Ancestral Lands and Domains, Indigenous Peoples, and Other Juridical Fictions

Every nation has its creation myths...

Angela Stuart Santiago answers a number of questions I posed on her blog:

Why are Tagalogs, Pampangos, Cebuanos, Ilokanos not considered to be “indigenous peoples of the Philippines”?

Why don’t they deserve an ancestral homeland just like the Muslim Bangsamoro?

Is it because they are Christian??

– it is because the tagalogs pampangos cebuanos ilokanos largely went along with and were therefore accommodated by the colonizers, unlike the moros of mindanao who through spanish times never stopped fighting the invaders and mostly kept them away from mindanao. however the moros were no match militarily for the americans who also treated them differently, no americanization ekek as in luzon and the visayas, and so they didn’t know what torrens titles were about, and next thing they knew their lands were no longer theirs, titled instead to settlers from luzon and visayas, and americans and multinationals of course. so yes the moros were marginalized like other indigenous communities.

if they are even more of a minority in mindanao now compared to the lumads, it’s because they’ve been leaving mindanao and looking for better lives in luzon and visayas … and yes the milf represents but one faction of the moro people, and the mnlf represents another, and there are unrepresented factions, and yes they are as divided as we christians are -

but the dream of a bangsamoro homeland lives on, something they deserve that government has tried to deny them time and again by trying to wipe them out. so this a good thing that government is finally willing to make concessions, a step in the right direction, even if malayo pa ang landas na tatahakin on both sides.

I am more than ever convinced that at the heart of the Gordian Knot that is Mindanao are unexamined Guilt Trips and several different Fairy Tales for adults, much of it abetted by Supreme Court decisions and the constant repetition of Politically Correct mantras in the Mass Media and now the blogosphere. To me it is enough of a mind-bender that the vast majority of Filipinos are not to be considered "indigenous peoples" of the Archipelago because their ancestors converted to the Roman Catholic religion.

I should immediately point out by the way that there are substantial and material implications to whether one is considered an indigenous person in the Philippines. as enunciated by Justice Reynato Puno:

"Ancestral domains and ancestral lands are the private property of indigenous peoples and do not constitute part of the land of the public domain."

The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 or the IPRA Law, survived a challenge to its Constitutionality in the Supreme Court of the Republic of the Philippines (SCORP) by a controversial 7-7 decision on December 6, 2000 in the landmark case of CRUZ and EUROPA versus INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. The Rules of SCORP allowed IPRA to pass by the smallest margin allowed: zero votes in a dead heat tie. (But does anyone remember WHY the Supreme Court was missing a fifteenth member in December, 2000?) En passant, this decision does not prevent future cases assailing the Constitutionality of the IPRA Law, but several general principles and battle lines may have been established that will be important in the attempts of Malacanang Palace to sign yet another "FINAL Peace Agreement" in Mindanao.

JUSTICE REYNATO PUNO wrote a highly detailed treatise (over a hundred pages) presenting the case for the seven prevailing justices, which also reveals the Guilt Trip at the heart of the Gordian Knot that is Mindanao:

J. Puno: "When Congress enacted the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA), it introduced radical concepts into the Philippine legal system which appear to collide with settled constitutional and jural precepts on state ownership of land and other natural resources. The sense and subtleties of this law cannot be appreciated
without considering its distinct sociology and the labyrinths of its history. This Opinion attempts to interpret IPRA by discovering its soul shrouded by the mist of our history. After all, the IPRA was enacted by Congress not only to fulfill the constitutional mandate of protecting the indigenous cultural communities' right to their ancestral land but more importantly, to correct a grave historical injustice to our indigenous people."

On the other hand, the seven other Members of SCORP who thought IPRA unconstitutional, were represented in the Separate Concurring and Dissenting Opinion of Justice Artemio V. Panganiban.

^{Protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Must Be Within the Constitutional Framework}

With due respect, however, I dissent from the ponencia’s resolution of the two main substantive issues, which constitute the core of this case. Specifically, I submit that Republic Act (RA) No. 8371, otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997, violates and contravenes the Constitution of the Philippines insofar as --

1. It recognizes or, worse, grants rights of ownership over “lands of the public domain, waters, x x x and other natural resources” which, under Section 2, Article XII of the Constitution, “are owned by the State” and “shall not be alienated.” I respectfully reject the contention that “ancestral lands and ancestral domains are not public lands and have never been owned by the State.” Such sweeping statement places substantial portions of Philippine territory outside the scope of the Philippine Constitution and beyond the collective reach of the Filipino people. As will be discussed later, these real properties constitute a third of the entire Philippine territory; and the resources, 80 percent of the nation's natural wealth.

2. It defeats, dilutes or lessens the authority of the State to oversee the “exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources,” which the Constitution expressly requires to “be under the full control and supervision of the State.”

True, our fundamental law mandates the protection of the indigenous cultural communities’ right to their ancestral lands, but such mandate is "subject to the provisions of this Constitution."[4] I concede that indigenous cultural communities and indigenous peoples (ICCs/IPs) may be accorded preferential rights to the beneficial use of public domains, as well as priority in the exploration, development and utilization of natural resources. Such privileges, however, must be subject to the fundamental law.

Consistent with the social justice principle of giving more in law to those who have less in life, Congress in its wisdom may grant preferences and prerogatives to our marginalized brothers and sisters, subject to the irreducible caveat that the Constitution must be respected. I personally believe in according every benefit to the poor, the oppressed and the disadvantaged, in order to empower them to equally enjoy the blessings of nationhood. I cannot, however, agree to legitimize perpetual inequality of access to the nation's wealth or to stamp the Court's imprimatur on a law that offends and degrades the repository of the very authority of this Court -- the Constitution of the Philippines.

---

An important question that arises is: WHO ARE THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES?

Fortunately, the IPRA law states exactly who the indigenous peoples of the Philippines are by presenting a succinct list:

Presently, Philippine indigenous peoples inhabit the interiors and mountains of Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros, Samar, Leyte, and the Palawan and Sulu group of islands. They are composed of 110 tribes and are as follows:

1. In the Cordillera Autonomous Region-- Kankaney, Ibaloi, Bontoc, Tinggian or Itneg, Ifugao, Kalinga, Yapayao, Aeta or Agta or Pugot, and Bago of Ilocos Norte and Pangasinan; Ibanag of Isabela, Cagayan; Ilongot of Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya; Gaddang of Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Itawis of Cagayan; Ivatan of Batanes, Aeta of Cagayan, Quirino and Isabela.

2. In Region III-- Aetas.

3. In Region IV-- Dumagats of Aurora, Rizal; Remontado of Aurora, Rizal, Quezon; Alangan or Mangyan, Batangan, Buid or Buhid, Hanunuo and Iraya of Oriental and Occidental Mindoro; Tadyawan of Occidental Mindoro; Cuyonon, Palawanon, Tagbanua and Tao't bato of Palawan.

4. In Region V-- Aeta of Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur; Aeta-Abiyan, Isarog, and Kabihug of Camarines Norte; Agta, and Mayon of Camarines Sur; Itom of Albay, Cimaron of Sorsogon; and the Pullon of Masbate and Camarines Sur.

5. In Region VI-- Ati of Negros Occidental, Iloilo and Antique, Capiz; the Magahat of Negros Occidental; the Corolano and Sulod.

6. In Region VII-- Magahat of Negros Oriental and Eskaya of Bohol.

7. In Region IX-- the Badjao numbering about 192,000 in Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Sur; the Kalibugan of Basilan, the Samal, Subanon and Yakat.

