability to improve local resource management systems as to integrate ecological considerations represents a still largely untapped social resource for environmental management. This is another argument for intensifying efforts to recognize indigenous rights to ancestral territories.

Sustainable resource management practices may be continuations or amplifications of existing practices, or may have been adopted from other cultures or sources. Cultures change; if today certain practices appear ecologically insensitive, it is still possible to direct change towards addressing this weakness. In this light, I think the environmental risk from culture change is not so much in terms of the loss of substantive knowledge—which can at least theoretically be relearned—but in the erosion of social structures and values on which community solidarity necessary for concerted action is built.

Interestingly, IP communities are actively experimenting with the appropriate scales at which environmental projects are best conducted. In Minalwang, for example, there is a realization that any serious attempt at protecting game resources cannot be left at the level of the various ga-op owner’s initiative. Instead, it will have to be coordinated at some higher level. In the same vein, they are now considering coordinating their efforts with neighboring communities which have roughly similar ADMPs. On the other hand, the CoE has found it difficult to oversee or coordinate activities within the MKRNP area because of the latter’s size or scale. This can be seen in the differences in perception and discourse at its level and at the level of each community or sitio.

CONCLUSION Tenure What impact has the ancestral domains delineation program had on the IP communities? From all of the above, it appears that DENR Admin. Order no. 2 (1993) theoretically recognizes historically unprecedented degrees of legal control over lands and resources by IP communities. Most of the criticisms about the procedures revolve around the technical and logistical difficulties of the application requirements, and the politics which

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almost inevitably surround the application process. In any case, the CADC can enable communities to better assert their rights to their territories vis-à-vis migrant-settlers, corporations and to some extent, the state.

The question of land or resource control is quite distinct from how well communities are able to use this legal control to use resources beneficially and sustainably. A large part of a community’s success in so managing its territory rests on its level of awareness, organization and institutional commitment to collective action. IP communities can and do take steps to improve their management of local resources even without possession of any tenure instrument; indeed, the best examples of sustainable practices developed outside the context of the state and its tenure programs.

Possession of a CADC/CADT or CBFMA would mean little if community organizing is neglected, specially as some communities have no experience of planning and management at the levels framed by government tenure programs. Tenure instruments in themselves do not guarantee sustainable management.

It is thus unfortunate that the government makes no contribution in terms of organizing; in this it replicates its past mistake of issuing agrarian-reform titles without the support systems needed by farmers, so defeating the purposes of agrarian reform. Hence the real risk of misuse or abuse of legal ownership or control of resources provided by tenure instruments or programs, given that IP communities are constituted by quite ordinary people rather than environmental saints and martyrs.

Still, quite a number of communities do know how to use the legal system. This is exemplified by the instances we saw of communities exploiting tenure opportunities offered by the government, and using it as a shield behind which they maintain or strengthen their own working tenure relationships. Again, it is the organization of IP communities that is crucial. Whatever benefits ancestral domains delineation provides can be maximized only through organizing, and whatever problems it causes can best be addressed in the same wise. Sustainable Management The data collected does not justify the conclusion that indigenous tenure systems are necessarily environment-sensitive. There is evidence of it in some, but not all communities. In this light, it is more prudent to first determine each community’s capacity for sustainable management, and then to either inculcate it where little such capacity is found, or develop it further where it is strong. This underscores the continued relevance in certain areas of organizing work by NGOs. In terms of sustainable management, it is again the level and substantive character of organizing work which is important. Tenure instruments only strengthen community control of resources, but do not guarantee sustainable management. The fact that different IP communities have demonstrated their readiness and ability to improve resource management by adopting ecologically sensitive practices—at times even without the expectation of receiving tenure instruments in return—is significant. IP communities are well-positioned to contribute to sustainable management. If the state wishes to tap this potential resource, it should intensify continuing efforts towards full recognition of IP rights to ancestral territories. The Strategic Level

Thus far we have been speaking from a program-level perspective. IP communities—concerned as they are with protecting their access to local resources—NGOs,

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government officials and personnel, companies and other actors generally operate on this pragmatic, tangible level.

However, I have pointed out that ancestral domains delineation also has the higher-level effect of bureaucratizing local land and resource issues, and integrating hitherto autonomous communities within the control of the nation-state and the arena of global capitalism. Discussions of delineation rarely consider these dimensions. This does not mean that the discussions and praxis in the context of actual negotiations and conflicts are unimportant. It is just that there is rather more to IPs’ relations with the state—the issue at the heart of discussions of delineation and empowerment—than this.

We need to reflect, to think. There is a great mass of researches, surveys and case studies available in the Philippines dealing with actual communities caught in actual webs of conflict and convergence. And while there is a growing interest in the meanings of these experiences, there are still comparatively few attempts to step back, appreciate or even wonder at these great patterns of concord and conflict.

This is like waging a war without any strategic outlook. True, the marked heterogeneity of Philippine IPs makes the idea of a coordinated nation-wide IP movement problematic. But if uniting the various IP communities seems improbable given today's political and economic context, it is past time that we at least begin to share a consciousness of the strategic dimensions of the issue. Perhaps from the disparate approaches to these strategic concerns, some consensus can eventually be developed, just as the long and largely uncoordinated struggle for land eventually grew into a broad consensus that the issue facing indigenous peoples is not simply land so much as self-determination within the context of the Philippine nation-state.

The current unawareness of the strategic dimensions of the IP’s issues is unfortunate because it is at this level that the necessary task of reflection on the lessons drawn from decades of sacrifice and struggle can be committed to guiding us in other struggles still to come. This is where great ideas, dreams—such as self-determination—are forged and refined, and our own maturity as a people measured.

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SOURCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the International Center for Research in Agro-Forestry, particularly Dr. Dennis Garrity, Mr. Paul C. Fay and Ms. Glo Acaylar, who made this paper and the field-work on which it is based possible.

Thanks are also due to the following: (1) Butch Dagondon and his awesome knowledge of northern Mindanao, its geography and its people, and Jong-Jong, Belen and Yogi, all of GREEN Mindanao; (2) Easter Canoy with her generosity with her insights and experiences, and her staff at Kitanglad Integrated NGOs; (3) the community of sisters of the Religious of the Good Shepherd-Tribal Filipino Ministry of San Luis, Agusan del Sur and their organizing and literacy staff; (4) Agustin Mercado, Jr., Samuel Jumawid and the rest of the staff of ICRAF at Claveria, Misamis Oriental, and (5) Jo Villanueva and the staff of the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center office at Cagayan de Oro city.

Special appreciation must also be expressed for the datus and leaders of Minalwang and Impadiding, of Claveria, Misamis Oriental; the datu and the people of Lantud, Brgy. Sagaran, Talakag, Bukidnon province; Datu Makapukaw and Datu Migketay of Brgy. Songco, Lantapan, Bukidnon province; the Council of Elders of the Mt. Kitanglad area; Ba-e Berma Hilarion and the other leaders and people of Manguicao, Brgy. Lydia, La Paz, Agusan del Sur province; and Mr. Edgar Pasal of the National Council of Indigenous Peoples-Region 10 office.

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