Dignity, Ethnicity and Nationhood

Friday, 29 October 2010

BY SHERMA E. BENOSA

The indigenous peoples are a wealth of a nation. Renowned for their creativity and craftsmanship and their time-honored music and dance, they are the custodians of ancient wisdom, rich culture and sacred rituals and beliefs.

The Indigenous Peoples together with Dayaw organizers and NCCA officers and staff doing the unity dance during the closing ceremony of this year’s Indigenous Peoples’ Month celebration. Photo by Marvin Alcaraz

They have a deep connection with and understanding of nature, in a way that the modern man may find very difficult to grasp—even with the aid of his advanced knowledge of science and his ultra-modern technology.

Host to over 100 indigenous peoples, the Philippines is a culturally rich and diverse nation. But it has yet to re-learn to truly be a home to its indigenous peoples and be a place where they can thrive like they did before the coming of the colonizers.

Life was simple then. Most of the indigenous peoples occupied vast coastal areas, and they had the country all to themselves. That was when owning a land was tilling it and being one in spirit with it. Then the colonizers came and the indigenous peoples were driven inland; many were even banished from their own lands. All of a sudden, the lands they tilled and owned even longer than they could remember became someone else’s by virtue of a piece of paper.

Now comprising 15 percent of the country’s 92 M inhabitants, the indigenous peoples are among the country’s minority. Viewed against a dominant society that has forgotten its roots, the cultures and belief systems that the indigenous peoples managed to preserve despite centuries of colonization have become both their greatest pride—and seeming misfortune.

Whereas the country’s indigenous peoples could provide the biggest clues as to what defines a Filipino, the dominant Philippine society chooses to ignore this sector of the society. Hence the indigenous peoples are among the vulnerable and marginalized, often neglected, deprived of basic services, and discriminated against. And because they are underrepresented, the issues that affect them and the challenges that they face are often neglected. At times, the dominant society even acts as if they do not exist.

But the indigenous peoples remain an integral part of the Philippine society. And they are holding on; fighting for their rights and struggling for their voices to be heard.

Indigenous Peoples Month

To recognize the country’s Indigenous Peoples, October has been declared as the National Indigenous Peoples Month. Activities spearheaded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Subcommission of Cultural Communities and Traditional Arts headed by Domingo Bakilan in cooperation with various agencies and local government units are held featuring the indigenous peoples and highlighting their rich cultures and traditions, their arts and their crafts.

This year’s celebration has Dayaw, an indigenous word from several Philippine languages, as its theme.

According to Dr. Eufracio Abaya, cultural anthropologist at the University of the Philippines and Dayaw Festival Director, Dayaw means “to show off, parade or display” and “to present with pride what is distinctly and essentially inherent in oneself” in old Tigaonon, spoken in Surigao del Sur.

In Catandunganon, it means “to show one’s best with pride and dignity coupled with excitement. And in Ilocano, it means “honor.” Its derivative, Kadayawan, is a famous Dabaweño word and celebration. It means ‘a celebration of life, thanksgiving for gifts of nature, the wealth of culture, and the bounties of harvest and the serenity of living.”

Accordingly, Dayaw: 2010 Indigenous Peoples Month Celebration held from October 20 to 24 was a “commitment to recognize the contributions of the indigenous peoples in the forging and strengthening of our national identity, and their active roles in the conservation of the environment and its resources” It aimed to give the indigenous peoples a “platform to reinforce their collective rights and privileges as Filipinos, as well as to voice out their plights and concerns and to cultivate a mindset that is more respectful toward the diversity and integrity of the indigenous peoples and their practices and to dispel the negative stereotyping”.

Dayaw had three major components: Palabas, Sulyap and Suri.

Organized by Shirley Halili-Cruz, head of the NCCA Committee on Dance, Palabas: Indayog ng Kalikhasan showcased the indigenous peoples’ dances, music and chants in various colleges and malls in Metro Manila.

It opened and likewise capped the four-day celebration.

“The concept of Palabas is paglalabas ng saloobin (bringing out deep feelings and thoughts) through dances, music, chants and rituals,” explained Dr. Abaya during the opening performances at the Concert at the Park in Luneta.

Organized by Edgar Fernandez, head of the NCCA Committee on Visual Arts, Sulyap: Sa Tinubuang Kalikhasan, meanwhile, was an exhibit featuring ethnographic photographs and artifacts at the NCCA gallery and the National Museum with traveling exhibits complementing the performances. It likewise featured Philippine traditional arts and crafts.