8. Region X-- Numbering 1.6 million in Region X alone, the IPs are: the Banwaon, Bukidnon, Matigsalog, Talaanding of Bukidnon; the Camiguin of Camiguin Island; the Higa-unon of Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Bukidnon and Misamis Occidental; the Tigwahanon of Agusan del Sur, Misamis Oriental and and Misamis Occidental, the Manobo of the Agusan provinces, and the Umayamnon of Agusan and Bukidnon.

9. In Region XI-- There are about 1,774,065 IPs in Region XI. They are tribes of the Dibabaon, Mansaka of Davao del Norte; B'laan, Kalagan, Langilad, T'boli and Talaingod of Davao del Sur; Mamamanua of Surigao del Sur; Mandaya of the Surigao provinces and Davao Oriental; Manobo Blit of South Cotabato; the Mangguangon of Davao and South Cotabato; Matigsalog of Davao del Norte and Del Sur; Tagakaolo, Tasaday and Ubo of South Cotabato; and Bagobo of Davao del sur and South Cotabato.

10. In Region XII-- Ilianen, Tiruray, Maguindanao, Maranao, Tausug,

Please note that the NON-INDIGENOUS peoples of the Philippines, according to this Supreme Court decision are all the CHRISTIAN Filipinos, for example, the Ilocanos, Pampangos, Tagalogs, Cebuanos, and all of the Visayans who converted to Roman Catholicism in the 16th, 17th and 18 centuries.

ALL 110 officially designated Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines are for nominally non-Christian minorities (although Cordillera IPs were converted in large numbers to Protestant churches during the 20th and 21st centuries).

NONE of the 110 officially designated Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines come from its nominally Catholic majority populations and ethnic groups, because the qualification required of our ancestors so that some of us are now designated as "indigenous peoples" with private property rights over ancestral lands and domains, is that those ancestors of ours successfully resisted Spanish colonialization.

The officially designated IPs are all deemed to own "by native title" ancestral lands and domains, which their descendants now own. But the NON-IPs have no such lands or rights.

The difference is whether the ancestors of any given living ethnic group succumbed to Western colonialism and became Catholics or not. Those that "resisted colonialism" and did not become Catholics are the "Indigenous Peoples". Those that did have none of the rights now given to the IPs.

But it cannot be denied historically that many of the designated IPs also succumbed to colonialism and forced religious conversion. When Islam came, it was no different from when Christianity came...by the Sword and the Cross, or the Kris and the Crescent...soldiers and missionaries. But as long as the invaders were NOT Western, that group could still be considered an Indigenous People. That is how the Supreme Court crumbles the cookie.

Basically, ALL the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines are those that supposedly did not succumb to Western Imperialism (such as the slave-raiding slave-trading Maguindanao and Sulu Confederacies that regularly invaded and pillaged the Visayas for centuries of certain Golden Age.)

---

UPDATES:
Former Senate President Franklin Drilon warns President Arroyo that signing that Memorandum of Agreement with the MILF on August 5 could constitute an impeachable offense since several provisions culpably violate the 1987 Constitution.

---

Cha Cha and the Federal State of Bangsamorostan

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Creation Myth of the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines

In December 2000, the Supreme Court rendered a 7-7 tie decision on the Constitutionality of the Indigenous People's Rights Act (RA 8371) in the case of Isagani Cruz versus DENR & National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.

Today's BLOOPER, probably just an onomatopoeic-pronunciation typo, is from a Dissenting Opinion in that celebrated case:

"IPRA effectively withdraws from the public domain the so-called ancestral domains covering literally millions of hectares. The notion of community property would comprehend not only matters of proprietary interest but also some forms of self-governance over the curved-out territory."

Nota bene, above is not some 40 peso public school textbook, but from the written Ruling of a Supreme Court Justice which only proves that the occurrence of serendipitously funny mistakes in all kinds of printed matter is no one's exclusive domain. This example is from one of the ponencias on IPRA with which I agree.

Here is the En Banc Ruling on IPRA and the various dissenting and concurring Opinions:
Puno, Vitug, Kapunan, Mendoza and Panganiban
(all from the Supreme Court Website).

The current Chief Justice Reynato Puno presents the case for the seven Justices voting to uphold the Constitutionality of IPRA.

Indigenous peoples share distinctive traits that set them apart from the Filipino mainstream. They are non-Christians. They live in less accessible, marginal, mostly upland areas. They have a system of self-government not dependent upon the laws of the central administration of the Republic of the Philippines. They follow ways of life and customs that are perceived as different from those of the rest of the population.[97] The kind of response the indigenous peoples chose to deal with colonial threat worked well to their advantage by making it difficult for Western concepts and religion to erode their customs and traditions. The "infieles societies" which had become peripheral to colonial administration, represented, from a cultural perspective, a much older base of archipelagic culture. The political systems were still structured on the patriarchal and kinship oriented arrangement of power and authority. The economic activities were governed by the concepts of an ancient communalism and mutual help. The social structure which emphasized division of labor and distinction of functions, not status, was maintained. The cultural styles and forms of life portraying the varieties of social courtesies and ecological adjustments were kept constantly vibrant.

Yet substantial errors in historical fact are pointed out about the above ponencia in Laughable Textbook Errors In Crucial Supreme Court Decisions which looks at how Justice Puno cites legends of Datu Sumakwel and the Code of Maragtas as real history, and weaves a politically correct anti colonialist Creation Myth for the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines. In this conception, the ancient Filipinos, the original indigenous peoples, lived in harmony with Nature and with each other, even developing literature, culture and laws to govern what is pictured as an idyllic Garden of Eden in the Philippines. Into this pastoral scene intrudes the Spanish colonialists, who are like the Snake in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, who seduces, conquers and converts SOME of the indios they found here and turn them by religious conversion into the Catholic Majority population. The Fall from Ancient Grace by those who would become the present Christian Majority population of the Philippines results in the expulsion of those who would become the present day indigenous peoples from the Garden of Eden, their flight from the colonial subjugators. The Savior that will reconcile them all again, by offering the Indigenous Peoples a third of the present garden archipelago, is of course the Supreme Court itself and IPRA.

The long and short of the decision is not some fuzzy-wuzzy conclusion, but a definite result. There is an OFFICIAL LIST of 110 INDIGENOUS PEOPLES of the Philippines, representing some 12 million persons, who are entitled to about one third of the Philippine Territory in the form of ancestral lands and domains. However, by virtue of the fact that their ancestors succumbed to Spanish colonialism, the Tagalogs, Pampangos, Ilocanos, Cebuanos, Samarnon, and even the purported descendants of that fabled Datu Sumakwel on Panay Island, are NOT indigenous peoples of the Philippines.

No Catholic majority ethnic group or tribe is on the list of official Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines, even though the Definition itself is vague and even self-contradictory:

"Sec. 3 [h]. Indigenous Cultural Communities/ Indigenous Peoples-- refer to a group of people or homogeneous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by others, who have continuously lived as organized community on communally bounded and defined territory, and who have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial, occupied, possessed and utilized such territories, sharing common bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, or who have, through resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and cultures, became historically differentiated from the majority of Filipinos. ICCs/IPs shall likewise include peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, at the time of conquest or colonization, or at the time of inroads of non-indigenous religions and cultures, or the establishment of present state boundaries, who retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, but who may have been displaced from their traditional domains or who may have resettled outside their ancestral domains."

SPECIAL CASE OF THE IGOROTS: There is a curious inconsistency in the prevailing Supreme Court view in the matter of the Igorots of the Cordillera. You see, the Igorots successfully resisted Spanish efforts to conquer and convert them to Roman Catholicism for centuries, and on that basis are considered to be "Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines." Yet, it is a fact that most Igorots now are Christians by the action of American missionaries in the 20th Century, as evidenced by the widespread and fluent use of the English language throughout the highlands. (Most of the residents of Mount Pulag are Lutherans!) Methinks that the Christianized Igorots do not fit the definition of Indigenous People or Indigenous Cultural Community that is found in Puno's ponencia! Igorots are NOT, from my reading of Puno, indigenous peoples at all, but are closer in legal status to the non-indigenous peoples, like the Ilocanos, Tagalogs and Cebuanos.

