CORON, Palawan—The island of Coron boasts of pristine lakes and white sand beaches that are prime tourist attractions in the town. But the Tagbanua, which obtained a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC) on the island in 1998, is just starting to earn revenues from visitors due to conflicts with government agencies and officials.

One of the Tagbanua’s emerging critics happens to be no less than Palawan Governor Joel Reyes, who has been dismayed to learn that the Tagbanua now want to collect a P375 entrance fee to Kayangan Lake by virtue of their native title to the island. Coron is Reyes’s hometown, and he recalls visiting the lake as a young boy.

“I will never agree to that,” Reyes says of the proposed fee, adding that local government units (LGUs) affected would submit a joint complaint on the matter to the national government.

While there have been examples of harmonious relationships between LGUs and indigenous peoples elsewhere in the Philippines, many tribes, particularly those here in Palawan, seem to have a tough time dealing with local officials and sometimes even with national government agencies.

Much of the conflicts stem from lack of communication among contending parties and weak information dissemination in the government. A case in point is Coron island, where the Tagbanua have been managing their CADC since 1998. Yet even though the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) is four years old, tour operators in Coron were given an orientation about the law and its implications only this Aug. 7.

Part of the problem is that under the Estrada administration, the IPRA was rendered useless due to lack of government support and the filing of a case in the Supreme Court questioning its constitutionality. Budget for the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), which is charged with converting the 181 CADCs issued during the Ramos administration into titles, was withheld. As a result, there was no movement in the CADC applications.

It was only after the high court’s decision last December in favor of IPRA and the newly-created Office of the Presidential Assistant for Indigenous Peoples, headed by the highly regarded Howard Dee, under the Arroyo administration, that the law gained second wind.

Aside from the last-minute issuance of land titles by the previous NCIP leadership, Dee’s office has been busy conducting consultations all over the country to address sectoral concerns on IPRA and firm up the selection process for new NCIP commissioners who were sworn into office on Aug. 10.

With the implementation of the law picking up steam, politicians and business people who used to ignore the IPRA are just starting to realize its full impact.

But the law may be a bitter pill to swallow for local officials of places like Palawan, where what are at stake are considerable in value.

Indeed, during the Estrada administration, indigenous peoples’ groups suspected that the then president’s allies had frowned on the granting of ancestral domain titles as these would jeopardize their business interests in such industries as mining and logging.

All over Palawan, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) granted six CADCs covering 56,519 hectares of tribal territory before the term of President Fidel Ramos ended in June 1998. But not all were given to indigenous communities due to opposition from local government units.

In Puerto Princesa City, then Mayor Edward Hagedorn rejected the awarding of ancestral territory to the Tagbanua in the upland village of Irawan, citing its importance as watershed area.

In Rizal town, then mayor Nicolas Montaño was incredulous when his Pala’wan constituents in 1998 clinched a CADC for 15,000 hectares of land. In his speech, Montaño stressed his “generosity in giving this land” to the indigenous community and warned that the government would take it back if the tribe could not manage the resources well.

But such open hostility has not deterred other tribes from filing claims. In Rizal alone, there are ancestral domain applications for 11 barangays covering almost 80 percent of the town’s 126,000-hectare land area, says Land Management Section chief Johnny Lilang.

More than 50 CADC applications have also been lodged with the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Offices, threatening to carve up Palawan’s public land, which makes up a large part of the province’s 1.5 million-hectare land area.

Aside from territory, local governments stand to lose revenues as ancestral domains are exempted from real property taxes and special levies. Coron municipal assessor Genario Labrador says more than half of the town’s 68,910-hectare land area are covered by tax declarations, meaning there are claimants who pay taxes for them after getting DENR certification that these are classified as forest land. One example is Dimakya island, where the upscale resort Club Paradise is located, says Labrador.

In contrast, since they got their CADC, the Tagbanua have stopped paying taxes for their land and even for the birds’ nests they gather from limestone cliffs. A kilo of first class birds’ nest costs P150,000 these days; the Tagbanua used to pay P10 a year for each cave.

While the Tagbanua reap greater benefits from higher earnings, Labrador is not pleased and says the CADC is a threat to the municipality. He grumbles, “If more ancestral domain titles are granted, nothing will be left for us and my office will become useless.”

Supporters of indigenous people’s groups believe another reason why many people resent the granting of native titles is the power it gives to the tribes. Says Palawan NGO Network executive director Cleofe Bernardino: “They are furious that with all their influence, they were not able to acquire large tracts of land while indigenous people who are seen as powerless were able to get titles. It’s just greed, plain and simple.”

It was precisely the country’s long-standing bias against tribes that Sen. Juan Flavier wanted to correct when he filed IPRA. In his sponsorship speech, he said, “This bill provides for special treatment for cultural communities owing to their condition of poverty, illiteracy and underdevelopment brought about, in the main, by government neglect, foreign colonization and discrimination.”

President Ramos echoed Flavier’s sentiment when he signed the law in 1997. Ramos hailed IPRA as “a triumph of the executive’s and legislative’s political will. For only a law of such breadth, depth and scope as RA 8371 can provide our indigenous peoples with the seeds of their empowerment and social equity.”

But he also noted that the law entails heavy responsibilities on the part of the indigenous peoples. “Our IPs carry the duty of maintaining the ecological balance and restoring denuded areas within their ancestral domain, and observing all the provisions of this law and all the other laws of the land,” Ramos said.

