NO HOLDS BARRED

Ike Señeres
Showcase of self-sufficiency

To some extent, it could already be said that the white Americans have already paid their historical and cultural debts to the native American Indians, as they have given the Indians the means to practically become self-sufficient in their own Indian reservations, with their own means of livelihood. Perhaps we could not yet say the same thing in the Philippines, because until now, our indigenous peoples are still living miserable lives in places where they still live together in tribal communities.

Perhaps as a consolation to ourselves, we could at least say that the legal basis to make self-sufficiency possible for our indigenous peoples already exists, thanks to the Indigenous People’s Republic Act (IPRA), a bill that was sponsored by former Rep. Ronald Cosalan and is now part of the law of the land. Ronnie was imminently qualified to sponsor the law, being himself a member of a northern tribe and being formerly the head of what is now the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples.

Sad to say however, up to now the IPRA is just as good as a diploma on a wall to a college graduate who is unable to find a job. Up to now, our indigenous peoples still have to enjoy the benefits that the IPRA promises, further compounded by the fact that there is no law that could stop the greed of the people who continue to exploit them.

Thanks to divine providence, I was fortunate to have met Datu Didilusan Arroyo, the Supreme Datu of the Talaandig tribe in Bukidnon. The good news is that they have already secured their legal titles to their ancestral domains, consisting of 200 hectares in Cabalansihan, Sinuda and 35 hectares in Talakag, Pangantukan, both in Bukidnon.

Datu Didilusan was introduced to me by my friend Ric Abian, a Moslem convert and a former Assemblyman who is now actively helping the indigenous peoples in Mindanao , the Talaandig tribe included. My meeting with Datu Arroyo was providential, but it was really bound to happen as Ric had really wanted us to meet, the three of us being fellow Directors of the Halal Foundation of the Philippines. I am proud to say that I am the only Christian in the Foundation.

The Halal Foundation has a dream, and I share that dream with them. We want to establish a sustainable source of livelihood for the Talaandig people by turning their ancestral domain into modern farmlands that would produce real certified Halal food for the Moslem population in the Philippines and eventually for export to the Middle East and to other Moslem areas.

In the course of my long conversations with Datu Didilusan, I mentioned to him my idea about building self-sufficient communities within their ancestral domains, communities that would fully benefit from integrated area development (IAD), in line with the Human Settlements Approach. I also shared with him my idea of making these communities excel in the measurements of the Human Development Index (HDI).

To my delight, Datu Didilusan not only embraced IAD, HSA and HDI, he also took warmly to my suggestion of preserving the natural forest that they are now protecting, to the point that he actually agreed not to cut any more trees there, and turning it instead into a bio-diverse source of livelihood. At that point, our discussion moved over to the planting of more trees, for the purpose of claiming carbon credits through the international Clean Development Mechanism as defined in the Kyoto Protocol.

As luck would have it, I was also fortunate to have met some CDM experts, and they are now in the process of looking into ways of enabling the Talaandig tribe, so that they could produce, document and sell their carbon credits to the international markets.

As one surprise came after the other, I also found out that Dr. Federico Macaranas, the one who baptized me into the field of development diplomacy is now the leading expert of CDM in the Philippines , in his capacity as Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Policy Center . I am proud to say that he was my boss at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) when he was an Undersecretary there.

Much more have to be done, but I could now say that the communities in the ancestral domains of the tribe could now look forward to a better future, due to the fact that the economic forces are now working in their favor.

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