From the Boondocks (Bill Billig) is a blog on the indigenous Igorots of the Cordillera with whom I've exchanged some interesting comments. The Igorots have been central to some of the historical evolution of the concept of indigenous peoples in the Philippines. The celebrated early case of Mateo Carino is amply discussed in all the ponencias and was important to the concept of "native title." However, my take on that case, which was decided by the US Supreme Court is that "native title" can be claimed by individuals and individual families of descendants and ascendants but not by entire classes of individuals, tribes that are assembled by "self-ascription or ascription by others." However, this is a deep topic and goes to the heart of land ownership, titling, and other matters that are indeed a big part of the controversy.

Justice Artemio Panganiban presents the most succinct and cogent case for the Dissent (the seven Justices who voted against IPRA):

Section 5, Article XII of the Constitution, provides:


"SEC. 5. The State, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national development policies and programs, shall protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social, and cultural well being.


"The Congress may provide for the applicability of customary laws governing property rights and relations in determining the ownership and extent of ancestral domain."


Clearly, there are two parameters that must be observed in the protection of the rights of ICCs/IPs: (1) the provisions of the 1987 Constitution and (2) national development policies and programs.


Indigenous peoples may have long been marginalized in Philippine politics and society. This does not, however, give Congress any license to accord them rights that the Constitution withholds from the rest of the Filipino people. I would concede giving them priority in the use, the enjoyment and the preservation of their ancestral lands and domains.[41] But to grant perpetual ownership and control of the nation's substantial wealth to them, to the exclusion of other Filipino citizens who have chosen to live and abide by our previous and present Constitutions, would be not only unjust but also subversive of the rule of law.


In giving ICCs/IPs rights in derogation of our fundamental law, Congress is effectively mandating “reverse discrimination.” In seeking to improve their lot, it would be doing so at the expense of the majority of the Filipino people. Such short-sighted and misplaced generosity will spread the roots of discontent and, in the long term, fan the fires of turmoil to a conflagration of national proportions.


Peace cannot be attained by brazenly and permanently depriving the many in order to coddle the few, however disadvantaged they may have been. Neither can a just society be approximated by maiming the healthy to place them at par with the injured. Nor can the nation survive by enclaving its wealth for the exclusive benefit of favored minorities.


Rather, the law must help the powerless by enabling them to take advantage of opportunities and privileges that are open to all and by preventing the powerful from exploiting and oppressing them. This is the essence of social justice – empowering and enabling the poor to be able to compete with the rich and, thus, equally enjoy the blessings of prosperity, freedom and dignity.
WHEREFORE, I vote to partially GRANT the Petition and to DECLARE as UNCONSTITUTIONAL Sections 3(a) and (b), 5, 6, 7(a) and (b), 8 and related provisions of RA 8371.

It is noteworthy that the AUTHOR of the Indigenous People's Rights Act is none other than Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. I have theorized that her "Peace Legacy" is going to involve the IPRA in a big and spectacular way in Mindanao, a prospect recently examined here under GMA's Gift to Bin Laden on September 11.

GMA's Gift to Bin Laden on September 11: A Jihadi Homeland in Mindanao

SPEAKING to reporters in Sydney, Australia after the APEC Conference, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced the beginning of a "pilot program" to issue Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title to "the Muslim community" as part of "confidence building measures" with the terrorist Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

(Juliet Labog reports for PDI)
SYDNEY (VIA PLDT) -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo plans to award certificates of ancestral domain to Muslim communities even while the peace talks are ongoing between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

In an interview with reporters Saturday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit, Ms Arroyo said the “pilot implementation” of ancestral domain was part of the government’s confidence-building mechanism to encourage the peace talks with the MILF.

“I want to give certificates of ancestral domain to a Muslim community so we can see that it works with them as well,” she said.

The President said this was in line with the existing policy of giving ancestral domain certificates to indigenous peoples.

“We already have a regulatory framework for ancestral domain. I was the one who authored that bill when I was a senator,” she said. “I’m not aware of the ancestral domain title given to Muslims as a tribe. [But] it’s given to indigenous peoples.”

Ms Arroyo said the certificates could be awarded to Muslim communities even before a final peace agreement is signed with the MILF and without any need for a plebiscite.

Notice that the President insists this move does not "need a plebiscite" -- even if the Indigenous People's Rights Act certainly says it does!

With the President intent on making her legacy to peace by breaking the laws of the Republic, naturally the confidence of said terrorist organization, or should I say, "partner in the peace process" has indeed been raised to elation. MILF Hails Arroyo Vow to Resume Peace Talks and the statements of both the Philippine Govt and the MILF's spokesmen should dispel any question in our minds that the "ancestral domain" talk is really about Philippine Sovereign Territory being handed over to the Maguindanao and Sulu warlords:

Chief government negotiator Rodolfo Garcia was quoted as saying that Manila is offering a new formula to resolve the ancestral domain issue.

He said he will present the new formula once the talks resume anytime.

Iqbal said he was surprised the government is again changing its stance on the territorial issue.

He said he was afraid the government might change what has been agreed upon. "Our panel wanted to find out what is this new formula," he said.

Jaafar said the early resumption of the peace process would good for everyone.

"Almost everybody is waiting for the resumption, we are waiting, peace advocates are waiting, representatives from Japanese, Canada, Libya and Malaysia are waiting, the businessmen in the ARMM [Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao] and the country are waiting, everybody is waiting for this because it is for all of us," Jaafar said.

One wonders WHO ELSE is waiting for this Allah-sent gift to the Global Jihad.

In the meantime of course, NOT A SINGLE SUSPECT in the July 10 ambush killing of 14 Philippine Marines near Tipo-tipo Basilan--admitted to and bragged about by the leadership of that self-same MILF--has been arrested. Instead, the self-same "chief Peace Negotiator" General Rodolfo Garcia led in preventing the service of Basilan Judge Leo Principe's 130 arrest warrants against his "partners in the peace process", got their Joint Independent Investigating Committee to declare that four Abu Sayyaf suspects did the beheadings, and then launched an "all out war" on the Abu Sayyaf. The result as I said is ZERO suspects arrested for the murder and beheadings of now 57 Philippine Military service men.

So now, neither has justice been done for the murdered and mutilated Marines, nor for their grieving families, but their killers and decapitators are to be rewarded with 1000 villages in the Pulangi River Basin of Mindanao (where the MILF used to hide Dulmatin and Umar Patek and where they will soon again be hosting many delegations from South Waziristan and the Jemaah Islamiyah's Bali bomberos). There is also talk that the government will abrogate the 1996 peace accord with the Moro NATIONAL Liberation Front of Nur Misuari and give the ARMM over to the newest partner in the peace talks, the MNLF's mortal enemies in the MILF. That will surely drive the MNLF to change its name to the NMLF (NEXT Moro Liberation Front) which will launch the next round of peace talks and all out war but with a major difference--this is now the Global Jihad and not the old Moro rebellions.

Mong Palatino, the voice of the CPP NPA at Global Voices Online, gooses the "all out war" in Mindanao in a recent post, using the old trick of confounding "peace or war" with law enforcement. My comment on that thread follows:

“Peace and Order” is a very different problem, in my opinion, than “War Or Peace” in the context of the Moro rebellions of southern Philippines. Roughly speaking the preferred solutions to the two problems respectively are “Law Enforcement” and “Diplomacy”.

Both are central to our concerns, but they are also central to our inability to resolve the Mindanao situation when the solutions to one of them are expected to apply to the other. This confounding, I can show is part of the reason for the unending violence there.

