Then presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. promised to prioritize the issues of the indigenous peoples (IPs). He went as far as to claim that he is a “champion” of IPs and vowed to place issues affecting IPs as one of his administration's top priorities.

But mere weeks after he took office, during Marcos’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA), the Davao City Police arrested two Lumad brothers, Ismael Pangadas, 22, and Mawing Pangadas, 19, while attending a protest action at the Davao City Freedom Park. Ismael and Mawing were arrested due to human trafficking.

The police based the trumped-up cases on the two brothers’ involvement in the Bakwit Lumad School in Cebu, according to Christian Olado of Kabataan Party-list Southern Mindanao. The police report, however, did not detail who the supposed victims were, or where the claimed incident happened.

“Hindi ko inaasahan na ganun ang mangyari sa kanila. Sa nakuha kong impormasyon, may warrant sila galing sa police. Pero ang tanong ko: Ano yung kaso? Tapos, nalaman kong kidnapping daw, kasi kinidnap daw nila yung mga bata,” Olado said.

The two Lumad were arrested under a warrant dated June 7, 2022, issued by Judge Jimmy Bustillo Boco of the Regional Trial Court Branch 2 in Tagum City, Davao del Norte for violation of the Anti-Trafficking of Persons Act of 2003. Olado said such arrests were made under the dubious pretext that Ismael and Mawing kidnapped Lumad children in Cebu.

“Ako ang makakapagpatunay na hindi totoo ang bintang nila na kinidnap nila ang mga bata. Paano nila makikidnap ang mga bata eh magkakasama kami doon sa Maynila nag-aaral? Gumagawa talaga sila (pulis) ng paraan para ikulong sina Ismael at Mawing,” Olado said.

The New Administration

The arrest of two Lumad activists on the day of the president’s first major speech worries advocates like Olado. With the country now under Marcos, their arrests show the apparent continuation of several attacks against indigenous peoples, ranging from questionable arrests, land-grabbing, red-tagging, killings, mass surrender, and intimidation.

Worse, without a concrete policy to protect IP rights set out in his SONA, former Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Eufemia Cullamat said that Marcos might simply follow his father’s policies toward IPs.

Cullamat’s recollection stems from Marcos's campaign statement that he will continue his father’s legacy of “helping” IPs. During the time of Marcos Sr., she said, there were government agencies that were supposedly tasked to help IPs, but those agencies instead negatively affected IP communities.

“Yung pumayag na gustong sirain ang mga lupain, yun yung mga katutubo na kanilang binigyan ng benepisyo, at hindi ang mga katutubo na tumitindig na protektahan ang lupang ninuno. Ito ang makikita natin na ipagpapatuloy ni Bongbong Marcos,” Cullamat said.

Chairperson Geraldine Cacho of Tongtongan ti Umili, the urban chapter of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, said that the Marcoses—with their decades of rule in the North—never helped IPs, adding that Marcos should stop “parroting” the said false narrative that his family helped IPs during his father’s term.

“He cannot say that they’ve been helping IPs since his father’s time, because history and facts will tell that the elder Marcos only brought destruction upon our ancestral lands,” Cacho said. Marcos Sr.'s administration played a critical role in the murder of Butbut elder Macli-ing Dulag who opposed the Chico River Dam Project.

Cullamat expressed her fears that the steps being taken by the current administration indicate that Marcos might head toward his father’s direction in dealing with IPs as a guideline for his IP policies.

Worse, Marcos's own Vice President Sara Duterte red-tagged Cullamat after the latter criticized Duterte’s Lumad garb attire during Marcos’s SONA. Duterte, as the mayor of Davao City, has been recorded to have red-tagged Lumad schools by linking them to communist rebels, resulting in the continuation of the government's violent status quo towards IPs.

“Ang aming mga kasuotan ay sumasalamin sa aming kultura at tradisyon na pinanday ng aming karanasan at pakikibaka para proteksyunan ang aming komunidad at lahi,” Cullamat said. “Bukas kami sa mga gustong humiram ng aming kasuotan, pero dapat ay kinikilala din nila ang aming mga karapatan at mga laban.”

The Struggle of Uncertainty

Human rights group Karapatan stated that they hoped the new president would uphold the civil rights and liberties of many Filipinos, especially IPs, considering the state-backed repression that IPs are receiving.

Under the Duterte administration, the government resorted to violent attacks such as red-tagging, “tokhang-style” raids, extrajudicial killings, and criminalization against organizations opposing their policies. The recent arrest of the two Lumad after Marcos’s SONA indicates the possibility of continuing such attacks against IPs.

“The killing machine perfected in the war on poor people is now being turned on human rights defenders and political opponents of government policy … The justice system participates in suppressing dissent both by weaponizing the law to facilitate human rights abuses and by failing to enforce legal protections,” Karapatan’s 2021 year-end report read.

This style of political repression was seen even before Ismael and Mawing’s arrest. The law has long been weaponized against IPs to close their schools and order their arrests, Olado said.

“Pinalayas kami sa community namin, kaya pumunta kaming siyudad para ipagpatuloy ang aming pag-aaral. Naging malapit kaming magkakaibigan dahil hindi sila masasamang tao. Hanggang sa pag-uwi namin sa Mindanao, at ang nangyari sa Freedom Park magkakasama kami,” Olado said.

With this growing state of repression against IPs, Cullamat expressed uncertainty not only with the future of IP rights but also for those who merely criticize the government, due to the indication that the current administration would continue the prevailing trend of intense human rights violations against IPs.

In 2020 alone, there were 92 incidents of red-tagging members of indigenous communities. That figure does not include more than 200 undocumented and unnamed individuals who were also reported to have been red-tagged, according to a 2021 report of the Indigenous Peoples Rights International.

The same report also recorded a total of 178 Lumad school facilities that were shut down, while red tagging has led to 33 arrests and 14 killings.

For Olado, the failure of the government to acknowledge the current situation of the indigenous people of the country would continue the violent repression of IPs. 

“May dalawang Lumad na dinakip nung nag papahayag sila ng kanilang karapatan at ng gusto marinig mula sa pangulo,” he said. “Kaso, hindi na namin narinig ang mga solusyon niya [Marcos], lumala pa ang problema, dahil sa pagsampa ng gawa-gawa na kaso sa mga kasamahan namin,” Olado said. ●