Tension brews in Malindang rehab

TENSION is brewing among

government and non-government

groups on how best to implement

rehabilitation and conservation

programs on Mt. Malindang, a national park that has been the

ancestral home of the Subanen tribe.

On a seeming collision

course are the

approaches being

undertaken by

stakeholders on the

53,000 hectare

Malindang, a recipient

of an P800-million

ecological work fund,

mostly coming from

foreign donors.

At the heart of this

tension are development cultures and laws used as basis for

implementing the approaches, like the Local Government Code

(LGC), National Integrated Protected Area System (Nipas),

Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Ipra) and ancestral domain

claims.

The move of Don Victoriano Mayor Rudy Luna to repair an old

logging road to reach Lake Duminagat, a four-hectare water

body that is sacred to the Subanens, is based on his mandate as

mayor and in accordance with the LGC.

For him, the Subanens' worship place, a haven among mountain

trekkers, is his town's ticket out of poverty. The passport?

eco-tourism.

'Summer capital'

Peopled mostly by the Subanens, Don Victoriano is a sixth-class

(average annual income: less than P2 million) upland

municipality established in 1982, then known as Don Mariano

Marcos.

''I dream of Don Victoriano becoming the summer capital in

Western Mindanao, and our people finally enjoying more than

what the lowlanders have been enjoying for many years,'' said

Luna, a scion of a logging magnate who operated in the area

and in the Lanao provinces in the 1960s and 1970s.

The mayor since 1992, Luna explained that with the

empowerment of officials by the LGC, he can hasten repaying to

the municipality and its people the blessings received by his

family.

''The realization of my dream for this town is the best legacy I

can leave,'' he said.

Even the National Economic and Development Authority in

Northern Mindanao has identified Luna's 28,000-hectare

highland municipality as having potentials for eco-tourism and

vegetable production, Luna said.

Protected area

But the Protected Area Management Board (PAMB), an entity

tasked by the government to supervise the affairs on

Malindang, has expressed apprehension over the way Luna

wants to accomplish his vision.

It asked Luna to stop the road repair because it runs contrary to

the PAMB's vision for the park, aside from strongly hinting that

the board's mandate is far more encompassing than that of the

mayor.

The board is headed by the Department of Environment and

Natural Resources and composed of mayors of six towns and

two cities and their upland barangay chairs, and

representatives of two peoples organizations, four NGOs and

two Subanen groups.

It is mandated to prepare a comprehensive management plan

whereby Malindang will be reclassified by Congress into a

protected area under the Integrated Protected System (Ipas) law.

The PAMB is a policy-making body that oversees

implementation of a five-year National Integrated Protected

Area Program (Nipap), a special project of the DENR which

started in 1995, and whose P300-million budget comes from the

European Union.

Rolando Dingal, Nipap park superintendent, said the plan would

be contained in a draft proclamation to be submitted to

Congress. If passed, Malindang would be reclassified from a

national park into a protected area.

The draft is scheduled to be completed in September.

Dingal said the enhancement and utilization of resources in Don

Victoriano fell within the jurisdiction of the PAMB because the

town is inside the park or ''protected area.''

He, however, could not explain how it became a municipality in

1982, when Congress had proclaimed Malindang a national park

in 1971.

But Luna is insisting that he and his officials, through the LGC,

are empowered to steer the municipality toward development,

and infrastructure buildup is one of its major components.

Environmentalists

Pipuli Foundation was the first environmental NGO that started

work in Malindang in 1988 with its unique bio-diversity

framework in the hinterlands of Sinacaban and Tudela towns.

Under the more radical nurturing of Neil Fraser, a former

Columban priest, Pipuli, a Subanen term for ''return to its former

state,'' initially started with a reforestation program that sources

indigenous planting materials from the remaining old-growth

forest of Malindang.

Envisioned as an attempt to provide buffer zone to the

remaining canopy from the increasing population pressure, the

program also aimed to integrate tribal residents as

co-inhabitants of Malindang's ecosystem and ultimately allow

them to live off the land, thus freeing them from the cash

economy of the lowlanders.

'Subversive'

But its links to the Catholic Church's tribal apostolate based in

the Katipunan subparish in Sinacaban, which the Army's 55th

Infantry Battalion has identified as base of operation of the

communist rebels' ''recovery program,'' also made the foundation

a target for counter-insurgency operations.

The reverse happened recently when the Banwa Na'k Subanen,

a Pipuli-inspired people's organization that treads the

self-determination path, was branded by the Reaffirmists or the

pro-Sison faction of the communist movement as a tool by an

expanding Rejectionist faction.

Later, however, the Reaffirmists labelled the Banwa as the

military's counter-insurgency arm in Malindang, Banwa program

director Cesar Tabernero said.

The Reaffirmists have a stake in this mountain, which they claim

is still a base of their armed force, the New People's Army

(NPA).

Last month, members of the Banwa in Barangay Mansawan

were told by a team of Army troopers that their group must be

dismantled for allegedly engaging in ''subversive activities.''

Concerned Banwa leaders went to the Army's 101st Brigade

headquarters in Zamboanga del Norte, only to be told that there

was no such order. The Army's civil military officer requested

them to report directly to him if they were harassed again by

soldiers.

A DENR officer said the group's membership in the PAMB has

transformed them from being ''isolationists,'' like how they had

been perceived before, to a group ''more open to integration and

cooperation.''