I think that the tasks of law enforcement should continue regardless of the progress or lack of it in the peace talks and other negotiations that comprise diplomacy as a long term solution to the question of war or peace between the Govt and the Moro rebels.

So, whenever a judge of the Republic issues an arrest warrant for a criminal suspect in a serious crime, all of the people, whether Moro or not, are entitled to an expectation that the police will serve the warrant,arrest the suspect and process them through the justice system.

If it should happen, as it did with the Marines who were ambushed and some beheaded on July 10 in Tipo tipo Basilan, that a case is related to the activities of Moro rebels (MILF/MNLF) or rogue elements or terrorist bandit gangs like the Abu Sayyaf, there ought to be no undue interference or micromanagement by peace negotiators into the normal workings of Law Enforcement authorities in a given province, town, city or other locality in the country.

It is simply amazing to me that none of the suspects in those crimes have been served the arrest warrants issued against them six weeks ago by Basilan Judge Leo Principe. But not inexplicable, for indeed, it was the hemming and hawing and the backstgage areglo going on with their counterparts in the MILF Ceasefire [sic!] Committee, that Jess Dureza and Co. got the efforts to simply serve those warrants delayed, until finally of course, an “all-out war” was called anyway, but suspiciously only against the Abu Sayyaf, not the “partners it the peace process”.

But nota bene, both the peace talks and the so called “all out war” are really the two main implements (peace or war) of the Diplomatic efforts to settle with the MILF rebels(who want to supplant the MNLF, the ARMM, all that Nur Misuari stuff). As such they enmeshed in a complex multinational negotiation driven by Politics with a cap P, involving, Malaysia, Dar Us Salaam and the OIC.

The needs of diplomacy are different from the needs of law enforcement, and ought not prevent each other’s goals.

But insofar as all sides surely agree that “There can be no peace without justice.” all must unite and support the idea that the activities of law enforcement ought to be regular and unimpeded irregardless of what is happening on the Diplomatic negotiating table.

Because of this, the needs of Law Enforcement have a just claim of Priority over those of Diplomacy. They should not impede each other, but in cases of conflict, the order of priority of satisfying needs, belongs to the Rule of Law, not the Rule of Talk.

The policies and actions of the Philippine Government should be carefully examined by all of our allies, especially the United States and Australia, as well as the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, because all will be directly affected by this.

Here for example are the insightful comments of the Belmont Club interpreting last week's video from Osama bin Laden:

Here's a link to the transcript of Osama Bin Laden's message to the American people. Two things stand out. The first is his claim to victory in a theater (Iraq) where by all accounts his forces have been worsted and the only insurgent force with a plausible claim to victory is not al-Qaeda's but Iran's. Secondly, his talking points, with their references to the Global Warming, taxes, Noam Chomsky, etc. almost seem to suggest an inversion. It's almost as if Osama the Muslim, not the infidel, has converted. From the tone of his remarks, Osama no longer speaks to the American people as the potentate of an unstoppable international apocalyptic movement, but rather as someone, who if you were ignorant of his true identity, might just as well be a spokesman for the Muslim wing of a Western political party.

Does that mean Osama has joined "us" or does it mean that some of "us" have joined Osama?

Well, I don't know about OBL joining us, but I do know that some of us have definitely joined him.

Read more than a hundred Philippine Commentaries on terrorism and Mindanao
including:

Ancestral Domain or Bangsamorostan?

The Human Security Act of 2007 (Anti Terrorism Law of the Philippines)

Understanding the Definition of Terrorism Under the Human Security Act

We Are All Abu Sayyaf Now

Laughable Textbooks Errors in Crucial Supreme Court Decisions

Are Tagalogs, Pampangos, Ilocanos, Cebuanos "Indigneous Peoples" of the Philippines?


click to zoom

UPDATE: Is Osama bin Laden in Indonesia or the Philippines?

RICHARD CLARKE, formerly a counter-terrorism adviser for the White House spoke to ABC News and has an intersting speculation involving OBL's black beard which is prominently obvious in both of the video tapes of the Al Qaeda leader released in the last week.

The jihadist Web site announced the tape with a banner, showing a still picture of bin Laden, now 50 years old, looking fit with a full beard of dark black hair, no gray at all.

"It does look oddly like he is wearing a false beard," Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism official and now ABC News consultant, said. "If we go back to the tape three years, he had a very white beard. This looks like a phony beard that has been passed on."

The "phony beard" may be an important clue as to where bin Laden is hiding, according to Clarke.

"One place where a beard would stand out would be southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia," Clarke told ABC News. "No one's thought he was there, but that is an environment where most men, Muslim men don't have beards."

While this logic has some appeal, I think that even clean-shaven, bin Laden's HEIGHT would stick out in most of these countries, where six footers are a rarity.

An alternative explanation appeals to me more as closer to the possible truth: that it is a sign of war in the Salufi sect of Islam to which OBL is said to belong.

Pimentel Proposes Not Just One or Two, But Ten Media of Instruction!

The Office of Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) has distributed a Press Release ETHNIC LANGUAGES SHOULD BE USED IN SCHOOLS TO SAVE THEM FROM EXTINCTION.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today called on the government to save the ethnic languages of the Filipino nation from the danger of extinction by allowing them to be used as a medium of instruction in elementary schools in the respective regions where they are widely spoken.

Pimentel expressed alarm that the ethnic languages are dying except Tagalog which has been mandated by law and by the Constitution as the basis of the country's national language.

"Many of us who were not born in Tagalog-speaking areas believe that unless we take pains to protect our own indigenous languages, they would eventually disappear completely from our consciousness and from use in our verbal and written communications," the senator from Misamis Oriental said in a privilege speech at the Senate.

CAVEAT: Ironically, Senator Pimentel's privilege speech was written and delivered in the English language, not in Tagalog, Pampango, Cebuano, Ilokano, Agta-Aeta or any of the other 171 living and 4 extinct recognized languages in the Philippine Archipelago, just like the Press Release proclaiming the pious desire prevent the extinction of these tongues by having the Dept. of Education use those languages as media of instruction! So it seems to be okay for the Senate to use English for its "verbal and written communications," but now we should pass laws and make Deped teach its curriculum of Math, Science, English, Filipino and Makabayan in "our own indigenous languages." Hmmm...Maybe Nene should talk the talk.

He made it clear that he is in favor of having a national language because Filipinos need it so that they do not speak the language of foreigners (English) to communicate with one another.

CAVEAT: Well, who are those bad, bad Filipinos who insist on speaking the language of foreigners (English)? I guess Nene is referring to the darn Supreme Court, which for a century has issued virtually every decision, resolution and ruling in a foreign language (0.001% Spanish and 99.999% English); and to the treasonous Congress which has done the same and still does, including Senators: write, debate and promulgate laws, resolutions, orders in English; and of course every single Constitution after Malolos was written in English, so the Founding Fathers are also evidently responsible for the extinction from non-use of "our own indigenous languages."

However, he held the view that forcing the language of one ethnic group upon other ethnic groups is "divisive and disruptive of the national fabric.".... The minority leader mentioned several major languages of the Filipino people that should be preserved:

1. Iloko in the Ilocos and in adjoining provinces, 2. Pangalatok in Pangasinan, 3. Kapampangan in Pampanga, 4. Tagalog in Manila and in Southern Luzon provinces, 5. Bikolano in Bicol region, 6. Hiligaynon in Panay and Negros islands, 7. Binisaya in Cebu, Bohol and many parts of Mindanao, 8. Waray in Samar and Leyte, 9. and the languages of the Maranaos in the Lanao provinces, the Maguindanao in Cotabato and adjoining provinces and Tausug in Sulu and nearby areas.