Such challenges have sparked debate among support groups. There are those who say that IPRA unfairly burdens tribal communities, while others are confident that indigenous people can ably protect the land and resources that they have long nurtured.

The recognition of privately titled lands under the law is also seen as a weak point, since there are many cases where indigenous communities were duped into selling their ancestral land. The law stipulates that the right of third parties who acquired their property at fair market price, and did not know the title is defective, have to be respected.

There have also been fears that the grant of native titles may only lead indigenous peoples to individually sell pieces of the land later. To address this, many groups that have gotten their CADCs have specified in their management plan that transfer of rights is allowed only under customary law among members of the same community, as the IPRA provides.

Other problems that indigenous communities face in asserting their rights include their dwindling numbers. Here in Coron, for example, the Tagbanua represent less than 20 percent while migrants from other provinces constitute 45 percent of the population. Other ethnolinguistic groups in Palawan make up the rest.

Another worrying issue for some is the possible tampering on the requirement for “free prior and informed consent” from affected communities. Delbert Rice, who works with the Ikalahan people in Luzon, is wary about NCIP Administrative Order No. 3 that gives the Commission the power to approve any state or private project within a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) area. He says it could well do so without consulting the communities involved.

Still, many indigenous peoples’ groups and support NGOs that assisted presidential adviser Dee in recent consultations nationwide have high hopes that the professionalism shown by the Arroyo administration so far is their best bet for IPRA to succeed. One positive indication is the avoidance of political expediency in the selection of commissioners for NCIP, the bane of previous administrations.

But the question most NGOs avoid answering is whether indigenous peoples are strong enough to manage their vast ancestral domains by themselves. From the start, many communities have relied on outside assistance to facilitate their claims.

Dionesia Banua of Natripal says one of the biggest setbacks for indigenous peoples is that after their CADC are granted, they have few supporters in the implementation stage. With few funds to sustain their activities, community members are not as eager to perform their duties. “They rely on just whoever feels like doing the work,” says Banua.

Among the ancestral domains that PCIJ visited for this story, the more successful ones are those that got assistance to implement their management plan such as Bakun, Kitaotao, and Malungon. Tribal leaders also observe that it has been easier to maintain harmony in places with a largely homogenous population like Bakun, where there are few non-Kankanaeys, rather than places with a large number of migrants like Kitaotao.

In addition, reconciling the interests of local government units and the private sector with that of indigenous peoples obviously make things easier for tribes to manage their territory and maintain order.

In Bakun, for instance, the local government even had a hand in getting the entire town declared as ancestral domain. Some officials serve in the community organization that implements the management plan. In 1999, the local government also adopted the ancestral domain management plan of Bakun as part of the municipal development plan.

Down south, LGUs recognized the ancestral domain rights of the Tagakaolo and B’laan in the town of Malungon. In Sarangani, the provincial government ordered barangays to provide a kasfala or tribal justice hall if they have indigenous communities. All government projects in the ancestral domain, such as the donation of land for a school and the operation of a palm oil plantation, get clearance from the Malungon Tribal Congress.

Here in Palawan, though, there have been complaints that among the hindrances in getting tribes to win over local officials and the private sector to their side are some of the very NGOs that are supposed to be helping them. For instance, Vic Azurin, head of the Coron Association of Tourism Establishments, says his members expected a dialogue with the Tagbanua in one meeting “but instead, they got a seven-hour lecture!”

Such lapses in communication are common, and various sectors blame it on what they describe as “high-handedness” on the part of the Tagbanua’s NGO supporter.

The Tagbanua obtained their title through the help of the Philippine Association for Intercultural Development (PAFID), as did the Molbog of Balabac. With its 37 staff nationwide, PAFID, according to its own data, has surveyed about two million hectares of ancestral land and water claims, of which around 290,000 hectares have been approved.

While its community partners are all praises for PAFID, it is not very popular among local government agencies, other NGOs, and business people in Palawan. In the town of Coron for example, officials and tour operators complain that PAFID staff often do not consult or inform them about important matters, such as the entrance fees. Worse, there are instances when the Tagbanua rely on PAFID to make important decisions for them.

PAFID has no working relations with other Palawan NGOs, which have blamed the group for resorting to shortcuts that harm the process of community development. Says one NGO leader: “PAFID is the reason why many claims in Palawan did not prosper, but we cannot criticize them openly because they also serve indigenous peoples.”

An example of such a shortcut is the Original Certificate of Title the Tagbanua have been showing to local officials and tour operators. A photocopy of the title obtained by the PCIJ shows that it has no number, no date, and no name of the Foundation representing the tribe. It has also yet to be entered in the Register of Deeds, making the document unofficial, some NGOs say.

PAFID’s mild-mannered Palawan coordinator, Ruel Belen, takes all the criticism in stride. He admits relations with municipal officials have been tenuous and they have disagreed on many issues. Yet while PAFID is willing to work with the government, he stresses that “we now consider Coron island as private property since it’s already titled.” Regarding the controversial entrance fees, Belen says a Canadian kayaking operator who served as their consultant based the amount on a survey with tourists on users’ fees.

Local NGOs such as the Environmental Legal Assistance Center are caught in a bind when invited to meetings with the contending parties. Lawyer Gerthie Mayo-Anda of ELAC says her group supports the rights of the Tagbanua but she also sees the need to include other sectors in the consultation process.



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PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM