Crystal clear waters, an abundance of fish, sufficient deer in the hunting grounds, and so many sacks of rice in storage that his grandfather would just freely share with neighbors who ran out. This is how Salem Demuna describes the life of the Kagan, and indigenous people in the Southern Philippines, some decades ago. Salem is the former chairperson of the Learned Kagan Muslim Foundation, Inc. (LKMFI), an organization that promotes Kagan culture and advocates for the rights of the indigenous people.
Now, the river in the Kagan ancestral domain is muddy from pollution and can no longer serve as a resource for the community. Trees have been cut for mining activities, large-scale plantations, and beach resorts and with this the hunting grounds have diminished. Few spaces are left for the Kagan to continue their traditional practices of agriculture, fishing, and hunting. “This is very hurtful. You are in your community, you are in your ancestral land but you are feeling a competition, like a survival of the fittest,” shares Salem.
Having their sources of livelihood disrupted, many Kagan families were forced to adapt to the socio-economic situation by sending their children abroad to work in jobs that more often than not leave them vulnerable to discrimination and violence. The remittances sent by these Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs are then used by the Kagan to send their other children to school and prepare them for the remaining livelihood opportunities in the community: working for the local government or one of the private companies operating in their ancestral lands in the name of development.
“Development” - disruptions to environment and society
The pain felt by Salem when he shares about the living conditions of his fellow Kagan amidst an abundance of resources is palpable. It is a struggle that is not unique to the Kagan. In fact, the indigenous Mansaka, the Kagan’s upland neighbors, are suffering from poverty despite quite literally sitting on mountains of gold – gold that is now being mined by large companies operating within their ancestral domain. These extractive activities are affecting the environment not only in the ancestral lands of the Mansaka, but also that of communities in the coastal areas such as the Kagan: “what is our share now is the waste, the mercury, the chemicals going down our rivers and our ancestral waters.”
The Hijo river was used by the Kagan for fishing, washing clothes, and swimming. Now the water is too polluted for any of these activities.
Apart from having lost the river as a source of livelihood and recreation, the Kagan are now also more vulnerable to natural disasters due to mining-related disruptions of the environment: “What will happen if there are calamities in the community and there are no more trees to protect us from landslides? What will happen to the next generation?”, asks Salem. In the past, storms and floods already had a disproportionate effect in mining-affected areas. In 2012, landslides following Typhoon Bopha (locally known as Pablo) killed 651 in the province of Davao de Oro, where also the Kagan ancestral domain is located.
In addition to the environmental destruction, so-called development projects have detrimental effects on the social cohesion in the remaining Kagan communities. With little alternatives to earn a livelihood, Kagans are becoming dependent on the income offered by private companies and local politicians. Nestor Adona, member of the Kagan Leaders Council of Pantukan and also a volunteer at LKMFI, explains that this not only causes competition for the few jobs available. It also leads to “power struggles, which are driven by personal vested interests in the guise of setting development priorities.”
Beach resorts that are increasingly built along the coast similarly impact the Kagan’s cultural and religious practices. While they generate income and employment, these resorts also put up fences on the shoreline without asking the Kagan’s consent, thus disrupting their free movement within their ancestral lands and waters. In addition, Salem shares that the community leaders have repeatedly reminded resort owners to lower the volume of their music during times of prayer but they are often not listened to. So-called development projects are thus not only infringing on Kagan lands and the use of their resources, they are also affecting the exercise of their right to practice their cultural and religious traditions.
Development as unity
“The popular concept of development is formulated by dominant actors who do not fully understand the people they are devoting their so-called development projects to. Indigenous people on the other hand are forced to accept these projects because they give them at least a little portion of what they aspire to.” This is how Nestor summarizes the relationship between the mainstream definition of development and the interests and needs of the Kagan people. While in their experience outside actors have usually defined development as physical projects that have a visible impact, Nestor and Salem promote a more holistic understanding of development.
According to them, development should be something that is felt internally, that responds to “all of the needs of the Kagan and its non-Kagan neighbors”, and that is “embedded in both the mainstream government’s policies and the Kagan’s tradition and culture”. This concept of development not only takes into account the creation of infrastructure and economic opportunities, but rather the social and cultural well-being of all of those living in the area. As Nestor puts it: “it ensures a fair impact for all and does not compromise anyone’s rights, abodes, and domains”.
Nestor Adona during a tree-planting activity within Kagan ancestral domain.
Salem explains that “traditionally, the concept of development of the Kagan is unity, peace, harmony, and sharing of resources.” Understanding development this way means putting the focus on relationships rather than economic activities or some form of progress. It means that development was in place before and independent of the projects implemented by investors and corporations, before the administrative structures introduced by Spanish and US-American colonizers, and before the introduction of Islam as a form of social organization.