CAVEAT: Ah, but didn't Nene just say it would be "divisive and disruptive of the national fabric" forcing one ethnic group's language on another? Well what makes him think that forcing eight languages out of extinction by forcing the Deped to use them in books, tests and classroom teaching of the curricular subjects would be any less divisive and disruptive? For one thing there are many more than nine languages in use in the country, in fact 175 that are enumerated here, the overwhelming majority of which are not on his "endangered languages" list for saving. As for the Deped itself, they will only chuckle at the Tower of Babel Nene Pimentel is here, insanely, urging, as follows...

He proposed two courses of action to arrest the deterioration of the vernacular languages - 1. a change in the school curriculum to allow the use of dominant languages in various regions as medium of instruction from grades 1 to 6; and 2. the adoption of a federal system in which 10 federal states will be created based mainly on linguistic preferences of the citizens.

Pimentel said the first proposal makes sense because concepts would be more easily understandable to grade schoolers if states in the language of their homes.

He said he is not aware that this change in the medium of instruction needs legislation to implement it.

"All it probably needs is a policy adopted by the Department of Education that may immediately be implemented for the entire six grades or staggered over a few years as may be necessary in accordance with the decision of our education officials in the DepEd," he said.

But if a law is necessary, Pimentel said he believes that enough support from the lawmakers can be easily mobilized to implement the proposal.

"Now is the time to make the first move to revise the curriculum of our educational system so that we can allow the use of the local languages as the medium of instruction in our grade schools. Our other major languages are dying. We have to save them now."

CAVEAT: Senator Pimentel thinks that the medium of instruction is just the language the teacher uses to communicate with students. He doesn't realize that much more is involved than that. A medium of instruction must be not only universally comprehensible or at least accessible to the students, it must also be a WRITTEN language so that textbooks, tests, homework and other educational activities other than listening and having knowledge poured into your ears can be undertaken. That means we need experts and authorities to tell us whether the material taught is correctly rendered and does not miseducate the students, these experts having to be adept in the medium of instruction AND the material content of the curricular subjects. The Minority Leader does not understand that the Medium of Instruction is much more than the sounds emitted by the spoken tongue, but the sense of things they must convey. The Medium must be able to deliver the Message which are reading writing and 'rithmetic, and the Deped has to be able to deliver an integrated 10 year package of such knowledge.

It is utterly naive to think that just because a young student understands his home language better than any other, that therefore that language should be the Medium of Instruction from Grades One to Six. I might agree for the first six days of school, but after that, we must choose the best medium of instruction we can find. The criteria are simple:

(1) widely comprehensible by the students; (2) comprehensive written and spoken forms; (3) widely supported by existing linguistic and content experts; (4) consistent with the social, economic and political realities for which the students are being prepared.

There are many linguistic, legal, practical and pedagogical reasons why most of the 160 languages we are talking about do not qualify. In most cases it is because there are no written forms of these languages that are not inventions of one or two experts, and no authorities to decide what is right or wrong, because these languages have never been applied to so weighty a task as public education. They are boutique subjects for language doctoral ethnic studies courses.

The choice has always boiled down to English or Tagalog...and I think both Nene and I express our strongest preference by example.

One thing for sure though you cannot use the Medium of Instruction for the purpose Nene piously proposes--no matter how eloquent and perfervid is his English.

RELATED POSTS:

President Quezon and King Canute's Lesson

Laughable Textbook Errors in Crucial Supreme Court Decisions

Recently, a certain Mr. Antonio Calipjo Go associated with Marian School in Quezon City, has been hailed by the Media as a crusader against laughable errors in textbooks approved by the Dept of Education for distribution to some 20 million public and private school students, which he has exposed in a series of newspaper ads and television appearances.

Most of the errors Mr. Go points to are only accidentally funny typographical errors ("...cows are inseminated by seamen..."), and some of his alleged errors are not errors at all, but funny nonetheless to the equally uninformed. (See my earlier post on magnifying telescopes. where the observation is made that the Mass Media themselves (newspapers, broadcast) make numerous and similarly ludicrous errors of fact, grammar and spelling.

But Mr. Go he has also found many instances of erroneous historical or scientific information being presented in some textbooks, thereby miseducating perhaps millions of students. These are simply inexcusable and would not exist in a world, where more money could be spent on the authoring, editing, publishing and purchasing of better textbooks.

Recently however, I was really flummoxed to discover several of these kinds of ludicrous and disdainable errors not in lowly textbooks or the tabloidish broadsheets, but in no less than the written Opinions of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Reynato Puno!

In the Separate Opinion rendered by now Chief Justice Reynato Puno in the December, 2000 landmark case of Cruz and Europa vs. DENR and National Commission on Indigenous Peoples one finds some distinctively Callipjegoesque passages such as:

The ancient Filipinos settled beside bodies of water.

Hunting and food gathering became supplementary activities as reliance on them was reduced by fishing and the cultivation of the soil.

From the hinterland, coastal, and riverine communities, our ancestors evolved an essentially homogeneous culture, a basically common way of life where nature was a primary factor.

Community life throughout the archipelago was influenced by, and responded to, common ecology. The generally benign tropical climate and the largely uniform flora and fauna favored similarities, not differences.[47] Life was essentially subsistence but not harsh.[48]

This is what I call the "Garden of Eden" or "Paradise View" of ancient Philippines, although I was surprised to find it in an historic Supreme Court ponencia.

In this quaint conception of the way it was long ago in the Archipelago, the "indigenous peoples" have a common way of life in harmony with nature. Whether they lived in the mountainous aeries of the hinterlands (the Igorots) , or in the riverine gorges and valleys descending to the sea (the Tag-ilogs), or indeed the coastal and island peoples of Visayas and Mindanao, Chief Justice Puno paints an idyllic picture of a homogeneous human culture with a common response to the common ecology. Even the flora and fauna are uniform and therefore encourage similarities among the ancient Filipinos rather than differences!

Yet, just last year, the Philippine Archipelago was named the Center of the Center of Marine and Ecological Biodiversity in the world. Moreover, just a few paragraphs before, the Chief Justice had listed 110 rather heterogeneous "indigenous cultural communities" all over the archipelago. Their heterogeneity could be explained by the the fact that upland, riverine and coastal ecologies represent radically different physical, geological and meteorological biospheres, in stark contrast to Mr. Justice Puno's description of a warm, generally benign and tropical environment in which the ancient Filipinos live in harmony with nature and each other. Yet I seriously doubt that the weather and other natural conditions were any different then than now, unless Mr. Justice Puno wants to blame for example the average twenty typhoons that visit annually on those bad, bad Western colonialists. The arrivals of Spain and America are treated by Puno later in the ponencia as a kind of Fall from the Grace of Indigenous gods followed by the expulsion of the Indigenous Peoples from the Garden of Eden. I am getting ahead of the analysis though.

But it gets worse. Much worse. In the very next section, Chief Justice Puno addresses the legal systems allegedly common among the "ancient Filipinos":

The unit of government was the "barangay," a term that derived its meaning from the Malay word "balangay," meaning, a boat, which transported them to these shores. The barangay was basically a family-based community and consisted of thirty to one hundred families. Each barangay was different and ruled by a chieftain called a "dato." It was the chieftain's duty to rule and govern his subjects and promote their welfare and interests. A chieftain had wide powers for he exercised all the functions of government. He was the executive, legislator and judge and was the supreme commander in time of war.

Laws were either customary or written. Customary laws were handed down orally from generation to generation and constituted the bulk of the laws of the barangay. They were preserved in songs and chants and in the memory of the elder persons in the community.[54] The written laws were those that the chieftain and his elders promulgated from time to time as the necessity arose.[55] The oldest known written body of laws was the Maragtas Code by Datu Sumakwel at about 1250 A.D.

