A Mangyan lawyer in Manila

"Ma-Mangyan Mangyan ka naman" is a phrase sometimes used to refer to a person acting stupidly or foolishly.

"There is the tendency to generalize," says Zosing, a Mangyan, as he recalls the discrimination he used to get as a teenager, although he admits he has "selective memory" when it comes to such bad experiences. But remembers he used to "feel like a freak" in public.

Born in the mountains of Oriental Mindoro, Zosing comes from the Hanunuo-Mangyan tribal group. He adds that being poor further fueled the prejudice.

But neither destitution nor bigotry stopped him from excelling in school. A valedictorian when he went back to the highlands for high school study, he turned humiliation into an impetus for him to become an advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples.

At 32, Renato Zosimo Evangelista is a full-fledged lawyer, the first Mangyan to accomplish the distinction, according to the Mangyan Heritage Center of which he is a board member. As an advocate of the law, Atty. Zosing, as he is fondly called, vows to fight for the civil liberties of the Mangyans, who are among the hundreds of original inhabitants of the land. Sadly, however, they are now being driven out of their homes to allow for development.

Atty. Zosing is a managing partner at the Crisologo, Evangelista and Associates Law Office, currently working on a reservation land case in Paitan, Naujan in Oriental Mindoro.

"I have accepted to represent the Paitan Mangyan in the reservation case. A proclamation in the 1930s made a reservation for Mangyans in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro," he says.

He has acted as legal adviser on Mangyan issues, and handles mostly property related cases.

"It’s not really my specialty. It just so happens that we have a lot of those cases. But we also handle criminal cases, as well as pro bono cases," he tells Starweek at his office in Quezon City.

During the morning interview, Zosimo was worrying over the latest development in an eviction case –the court sheriff was in the house of a client, sequestering items.

"We have a newly-referred case wherein a client is trying to secure a temporary restraining order. It’s like an eviction case although there are still other legal issues that need to be threshed out," Atty. Zosing explains. "It’s hard for us (to secure a TRO) since the only remedy is to go to the court of appeals and it’s not that easy."

"As a lawyer, we can only protect our client to the extent of what is allowed by the law," says the Mangyan lawyer, who got his law degree in 2000 from the Manuel L. Quezon University in Manila, with an excellence award in legal education and the "best in commercial law" honor. He passed the bar a year later.

Zosing says he didn’t encounter any discrimination when he moved to Manila to realize his dream of becoming a lawyer.

He was a student leader in a Mangyan community high school and brought his leadership skills to college.

"Mangyans are always presumed not to know how to count or read. They give us a hard time whenever we go shopping and I think not much opportunity is given to Mangyan students to shine in school," says Zosing, who was orphaned at the age of 13 when his mother, Juana, died of broncho-pneumonia. He never really knew his father, a non-Mangyan, because his parents’ relationship was "unacceptable" at the time. "They had to be separated," he says. "That’s how the story was told to me."

Zosing says his mother worked hard not only for her only child, but also for her profession as a teacher. She was also active in the local church as pianist. Zosing inherited this skill and her natural talent in music.

Zosing was a typical awkward teener trying to find his place in the world but he knew he could accomplish more. He says Mangyans were sometimes "treated like savages."

"That’s how I see it. That when you hear the phrase ‘Ma-Mangyan-Mangyan ka naman’, that means you are stupid or illiterate or without manners," he laments, recalling that he became the butt of jokes and teasing for his heritage when he was just a boy.

Since his teens, Zosing knew he could be more, beyond what people judged him to be.

And education, he points out, "is empowerment."

As an orphan living with his relatives, Zosing earned ten pesos transporting sacks of bananas, mangoes and calamansi some 10 kilometers to the market. "I would also help in harvesting. It was enough to cover my allowances and transportation," shares Zosing, who was always on the honor roll, thus his tuition fee was subsidized.

Things changed though when he came to the big city. "When I went to Manila and took up college, people didn’t care if I was a Mangyan," he shares.

According to the Mangyan Heritage Center website, "Mangyan" is a general term that refers to eight ethnolinguistic groups occupying the mountainous region of Mindoro Oriental and Occidental.

"The Mangyans are the original inhabitants of Mindoro, the seventh largest island in the Philippines. The Mangyan population is estimated close to 100,000, about 10 percent of the total population of the island."

Zosing notes that though society is changing and more Mangyans are working and sending their children to school, "not more than a third" of their population are able to finish their studies.

"I want to help my fellow Mangyans," says Zosing, as he notes with gladness that more Mangyans are now trying to follow his footsteps. "Becoming a lawyer somehow boosted the confidence of my fellow Mangyans," he says.

After passing the bar, he became an associate of a law office and worked for Nokia Philippines, reviewing contracts on site acquisitions for the firm’s installation towers. A year later, Atty. Zosing was hired by the law office of the late Sen. Raul Roco.

"Their office called me up because one of their clients, former agriculture secretary Sonny Dominguez, referred me to them," recalls Zosing, who explains he and Dominguez have a common friend who is a fellow board member at the Mangyan Heritage Center.

He stayed with Roco, Capunan, Migallos, Perez and Luna Law Offices until 2004. He moved back to his home province when the governor asked him to be his provincial legal officer.

That year, he also applied for a graduate study grantin international human rights laws in England under the British Chevening Scholars program, which he read about in The STAR.

Among the hundreds worldwide who applied for the grant, Zosing made it to the small four percent who were chosen.

"It was a very tough decision because at the time we were putting up this law office and I was also working as a provincial legal officer," recalls Zosing. This was around August last year and he was given four hours to decide.

Zosing left for England in September and the year that followed proved to be fruitful for the Mangyan lawyer.

"The experience broadened my horizon. I met a lot of people from different countries, different cultures and I learned to appreciate our country better," he says.

At the University of Essex where he obtained his masters degree in law, Atty. Zosing met former deputy minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim during a human rights symposium.

"During the symposium, I introduced myself to Mr. Anwar Ibrahim as the only Filipino in that university," he shares.

Zosing readily showed his intellectual skills and diligence during the Chevening scholarship program. His research paper on trade related intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples was given a "distinction mark", one of only six out of 70 students that received distinction marks on their research papers.

Zosing also wrote a dissertation paper about terrorism and counter-terrorism measures, particularly in the gray area of handling terror suspects, including issues of alleged abduction and torture. During the study grant, Zosing was in the company of "United Nations’ experts" in the fields of torture and minority issues, human rights including rights concerning trade agreements between countries.

Extremely proud of his heritage, Zosing dreams of being a good advocate not only of the law but of Mangyan rights.

"My greatest concern as an indigenous person, a citizen and as a lawyer is good governance for the country wherein the poor–to which 90 percent of indigenous people belong–will be empowered and heard," Zosing tells Starweek. "Most especially, I want the indigenous people to be literate and liberated from poverty. It’s hard to put a hierarchy on the issue of the Mangyans, but primarily what I see is for the government to address foremost the issues of poverty and illiteracy."

After his study grant in England, Atty. Zosing says he has become "more of an activist."

This early in his career, Zosing says he doesn’t know what awaits him, but "for now, I only want to be a good practitioner and a good advocate of the law for the masses."

Myth and Meaning, an exhibit about the culture of the Mangyans of Mindoro, opens on January 3 at the Ayala Museum in Makati. It is the first public display of artifacts from different Mangyan groups. Read ambahans (Mangyan poetry), write your name in an original Philippine script, buy books and crafts, and try modern Mangyan cuisine. The exhibit ends on January 23.