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/* Written 8:29 am Jul 13, 1991 by jsmall in cdp:toes.summit */
/* ---------- "Seminar 2: Empowering Selves&Other" ---------- */
The Other Economic Summit 1991
SEMINAR 2: Global Education Networks (sponsored by 'Empowering
Ourselves & Others')
*Background Paper*
Speaker: Joji Carino, People's Alliance in the Phillipines
(Cordillera People's Alliance - CPA)
The CPA is a federation of 130 indigenous people's organisations
- including indigenous groupings like clans, atos (men's
houses), ili (community organisations) and also sectoral
organisations of farmers, workers, peace pact holders and village
elders, urban poor, women, small-scale miners, youth and students
and professionals. It is the leading organisation of IPs in the
Philippines - those peoples who maintained their societies and
cultures despite 300 years of Spanish colonialism and almost a
century of American domination. This history we share in common
with the Indians of Latin America.
The Cordillera region in the Philippines is home to a million
Igorot people. Today, they still maintain their traditional
economies - subsistence agriculture and a combination of rice
terraces and swidden farming in the central areas, combined with
the encroaching modern sector, gold and copper mining, vegetable
farming, logging and the planting of cash crops like coffees and
fruits.
The Igorot people became prominent in the 1970s and 1980s because
they successfully stopped a series of four massive hydro-electric
dams along the Chico River. In this struggle the Igorot people
combined their traditional strengths of direct democracy, total
community mobilisation against outside incursions and the
remarkable peace pact with powerful innovative methods of protest
that effectively stopped the inappropriate and destructive
development projects. It is hard to capture in words the power of
their struggle. I shall illustrate it by two examples:
1. The example of the PEACE PACT MOBILISATION.
Traditionally a bodong or peace pact is formed by two tribes, or
two communities within a single tribe, to end their enmity and
bring peace. In May 1975, faced with the imminent submerging of
much of their lands, 150 tribal leaders met to forge the first
ever multilateral bodong to fight against the dam project.
Pagta Ti Bodong (Sanctions of the Peace Pact)
1. The people of Bontoc and Kalinga affected by the Chico River
Basin Development project are prohibited from working on the dam
project.
2. Should a Kalinga or a Bontoc from the dam areas be killed
while working on the dam project, the peace pact villages opposed
to the dam will not be held responsible, nor will they have to
answer for the victim.
3. The parties in this agreement will warn the sons of Bontoc and
Kalinga who are in the military not to be hard on the people who
oppose the dam project.
4. The villages affected by the dam project are prohibited from
selling their goods/products or giving food to the employees or
workers of the National Power Corporation.
5. Anybody who is found to have been bribed against the interest
of the people in favour of the NPC will be severely dealt with,
including death.
6. A peace pact already existing between two barrios will not be
affected in any way when one of the members of a peace pact
village dies or is killed as a consequence of his working with
the NPC. Relatives will claim his body quietly but they are
prohibited from taking revenge.
Signed by 150 Bontoc and Kalinga Elders, May 13, 1975.
The forging of the pan-Cordillera peace pact was a turning point
in the Chico Struggle and this method of forging unity was
repeated in the struggle against a massive logging concession -
the Cellophil Resources Corporation. This was the action taken
throughout the valley.
2. Second example: Gloria's story:
This is the story of Gloria, a Kalinga woman active in the
protest against the dam.
"The protest of we Kalingas was strong because we did not want
the dam to be built.
In our barrio we wondered what to do. We had written letters of
protest to the President and the government departments, but we
received no response. When we saw the engineering team come with
their equipment we thought of meeting them and frightening them
away. So our old men went with their spears and bolos [long
bladed knives] to the camp of the engineers. While these talks
were going on, some military men arrived and said, "We are
ordered to do this survey." So the old men left and went to seek
support from other people in the community.
It was decided that the whole community would dismantle the camp,
and as a protest we would march with the equipment to the
provincial barracks, 40 kilometers away. It was agreed to start
at dawn the next morning, with the women leading the group, and
the men with their weapons behind.
At dawn we approached the camp. There were several hundred of us
- old men, young people and children, men and women, and we all
took part in dismantling the tents holding the equipment. The
engineering teams were still asleep in their camp nearby.