Well at this point I just tossed my cookies out the window! The Code of Maragtas by Datu Sumakwel?! But I thought that in the 1960s William Henry Scott decisively proved the true nature and provenance of "The Code of Maragtas of Datu Sumakwel" as originating in the 1907 book of Panay legends by Pedro Monteclaro???

The Verdict of Maragtas

Maragtas was finally placed in its proper perspective as a book of legends rather than historical fact in 1968 by William Henry Scott. For his doctoral dissertation at the University of Santo Tomas, Scott made a painstaking investigation into all the sources of information about the Philippines before the coming of the Spaniards.

Rather than merely plagiarizing past historians, Scott examined the original documents and searched archives and museums the world over for supporting documents and artefacts. He questioned the top historians of the day about their sources of information and consulted with many experts in other fields such as language, geology, archaeology and anthropology. He scoured the vast collection of prehispanic material amassed by his personal friend, Dr. H. Otley Beyer. He interviewed the friends, colleagues and relatives of the figures behind the stories such as Pedro Monteclaro and Jose E. Marco and he examined their correspondence.

William Henry Scott proved in his dissertation that Maragtas and the Confederation of Madya-as were not actual ancient documents from long ago but only legends that were collected and in some cases possibly concocted by Pedro Monteclaro and published in 1907 in his book entitled Maragtas. As for the Maragtas Code, Scott found that it was merely an invention of Guillermo Santiago-Cuino's mind which was probably based on Monteclaro's book and published in 1938.

Scott successfully defended his dissertation before a panel of eminent Filipino historians, some of whom had formerly endorsed and promoted the erroneous facts of Philippine history. The panel included Teodoro Agoncillo, Horacio de la Costa, Marcelino Forondo, Mercedes Grau Santamaria, Nicholas Zafra and Gregorio Zaide. Scott's meticulous research was published in 1968 in his book Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine History and since then no historian has contested his conclusions. M12

The Result of Scott's Discoveries
By the 1960s the better scholars already had some doubts regarding Maragtas and they avoided mentioning it in their works. Scott's thesis confirmed their suspicions. However, it was many years before the writers of school textbooks noticed Scott's findings. Most continued to reprint their old texts while others wrote new books that still contained the old mistakes. Take for example this quote from Ang Pagsulong ng Pamayanan (1981):

Maragtas' Code is the premier example of written law and it has been considered the oldest because it was in effect from 1250. M13

Not only is this statement wrong but its authors seem to believe that Maragtas was a person and not a book.

Jose Villa Panganiban used Maragtas to trace the origin of the Tagalog language in the preface of the very popular English-Tagalog Dictionary by Fr. Leo James English in 1965. M14 To this day it remains unrevised in spite of many reprintings.

Even one member of Scott's dissertation panel did not appear to be eager to set the record straight. Gregorio Zaide continued to include information from Maragtas in works such as Pageant of Philippine History in 1979, History of the Republic of the Philippines in 1983 and Philippine History 1984 which he co-authored with his daughter, Sonia Zaide. M15

While making an effort to correct the errors of the past, some historians mistook Maragtas to be one of the many hoaxes of Philippine history rather than a mere legend. When Sonia Zaide revised History of the Republic of the Philippines in 1987, she mistakenly described Maragtas as a fraudulent document:

The legends surrounding the settling of the Philippines by Malay migrants are notably celebrated in the ati-atihan festival and perpetrated by hoaxers in the fraudulent documents containing the Maragtas chronicle and the Code of Kalantiaw. M16E

Zaide clarified her opinion on the following page:

Although previously accepted by some historians, including the present authors, it has become obvious that the Maragtas is only the imaginary creation of Pedro A. Monteclaro, a Visayan public official and poet, in Iloilo in 1907. He based it on folk customs and legends, largely transmitted by oral tradition. M17E

It would be unfair to brand Pedro Monteclaro a hoaxer or his book a fraudulent document because he never claimed that Maragtas was anything more than a collection of legends. Any frauds involving his book were perpetrated by other later writers who misrepresented it as an authentic ancient document.

1998 Paul Morrow
Latest revision: 22 April, 2007

To this day ignorance and misunderstanding of the true nature of Maragtas is still prevalent throughout Philippine society even among its highest institutions and organizations. Evidence of this can be seen in the following list of web sites:

• Supreme Court of the Philippines
  A Brief History. Management Information Systems Office of the Philippine Supreme Court. Copyright © 1998 SUPREME COURT. Author not identified.
• Department of Education, Republic of the Philippines
  Looking Back; Important Dates in Philippines History. Education News.
  Vol. 7, No.4. April 2001. Author not identified.
• Governor's Office, Province of Antique
  Antique Provincial Profile, League of Provinces of the Philippines.
  Copyright 2001 Author not identified.
• Mayor's Office, City of Iloilo
  The Exciting Blend of East and West. Author not identified.
• Madya-as Heritage Foundation Inc.
  Save Madya-as, Save Panay. Author not identified
• Akaenon.Com

By the way if you are wondering where Chief Justice Puno got this information:

The oldest known written body of laws was the Maragtas Code by Datu Sumakwel at about 1250 A.D.

it was public school text book published Rex Publishing House.

Leogardo, Felicitas T., Rosalina R. de Leon & Purification Jacob. Ang Pagsulong ng Pamayanan para sa Unang Taon ng Mataas na Paaralan, Published by Rex Book Store, Manila. First edition, 1981. p.177

I'm not done with the ponencia of Chief Justice Puno in the case because it was that decision which upheld the constitutionality of the Indigenous People's Rights Act of 1997, which is in turn the basis of the Muslim Juridical Entity or Ancestral Domain that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front is negotiating with the government of Mrs. Arroyo in the Malaysian brokered peace talks.

The Opinion of Puno above represents the the seven Justices that voted to uphold the Constitutionality of IPRA, while the seven that opposed it, are represented by this Opinion of J. Artemio Panganiban.


One is forced to wonder how much more of the Opinion is based on comforting old legends or fanciful "history" tendentiously assembled to support an inexorable conclusion?

In my next post, I shall tackle some of the amazing pseudo scientific and historiographic claims of the Mr. Justice Puno and specious reasoning that led to a politically correct result that could have devastating historical consequences very soon.

Related recent posts are:

Ancestral Domain or Bangsamorostan?

Are Ilocanos, Pampangos, Tagalogs and Cebuanos Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines?

Do You Think This Version of Ancient Philippine History Is Correct?

What Some People Don't Know About Magnifying Telescopes.

Chief Justice Puno on Terrorism--Sophomoric, Uninspiring, Self-Loathing"

President Quezon and King Canute's Lesson

The 1935 Constitution states: Art. XIV Section 3. The Congress shall take steps toward the development and adoption of a common national language based on one of the existing native languages. Until otherwise provided by law, English and Spanish shall continue as official languages. In 1937, Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon signed Executive Order No. 134, "Proclaiming the National Language of the Philippines Based on Tagalog".

More than just based upon it, Tagalog was renamed "Pilipino" -- in which thin disguise it became the "common national language." Or did it?

The 1973 Constitution and its language provisions are discussed at length by Marvin Aceron (La Vida Lawyer) in a June post

From 1973: "Section 3. (1) This Constitution shall be officially promulgated in English and Pilipino, and translated into each dialects spoken by over fifty thousand people, and into Spanish and Arabic, in case of conflict, the English text shall prevail.

(2) The National Assembly shall take steps towards the development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino.

(3) Until otherwise provided by law, English and Pilipino shall be the official languages."

When the adoption of the 1973 Constitution was finally declared, the national language was supposed to be multi-language based, but the multi-lingualists did not appear to be the clear winner. The real outcome was contingent upon how the Batasang Pambansa was to evolve the multi-language based Filipino as the 1973 Constitution mandated.

