The T’Boli under Marcos & Martial Law
In writing this paper, as I reviewed articles and conducted further research, I realized that accounts of minority groups in Mindanao under Martial Law, such as the T’Boli, are not typically covered in the first few pages of online search results. To find glimpses about their experiences, one has to sift through multiple archives. I recall that even in my high school history classes, the national perspective on teaching martial law often overlooks how it impacted minorities, who tend to be missed out from mainstream narratives.
Under the Marcos dictatorship, I discovered that state agribusiness and hydro projects allowed PANAMIN (Presidential Assistant on National Minorities), formed in 1968 through Presidential Decree №1414 supposedly to defend the rights of cultural minorities in the Philippines, to utilize reservations and strategic hamletting to manage indigenous peoples (Hyndman and Duhaylungsod, 1992). PANAMIN enforced the relocation of the Lumad and capitalized on the area’s resources by intensifying militarization (CCP, 2017). When PANAMIN arrived in South Cotabato, one of the contested areas for resources included the T’boli’s mountainous homeland. PANAMIN also implicated the Cotabato Manobo and a group of T’boli in a global hoax that portrayed them as a remote “Stone Age” tribe called the Tasaday. This allowed PANAMIN to control 19,247 hectares of T’boli and Manobo ancestral lands, rich in minerals and timber, under the guise of protection for the Tasaday through Presidential Decree №995 (CCP, 2017); subsequent to this is the imposition of the Martial law, under such political conditions criticisms on the Tasaday story can be easily censored or ignored (Hyndman and Duhaylungsod, 1993). The fact that the reserve was home to 15,000 T’boli was not acknowledged. Instead, PANAMIN used forced primitivism, reservations, and settlements to control indigenous resources, allowing mining, agribusiness, and logging interests to exploit their lands (Hyndman and Duhaylungsod, 1992). It can be argued, therefore, that such “Panaminization” were advances to resource exploitation. Essentially, one can derive that through certain policies and strategies, the Marcos regime frequently prioritized progress at the expense of the IPs. In the case of the T’Boli, they also had to contend with the Lake Sebu dam project, which aimed to displace approximately 10,000 T’Boli individuals. (Machado, 1978).
With all things considered, my thoughts on these issues stem from the notion that indigenous peoples’ self-determination has long been hindered by narratives and policies such as those enumerated. Evidence today clearly indicates that the Tasaday was a hoax; this can thus be seen as an opportunity for anthropologists to reconsider how they deal with the narratives of Indigenous Peoples, as misappropriation, especially with the support of the media, politicians, and even the academia, can lead to the exploitation of their narratives. I think that as students studying history, it’s essential to acknowledge the profound significance of understanding how narratives of minority groups are written, recalled, and shared. In that history cannot only be about understanding events but also acknowledging that how it is told can always be influenced by underlying self-interest, power dynamics, and politics.
— My thinkpiece for HIST 3, May 2024
References
Hyndman, David, and Levita Duhaylungsod. 1992. “Behind and Beyond the Tasaday: The Untold Struggle over T’Boli Resources.” In Mindanao: Land of Unfulfilled Promise, edited by Mark Turner, R. J. May, and Lulu Rospall Turner, Chapter 17. Quezon City: New Day Publishers.
Hyndman, David, and Levita Duhaylungsod. 1993. Where T’boli Bells Toll: Political Ecology Voices behind the Tasaday Hoax. Copenhagen: IWGIA. https://www.iwgia.org/images/publications/EN_73_Where_TBoli_Bells_Toll_Political_Ecology_Voices_Behind_the_Tasaday_Hoax.pdf
Machado, Kit G. 1978. “The Philippines in 1977: Beginning a ‘Return to Normalcy’?” Asian Survey 18, no. 2: 202–11. https://doi.org/10.2307/2643314
Peoples of the Philippines.” CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art. 2017. CCPEncyclopedia of Philippine Art. Accessed 2017.https://epa.culturalcenter.gov.ph/1/2/2363/