In the Kagan understanding of development, the sharing of resources with neighbors, free practice of Kagan culture, and respect to the elders become indicators of development. Salem admits that there were conflicts before but explains that these were managed more easily because everyone shared and exchanged resources: “I cannot speak for our ancestors but I think those were happy times.”
The right to set own development priorities
To pursue their own definition of development is one of the rights indigenous peoples in the Philippines are guaranteed within their recognized ancestral domains. Through the support of LKMFI, the Kagan were able to register their ancestral domain title in 2019. This not only means that they can now freely pursue their economic, social, and cultural development within their ancestral domain but also that they should be involved in the formulation of policies and plans for development projects that directly affect them.
One of the ways to ensure this is the formulation of an Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plan. The Kagan are currently in the process of creating this plan and making it “tailor-fit to the needs, aspirations, resources, history, culture, and tradition of the Kagan” as explained by Nestor who is part of the process. A continuing limitation of formulating plans that are in line with Kagan traditions are in fact the local laws: “one cannot be totally happy and satisfied if being told to be free to practice all of our rights, yet our hands are still bound by laws and limitations”.
Rather than experiencing full self-governance and freedom in determining their development priorities, the Kagan still face the reality of so-called development projects that already have an effect on their ancestral domain. Such projects are often not only allowed by, but rather encouraged by local government policies. The challenge faced by the Kagan is thus not only how to formulate development plans, but also, and more pressingly, how to assert their rights and implement these plans.
Asserting genuine participation in development
As explained by Nestor, “government laws which are meant to ‘balance’ the rights and benefits of both indigenous and non-indigenous groups inevitably limit the real practice of indigenous people’s right to self-governance in their own domain”. An example of this is the obligation of extractive industries operating within the ancestral domain to provide 1% of their profits to the indigenous people. Salem finds this unfair, considering that all of the resources extracted by these companies belong to the indigenous people, not only 1% of them.
He believes that making the indigenous people part-owners in the companies would be a fairer set-up: “The gold is owned by these people. The land that you disturb is owned by these people. How could it be that they are not part of your company?” By making indigenous people co-owners, they could ensure that business practices do not cause more problems for the protection of their ancestral domain and put in place policies for a more equal distribution of benefits. This could include moving gold processing sites to the community itself, so that Kagan and Mansaka can also have a share in the profit generated with their resources down the production line.
Salem Demuna speaks about LKMFI’s vision during a forumZFD workshop.
In this context, Salem also stresses the need for thorough consultations of the Kagan in development decisions. Even though Philippine legislation requires that corporations obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of an indigenous people before starting operations, consultations are often only conducted with individual leaders for compliance purposes and shortcuts, corruption, and intimidation are the norm rather than the exception. According to Salem, the current process is too simple and does not constitute a proper participation of indigenous people.
Instead, he suggests a series of public assemblies where the corporations present their plans in detail including the scale and method of resource extraction. This would allow the Kagan to point out detrimental effects on their ancestral domain, the costs that will be incurred by environmental destruction, and mitigation measures or regulatory frameworks. Such consultations would not only result in more sustainable business practices, it would also constitute a step towards development understood the Kagan way: “If there is representation, there is recognition. If there is recognition, there is respect. Once you are respected, there can be unity.”
Ways forward
With all the detrimental effects of development projects in their ancestral domain, Salem wonders how much further the tolerance of the Kagan can be stretched. How many more times they would experience not being listened to and disregarded within their ancestral domain until conflicts would escalate. Already now, many members of the Kagan community are scared of publicly voicing their complaints about development projects. Speaking out against the practices of large corporations, that are often backed by political interests, has been met with violent repercussions in the past including the killing of activists. A less dangerous path for the community, as undertaken by LKMFI, is to conduct dialogues. However, Salem stresses that this alone is not effective without the presence of an external watchdog.
Salem and Nestor are clear on what is needed to further assert their indigenous right to pursue their own concept of development: more awareness of their rights among their fellow Kagan, an assessment of their collective resources as a people, and identifying concrete courses of action for them to peacefully claim their rights. To achieve this, they partner with government and non-government actors, who share the same vision. One of these partners is forumZFD, an international peacebuilding organization that works with LKMFI to strengthen and complement indigenous methods of non-violent conflict transformation, particularly in the context of conflicts with outside actors.
Nestor shares that asserting their economic, social, and cultural development within the Kagan ancestral domain was “a long and painful struggle that is still ongoing and not even close to its finish line”. LKMFI and the other Kagan will continue to find ways to strengthen Kagan values of living in harmony and sharing resources. This not only requires to pass on cultural values and traditional knowledge to the next generation, but also to overcome the state of survival the Kagan are currently in towards an economic and socio-political situation that allows practicing their vision of development as unity.
A shortened version of this article was first published in the Suedostasien, 1/2023.