By Walter I. Balane with a report from Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews/07 October) -- The Federation of Matigsalug and Manobo Tribal Councils (Femmatrics) has sued North Cotabato Vice Gov. Emmanuel Pińol for alleged “unlawful intrusion and encroachment” into their ancestral domain and “willful disregard and open violation of their right to ‘Free Prior Informed Consent.’ Datu Roelito A. Gawilan, tribal chieftain and Femmatrics chair, filed his affidavit-complaint to Bukidnon provincial prosecutor Mirabeaus Undalok last Monday (Oct. 6) in his office at the Capitol Compound, charging Pinol for alleged violation of the penal provisions of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997, particularly Sections 72 and 73 thereof, of Trespassing under the Revised Penal Code, of Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (R.A. 3019) and of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees (R.A. 6713).
Pinol dismissed the charges as “ridiculous.”
Datus, Baes, and other tribal leaders backed Femmatrics in the move, reportedly the “first of its kind” in the Philippines.
Gawilan said they held traditional Matigsalug rites in Sinuda, Kitaotao, Bukidnon before they traveled in a convoy to Malaybalay to file the complaint.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo awarded the tribe’s 70,000 members with a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) on October 31, 2003 in Davao City over a total land area of 102,324.8186 hectares. The area straddles Bukidnon, Davao City, and Arakan Valley in North Cotabato.
Talaandig tribal chieftain Datu Migketay Saway, who went with Gawilan and other members of Femmatrics and the Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus to Undalok’s office, said they came “full force” to support Femmatrics in their legal action.
Saway came with Datu Umpongan Romando Sambile, head of the Bukidnon Tribal Development Council of Elders.
Investigation
Parts of the Femmatrics’ ancestral domain, are being occupied by non-Lumads, mostly the wealthy from Bukidnon, Davao City and neighboring North Cotabato, for vacation houses and plantations.
The area boasts of a Baguio-like climate.
In his affidavit, Gawilan said that sometime in February 2007, he received a report from the tribal leaders of Kulaman Valley in Arakan and Barangay Sagundanon in Kitaotao, Bukidnon that an Emmanuel Piñol acquired 300 hectares of land in Barangay Binoongan, Arakan, Cotabato – a portion of their ancestral domain.
He said he immediately called for an investigation.
The investigation, Gawilan said, yielded the following information: that Piñol, then governor, bought 300 hectares from Pablito B. Berdin, Selverio O. Mangga and Ruben Endao for P3 million paid in several installments.
“Berdin and Mangga are both Ilonggos and have no authority whatsoever to sell our ancestral domain,” Gawilan said, adding the sale is “evidenced by two acknowledgment receipts dated January 6, 2007 and March 16, 2007.
The receipts acknowledged P200,000 each, “representing the partial payment of our land with an area of three hundred hectares which the latter intends to buy in the amount of three million pesos,” the first receipt of which was signed in the presence of Atty Russel Abonado and Roger Maralit. The second receipt had Abonado’s space unsigned.
Gawilan said Maralit is “an employee of Piñol in his office in Amas, Kidapawan” while Abonado, “based on the website of the Municipality of M’lang, is an incumbent member of the 16th Sangguniang Bayan of M’lang, the Municipal Mayor of which is the brother of Emmanuel Piñol.”
Endao, one of the signatories, is a Matigsalug, who, Gawilan said, was “apologetic of what he did (and who) told me that he was not completely informed of the purpose of the entire transaction.”
Gawilan said that Endao in an affidavit said he was “used by Piñol to represent the tribe to justify his purchase of the subject lot.”
“Ridiculous”
Pinol found the allegations “ridiculous.”
“How can I even be charged of trespassing or grabbing a piece of land that I have not taken possession of, or at the very least, seen with my own eyes? I don’t even know the exact location of the land,” he told MindaNews in a text message.
“Indeed, there was an offer by tribal leaders led by Datu Ruben Endao to lease the property to me to be planted to rubber but the deal has not progressed because I required them to present a certificate of prior consent from tribal leaders in the area,” he said.
But Pinol added, “Let them file it (complaint) so that the issues can be threshed out.”
He later said, “please inform Gawilan that he better be sure his charges will hold water otherwise I will file libel and malicious prosecution cases against him and his cohorts.
Last month, Gawilan warned they would go to court to force around 20 "illegal occupants" in their ancestral domain to go through a free and prior informed consent process even if belatedly..
He told MindaNews in Bukidnon on September 23 that they were preparing to file cases against those who refuse to go through an FPIC process despite attempts of the group to formalize the request starting April this year.
Gawilan said he made earlier moves to keep the legal path at bay. He cited a chance meeting with Pińol in Malaybalay City for a joint session of both provinces’ provincial boards. But he said Piñol ignored him after a brief verbal exchange.
Meantime, he claimed, Piñol brought in farm equipments to prepare the land for his development project as well as sacks of rice.
”This showed his possession and control over the land,” Gawilan said.
This alarmed Femmatrics prompting them to call Piñol to appear before the Council of Elders to thresh out issues with the end in view of resolving it peacefully through FPIC.
But Piñol allegedly ignored it and successive notices including a phone conversation between him and Bae Magdalena Herbilla, the Chair of the Council of Elders on August 9, 2008. In that conversation, Piñol reportedly promised Bae Magdalena that he would visit Femmatrics upon his return from the US for the boxing fight of Manny Pacquiao.
From the prosecutor’s office, the convoy proceeded to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples office in Bukidnon where the party agreed on schedules with Ma. Shirlene Sario over the FPIC process with Sec. Jesus Dureza, Presidential Adviser on Mindanao, and other occupants. The Femmatrics complained that six months after agreeing to go through an FPIC process, Dureza has not done the first move.
“I will be the example”
On April 18 this year, a precedent-setting meeting was held at the Office of the Supreme Tribal in Kidaotao when at least 25 non-Lumad occupants of the Matigsalug-Manobo’s ancestral domain, led by then Presidential Legal Counsel Dureza, vowed to submit to the process of formally seeking the tribe’s consent for use of their land.
“I will be the example. Unahon nako akong sarili nga magsubay gayud sa inyong proseso (I will lead by following your process),” said Dureza who has been operating the Seagull Mountain Resort in Lorega, Kitaotao since 1994.
Dureza whose resort of “at least 17 hectares” is covered by a special land use from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources until 2010, said he accepted the invitation of Femmatrics “aron pagyuko sa proseso nga gihan-ay sa atong IPRA (Indigenous Peoples Rights Act) [to submit to the process laid out by the IPRA].
Femmatrics had sent out notices to at least 80 non-Lumad occupants within the tribes’ 102,324.8186- hectare ancestral domain, “for the purpose of upholding the right of ownership of the tribe and formalizing the recognition of existing property rights of non-members of the tribe within the domain.”
Under the IPRA, any undertaking within the tribe’s ancestral domain by non-members of the tribe requires the tribe’s FPIC. (Walter I. Balane with a report from Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
Source: http://www.mindanews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7080&Itemid=50
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