CHR probes "harassment" plaint of IPs

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — The Commission on Human Rights in Negros Oriental has vowed to get to the bottom of a developing concern at an indigenous peoples' "reserve" up in the mountains of the Mabinay town-Bais City boundary in this province.

CHR-Negros Oriental's lone field investigator Jess Cañete said that, with the approval of the CHR-7 regional office, he will be monitoring the area where the IP tribes of the Ata and Bukidnon are claiming to be "living in fear" at present.

On Sunday, tribal chieftain Ireneo Cabanag and his son, Otohan Reynante Cabanag, provincial tribal spokesman, met with Cañete in Dumaguete City to report a violent encounter Saturday evening at their house at Sitio Bahandian in Barangay Sab-ahan of Bais City.

The younger Cabanag disclosed that a group of armed men arrived at their house and destroyed a sacred structure or altar and other items used for the tribes' rituals, tore apart their house and attacked them.

Later on, Joey Cadalso, a member of the Special Weapons Action Team of the Bais City Police, arrested one of the suspected assailant, identified as Alejandro Duran, alias Iti, he said.

Otohan however could not remember how many armed men were there, but claimed that one of them allegedly fired a gun at the time, and another came at him with a bladed weapon that he was able to fend off with a spear.

Otohan further alleged that the armed men chopped down the exotic herbs and other endangered species in the forest and the ritual cave, where the IPs converge on Fridays to prepare herbal concoctions. Antique jars and other very old items were also destroyed, he added.

The Cabanag family managed to call for police assistance that night but the attackers, except for the one who was arrested, managed to flee. Otohan also claimed that he overheard some of them allegedly saying they were just following orders from the Department of Agrarian Reform.

It was not the first time that the IPs in the Mabinay-Bais area were harassed and threatened by armed groups, whom they believe have something to do with the land they have been occupying, but was covered by the DAR's Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

The Cabanags told the CHR that, for generations, they have had in their possession the land covered by documents awarded them by government as ancestral domain. A resolution recently issued by the Ata and Bukidnons' Indigenous Cultural Communities agreed to preserve a small pocket of forest in their ancestral domain.

Cañete, for his part, vowed to look deeper into the present situation the indigenous tribes are facing. While this may be a police matter, he said he would like to determine if there were certain rights of these people that were being violated, as IPs are granted protections under Republic Act 8371, or the Indigenous People's Act of 1997.

Cañete also announced that he will have to ask the DAR regarding the current status of the land occupied by the IPs and whether this was covered by the CARP and there were certificates of land ownership awarded to agrarian reform beneficiaries. — (FREEMAN)