Finally, Suri: Kalikhasan in Flux is a conference spearheaded by the Ugnayang Pang-AghamTao (UGAT) focusing on issues pertinent to indigenous peoples and nature. With the theme kalikhasan, a word coined by Dr. Abaya that blends likha (creation) with kalikasan (natural environment), the conference served as a platform for the stakeholders to interact and explore various issues relevant to the indigenous peoples. Conference organizer was Rosa Cordillera Castillo.

Discrimination and Paradigms of Development

In the 2008 Indigenous Peoples Month celebration, one of the ethnolinguistic leaders, Felixberta Villamer of the Agta-Bikol, told the audience in a short but passionate speech: “Tinitingnan ninyo ako ngunit hindi ninyo ako nakikita” (You are looking at me, but you don’t really see me). She was talking about how the indigenous peoples continue to be marginalized.

Also in that IP Month celebration, Kalinga leader Vicente Gumowang shared that misconceptions about the indigenous peoples still lingered.

This year, with the venue for exchange of ideas made bigger, and perhaps heeding the invitation of NCCA Executive Director Malou Jacob to voice out their concerns and help NCCA evaluate its programs for the indigenous peoples, the same concerns and a lot more were raised.

In this year’s conference, issues about how some modernization programs of the government and extant industries are adversely affecting the unique relationship between the indigenous peoples and nature were raised.

Other issues raised were respect for the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination, representation, ancestral domain, displacement and the need for the academe, particularly the anthropologists to strive to develop a closer link between academic work and applied work.

Scholars and leaders of the indigenous groups also voiced out that the mainstream’s definition of development is incompatible with the way the indigenous peoples define development.

They and Us: Ethnicity and Nationhood

Asked to comment on the issues raised in the conference especially during the open forum, Dr. Abaya shared that indeed there is a gripping irony in the way we see and treat our indigenous peoples. “On the one hand, our country looks at them as sources of materials in order for us to define our national identity.

On the other hand, most of us regard them as belonging to lower status. So, there is a need for us to re-think how we look at them and their place in the society.”

On the issue of balancing the efforts of highlighting the country’s cultural diversity by showcasing the indigenous peoples’ culture and heritage through performances and the risk of possibly exploiting them in the process, Dr. Abaya underscored the need to discuss with the indigenous peoples the possible risks of such endeavors. “It’s important that they are aware of the possible consequences of joining these events. It’s even more important that they really want to be part of these events; that they want to share their cultures and songs and dances. I know NCCA is careful with this kind of issues, because when events such as these become ‘mediatized,’ or when the indigenous peoples perform in various places, there may be uncontrolled and unintended consequences,” he said.

Finally, on the issue of labels such as “indigenous peoples” and of ethnicity and nationality, Dr. Abaya had this to say: “Until we have resolved the idea of ethnicity and nationality, until we have learned to say, I’m a Maranao and I’m a Filipino,’ ‘I’m an Ilocano and a Filipino’ and so on, we have to look deeper into the interaction of our ethnicity and our being a citizen of the Philippines. The use of categories such as ‘indigenous peoples,’ is important in identifying groups in the society. Without categories such as this, it will be difficult to create programs specifically for the Indigenous Peoples.”

Dr. Abaya added that categories such as ‘indigenous peoples’ are no different from such categories as ‘farmer,’ ‘workers,’ ‘women’ and so on. “It just so happened that the indigenous peoples have been extremely marginalized culturally, socially, politically, and economically. They have suffered multiple marginalization. So I can understand from a certain angle that they react to such labels. Perhaps it would be better to not call them indigenous peoples. Perhaps we can simply say ‘Filipino.’ But then it really depends on the context. Our language use has various contexts. I think to solve this we should think that we are Filipinos, and at the same time, members of different ethnic groups.”

Indeed, as Filipinos, we still have a lot of issues to resolve before we truly begin to understand who we are and hopefully reconcile our ethnicity and nationhood. But amidst our identity crisis, one glaring fact stares us in the face: our indigenous brothers and sisters are the very reflection of ourselves before colonization changed us and we became strangers to our own selves. Let us do them—and ourselves —right by treating them with dignity and upholding their rights. Perhaps in doing that, we will be able to resolve the seeming conflict between our ethnicity and nationhood.