We began our march to the office of the provincial governor. We
walked without stopping for lunch, and by early afternoon had
covered the 40 kilometers and arrived at the barracks of the
provincial military commander. We women were the spokespeople,
because we intended to show that we were there for peaceful
talks. We were met by the commander who said the governor was not
around. We repeated again our protest, and explained we had
brought the equipment in this way because our words were not
being listened to. After several days, more military forces
arrived at the site on the river. These forces had been sent to
pick up some of the leaders in our community who had
participated in the protest march. They had some names of the
people who were our leaders. The military told our leaders they
were being called so the provincial commander could meet them and
report what had happened in his negotiations with the President
and the National Power Corporation. Our whole community went with
them. On arrival at the barracks we discovered it was not a
meeting. Instead we were told a presidential decree had been
issued proclaiming that anyone participating in the protest
against the dam would be detained. On hearing this, we all
entered the detention cells and began singing and making a noise.
We were kept overnight, and in the morning the military men sent
us home."
3. Significantly, also during this period the Kalinga and Bontoc
people started small community development projects as a counter
to government development plans and as a statement on the kind of
development desirable in their mountain homes.
Looking back at the Chico River struggle, I have become convinced
that development can only proceed by building on the local
communities' self-reliant efforts. The multilateral peacepact led
to the organization of the Kalinga-Bontoc Peacepact Holders
Association in 1978, and this became the Cordillera Bodong
Association. This organization, together with 27 others formed
the Cordillera Peoples's Alliance in 1984, and this has now grown
to a federation of 130 indigenous peoples organizations.
>From the small development projects, there is now the Centre for
Development Programs in the Cordillea (CDPC) which brings
together 13 local development programs and the CPA in a
consortium which has the longest and most credible track record
and experience of development work in the Cordillera.
This consortium is in the process of developing a Framework
Development Plan for the Cordillera Region - a two-year
education, training and planning program which will involve local
communities and development workers in discussing and formulating
their own definitions and visions of development in the
Cordillera.
This will be an invaluable tool for the people in their desire to
be the main actors and movers in development work. In the future,
all development work in the region will be examined in the light
of the people's development plan.
DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLES
The CDPC is guided by the following principles in its development
work:
1. Primacy of people's participation
Active and organized people's participation is the bottomline for
development work. If people's participation is guaranteed, there
would be reason to hope that development will be in the interest
of and in the hands of the people. For the Cordillera, this will
mean substantive participation by indigenous people's
organizations.
2. Self-reliance as an approach and a goal
The process of development work must build self-reliance. The
fruits of development must result in economic sufficiency, social
well-being and political empowerment of the people. Efforts at
building self-reliance should prioritize production for meeting
the basic needs of all members of Cordillera communities; observe
the maximum initiation of development by the local people and
their full participation an all phases and aspects of the
development process; stimulate and nurture indigenous initiative,
creativity, knowledge, skills and culture; practice maximum
sharing of both the benefits and costs of development at all
stages; promote and support indigenous social institutions. Self-
reliance is not divorced from aspirations for self-determination
of the indigenous people of the Cordillera.
3. Social justice
Socio-economic development must address the issue of inequality.
This means a bias for the poor and disadvantaged. For the
Cordillera, it will mean focusing attention to the needs of the
most depressed areas; building self-reliance and people's control
of resources and its allocation; and giving attention to the
cause of women and children.
4. Balanced ecosystem
Sound planning and development work respects the environment and
recognizes it as a source of life for the communities. Socio-
economic work must assure that no adverse affect will result on
the health of the people, and that the environment be protected
to ensure viability and sustainability of development efforts in
the communities.
5. Self-Determination
The right to self-determination of the indigenous peoples of the
Cordillera in their ancestral land and their economic, social,
and political life is an important context of development work in
the Cordillera. Socio-economic self-reliance and sustainable
management of the environment cannot be divorced from the
aspiration for self-determination.
6. Responsive to women's needs and issues
Women compose half of the population and if their needs and
concerns will not be addressed, meaningful development will not
take place. This would mean understanding what women's oppression
and subordination is in the Cordillera context, and knowing what
are the structures which maintain and reinforce this situation.
Development programs which address the issues of gender
inequality, making the labor burdens of women lighter, promoting
the reproductive rights of women, etc. should be encouraged and
given full support.