1987 Founding Father Joaquin Bernas, S.J. weighs in on the National Language issue with Filipino or Pilipino or Tagalog? noting a recent heated debate over it in the House of Representatives. He explains the subtle distinction between "Filipino" and "Pilipino" as used in the 1987 charter which he helped to draft.

Bernas: "Under the 1987 Constitution, the basic policy on language is stated in Section 6 of Article XIV. It says:

“The national language of the Philippines is Filipino. As it evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages. Subject to provisions of law and as the Congress may deem appropriate, the government shall take steps to initiate and sustain the use of Filipino as a medium of official communication and as language of instruction in the educational system.”

As can be seen, Filipino, which was seen as a dream by the 1973 Constitution, is now categorically declared the “national language.” While the 1987 Constitution has retained the distinction between Filipino and Pilipino, it in effect has demoted Pilipino, the more developed language, in constitutional stature. In its stead, Filipino has been made the national and official language.

If I may summarize what has happened:

1935 A common national language is mandated by the Constitution.

1937 President Quezon proclaims Tagalog, renamed Pilipino, to be that common national language.

1973 A common national language is again mandated by the new Constitution, to be called Filipino, thus demoting Quezon's Pilipino, aka Tagalog, from "national language" to "official language, one of two along with English.

1987 The Filipino referred to in the 1973 Constitution was elevated to the status of that "common national language" even though in the short interval of 14 years Congress did not pass any law or do anything to "evolve" Filipino any further, for example by incorporating "Philippine and other languages" into the Pilipino of Commonwealth President Quezon as the 1973 charter mandated.

In a sense therefore, the "political deception" of the 1930s, in which Tagalog aka Pilipino became the national language, was continued in 1987, which proclaimed Filipino aka Pilipino unevolved, aka Tagalog as the common national language. The only real constant was the English language, the official language in which all the National Language making by successive governments and Constitutions was being conducted.

That, in my view is the SUBLIMINAL or SUBLINGUAL aspect of this whole thing. English is our official and real national language. Period.

But there is a deeper kind of deception, or common delusion that runs through all three Constitutional stabs at the common national language idea.

Perhaps it is IMPOSSIBLE to decree, legislate or even will into existence a common national language in an archipelago surrounded by oceans of language. Ethnologue lists 175 distinct languages in the Philippines, including the biggies like Cebuanao, Tagalog, Ilokano, Pampango, etc.

A national language is not like the national bird or the national flower, which you can just designate by law and that alone makes it so. NOT SO with such a mysterious and powerful thing as language.

From 1935 to 1973 to 1987 to 2007 the common thread in the thinking of our leaders and constitutionalists is the hopelessly vain and demonstrably nilpotent concept that a common national language can be politically and legislatively willed into existence.

Yet, even if between 1973 and 1987 some national language institute had indeed been busily "evolving" Pilipino and other Philippine languages into Filipino, they would only have produced a Frankenstein Monster composed of Tagalog, Ilokano, Pampango, Cebuano, Bicolano, Tausug, etc. that for sure NO ONE at all speaks in any such artifically defined configuration.

Language is the most powerful, most viral, most infectious of all the MEMES, for Language is the Meme that carries all other memes into our brains, and remains therein the actual "container" of those memes. Simply put, every idea that enters our head is immediately labelled in the language that it arrives in. Thus both payload and carrier occupy and suffuse into the newly entered brain.

Unfortunately for our common national language idea, it has been arriving in the brains of politicians, academics, and legislators in neither, Tagalog nor Pilipino nor Filipino, but in the very language in which you are reading this post!

For when you look at 1935, 1973 and 1987, it is very clear what the Lingua Anglica of the Filipinos truly is--the very language in which those pious incantations to conjure up the Genie of a Common National Language were themselves written and debated to this day.

Here is Manuel L. Quezon in that 1937 radio broadcast from Malacanan Palace: "It affords me an indescribable satisfaction to be able to announce to you that on this the 41st anniversary of the martyrdom of the founder and greatest exponent of Philippine nationalism, I had the privilege of issuing, in pursuance of the mandate of the Constitution and of existing law, an Executive Order designating one of the native languages as the basis for the national language of the Filipino people."

There must be some irony in the fact that Jose Rizal was a Spanish writer, even if he was the First Filipino, but President Quezon may have inadvertently smothered the common national language idea in its infant bed with such surpassingly beautiful English in birthing it. And the framers of every Constitution written since then have participated in the same infanticide while hoping Francisco Balagtas will be reincarnated in their best laid plans and progeny.

As it turns out, King Canute had better luck commanding the oceans to stop their ceaseless rolling, not knowing 'tis the Moon commands the tides.

In the 100 years since the Supreme Court and the Legislature have existed, what we have in the stream of official language are all the laws and decisions, debates and deliberations of these two branches of government whose entire output comes in the form of WORDS of a very powerful sort.

But this is now an objective and irreversible FACT: During the first Century of the Philippines as a democratically constituted republic English has been the medium of official communications of the government. It is the language in which every Constitution, save Malolos, has been originally written and promulgated. It is the language in which is written and promulgated, virtually every single law enacted by Congress and every decision rendered by the Courts.

The MEMORY of our Republic, the record of its existence during its first century, is ineradicably cast in the MEME of the English language. Thus even if by magic a national language is made tomorrow based on one or more or all of the 175 officially recognized languages in the Philippine Archipelago, it would have to contend with that First Century's worth of English grammar and composition.

Father Bernas ended yesterday's PDI column piece with a question: "So, when Congressman Lopez spoke at the Batasan in celebration of Linggo ng Wika, did he speak in Filipino, Pilipino or Tagalog?"

Hmmm...if I were to guess, and knowing the habits of these Lower House talakitoks as Miriam Defensor Santiago calls them, I'm willing to bet you Rep. Lopez was thinking in English and translating into Pinoy English, Pinglish, which is the largest single English dialect in the world, when you count its native speakers. Since he was quoting and addressing all of the above Constitutions and linguistic history, how could he possibly avoid it?

But there is something that English has in common with Tagalog that was truly new only in the 1987 Constitution and a year 2000 Supreme Court decision we've been discussing here recently. King Canute should be rolling around laughing in his grave about this...and Jose Rizal too:

Both English and Tagalog are NON-INDIGENOUS languages according to the Supreme Court.

Are Ilocanos, Pampangos, Tagalogs, Batanguenos, Naguenos, Cebuanos "Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines?"

NO, definitely NOT, according to the Supreme Court in a December, 2000 Decision (ISAGANI CRUZ and CESAR EUROPA versus CHAIRMAN and COMMISSIONERS OF THE NATIONAL COMMISSION ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES et al, respondents ) upholding the Constitutionality of Indigenous People's Rights Act of 1997 by a 7 to 7 vote that ended up dismissing the prayer for mandamus and prohibition against IPRA--because of the tie!

In the Opinion rendered by now Chief Justice Reynato Puno for the seven prevailing justices (also the source of the Philippines Ancient History quoted in yesterday's post) , we find the exact definition and official list of the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines:

Indigenous Cultural Communities/ Indigenous Peoples-- refer to a group of people or homogeneous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by others, who have continuously lived as organized community on communally bounded and defined territory, and who have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial, occupied, possessed and utilized such territories, sharing common bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, or who have, through resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and cultures, became historically differentiated from the majority of Filipinos. ICCs/IPs shall likewise include peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, at the time of conquest or colonization, or at the time of inroads of non-indigenous religions and cultures, or the establishment of present state boundaries, who retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, but who may have been displaced from their traditional domains or who may have resettled outside their ancestral domains."

Indigenous Cultural Communities or Indigenous Peoples refer to a group of people or homogeneous societies who have continuously lived as an organized community on communally bounded and defined territory. These groups of people have actually occupied, possessed and utilized their territories under claim of ownership since time immemorial. They share common bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, or, they, by their resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and cultures, became historically differentiated from the Filipino majority. ICCs/IPs also include descendants of ICCs/IPs who inhabited the country at the time of conquest or colonization, who retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions but who may have been displaced from their traditional territories or who may have resettled outside their ancestral domains.

1. Indigenous Peoples: Their History

Presently, Philippine indigenous peoples inhabit the interiors and mountains of Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros, Samar, Leyte, and the Palawan and Sulu group of islands. They are composed of 110 tribes and are as follows:

1. In the Cordillera Autonomous Region-- Kankaney, Ibaloi, Bontoc, Tinggian or Itneg, Ifugao, Kalinga, Yapayao, Aeta or Agta or Pugot, and Bago of Ilocos Norte and Pangasinan; Ibanag of Isabela, Cagayan; Ilongot of Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya; Gaddang of Quirino, Nueva Vizcaya, Itawis of Cagayan; Ivatan of Batanes, Aeta of Cagayan, Quirino and Isabela.

2. In Region III-- Aetas.

3. In Region IV-- Dumagats of Aurora, Rizal; Remontado of Aurora, Rizal, Quezon; Alangan or Mangyan, Batangan, Buid or Buhid, Hanunuo and Iraya of Oriental and Occidental Mindoro; Tadyawan of Occidental Mindoro; Cuyonon, Palawanon, Tagbanua and Tao't bato of Palawan.

4. In Region V-- Aeta of Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur; Aeta-Abiyan, Isarog, and Kabihug of Camarines Norte; Agta, and Mayon of Camarines Sur; Itom of Albay, Cimaron of Sorsogon; and the Pullon of Masbate and Camarines Sur.

5. In Region VI-- Ati of Negros Occidental, Iloilo and Antique, Capiz; the Magahat of Negros Occidental; the Corolano and Sulod.

6. In Region VII-- Magahat of Negros Oriental and Eskaya of Bohol.

7. In Region IX-- the Badjao numbering about 192,000 in Tawi-Tawi, Zamboanga del Sur; the Kalibugan of Basilan, the Samal, Subanon and Yakat.

8. Region X-- Numbering 1.6 million in Region X alone, the IPs are: the Banwaon, Bukidnon, Matigsalog, Talaanding of Bukidnon; the Camiguin of Camiguin Island; the Higa-unon of Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Bukidnon and Misamis Occidental; the Tigwahanon of Agusan del Sur, Misamis Oriental and and Misamis Occidental, the Manobo of the Agusan provinces, and the Umayamnon of Agusan and Bukidnon.

9. In Region XI-- There are about 1,774,065 IPs in Region XI. They are tribes of the Dibabaon, Mansaka of Davao del Norte; B'laan, Kalagan, Langilad, T'boli and Talaingod of Davao del Sur; Mamamanua of Surigao del Sur; Mandaya of the Surigao provinces and Davao Oriental; Manobo Blit of South Cotabato; the Mangguangon of Davao and South Cotabato; Matigsalog of Davao del Norte and Del Sur; Tagakaolo, Tasaday and Ubo of South Cotabato; and Bagobo of Davao del sur and South Cotabato.

10. In Region XII-- Ilianen, Tiruray, Maguindanao, Maranao, Tausug, Yakan/Samal, and Iranon.

Here is the amazing thing--The NON-INDIGENOUS peoples of the Philippines, according to this Supreme Court decision are all the CHRISTIAN Filipinos, those very Ilocanos, Pampangos, Tagalogs, Cebuanos, etc. in this post's title.

This decision is clearly in violation of the equal protection principles of the Constitution, and most especially Separation of Church and State and the Bill of Rights on guarantees of religious freedom and equality before the Law.

Let me say it as plainly as I can.

The Supreme Court decided in Cruz vs. NCIP that:

ALL 110 officially designated Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines are non-Christian minorities.

NONE of the 110 officially designated Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines come from its Catholic majority populations and ethnic groups.

The officially designated IPs are all deemed to own "by native title" ancestral lands and domains, which their descendants now own. But the NON-IPs have no such lands or rights.

The difference is whether the ancestors of any given living ethnic group succumbed to Western colonialism and became Catholics or not. Those that "resisted colonialism" and did not become Catholics are the "Indigenous Peoples". Those that did have none of the rights now given to the IPs.

But many of the IPs also succumbed to colonialism and forced religious conversion. When Islam came, it was no different from when Christianity came...by the Sword and the Cross, or the Kris and the Crescent...soldiers and missionaries. But as long as the invaders were NOT Western, that group could still be considered an Indigenous People. That is how the Supreme Court crumbles the cookie.

Basically, ALL the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines are those that supposedly did not succumb to Western Imperialism (such as the slave-raiding slave-trading Maguindanao and Sulu Confederacies that regularly invaded and pillaged the Visayas for centuries of certain Golden Age.)

UPDATES:

Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, in a Separate Opinion on the Constitutionality of the IPRA Law, demolishes the ponencia of Chief Justice Reynato Puno:

SEPARATE OPINION

(Concurring and Dissenting)

PANGANIBAN, J.:

I concur with the draft ponencia of Mr. Justice Santiago M. Kapunan in its well-crafted handling of the procedural or preliminary issues. In particular, I agree that petitioners have shown an actual case or controversy involving at least two constitutional questions of transcendental importance,[1] which deserve judicious disposition on the merits directly by the highest court of the land.[2] Further, I am satisfied that the various aspects of this controversy have been fully presented and impressively argued by the parties. Moreover, prohibition and mandamus are proper legal remedies[3] to address the problems raised by petitioners. In any event, this Court has given due course to the Petition, heard oral arguments and required the submission of memoranda. Indeed, it would then be a galling copout for us to dismiss it on mere technical or procedural grounds.

^{Protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Must Be Within the Constitutional Framework}

With due respect, however, I dissent from the ponencia’s resolution of the two main substantive issues, which constitute the core of this case. Specifically, I submit that Republic Act (RA) No. 8371, otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997, violates and contravenes the Constitution of the Philippines insofar as --

1. It recognizes or, worse, grants rights of ownership over “lands of the public domain, waters, x x x and other natural resources” which, under Section 2, Article XII of the Constitution, “are owned by the State” and “shall not be alienated.” I respectfully reject the contention that “ancestral lands and ancestral domains are not public lands and have never been owned by the State.” Such sweeping statement places substantial portions of Philippine territory outside the scope of the Philippine Constitution and beyond the collective reach of the Filipino people. As will be discussed later, these real properties constitute a third of the entire Philippine territory; and the resources, 80 percent of the nation's natural wealth.

2. It defeats, dilutes or lessens the authority of the State to oversee the “exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources,” which the Constitution expressly requires to “be under the full control and supervision of the State.”

True, our fundamental law mandates the protection of the indigenous cultural communities’ right to their ancestral lands, but such mandate is "subject to the provisions of this Constitution."[4] I concede that indigenous cultural communities and indigenous peoples (ICCs/IPs) may be accorded preferential rights to the beneficial use of public domains, as well as priority in the exploration, development and utilization of natural resources. Such privileges, however, must be subject to the fundamental law.

Consistent with the social justice principle of giving more in law to those who have less in life, Congress in its wisdom may grant preferences and prerogatives to our marginalized brothers and sisters, subject to the irreducible caveat that the Constitution must be respected. I personally believe in according every benefit to the poor, the oppressed and the disadvantaged, in order to empower them to equally enjoy the blessings of nationhood. I cannot, however, agree to legitimize perpetual inequality of access to the nation's wealth or to stamp the Court's imprimatur on a law that offends and degrades the repository of the very authority of this Court -- the Constitution of the Philippines.