Anjelica Pearl V.

Nazareno
Mindanao Studies 1
Section C

Dancing to the Sounds of Sorrow

A Reflection Paper of “KATUTUBO: Memory of Dance”

As said by James Scott in his book The Art of Being Ungoverned, “the days of these self-
governing communities are now numbered, but not so long ago the majority of the world was made
up of these communities.” Indigenous communities in the Philippines are threatened with the issues of
their ancestral lands being shaved off of their natural resources, often detrimental to nature, only to
profit outsiders of the community. The dances of these indigenous people were once celebrations of
the bounty of their land, now they dance to the sound of cries, singing to the world about how
humanity has done their land dirty.
Indigenous peoples (IPs) make up 10-15% of the Philippines' total population and are spread
across the archipelago. During the nearly four centuries of Spanish and American colonization, these
people have fought for recognition of their customary and ancestral lands. The land was declared to be
state property, and laws were enacted without regard for the rights to these indigenous communities.
This separated them from their ancestral domains, and as time passed, they gradually lost their
distinction as a distinct group of people.
The Tagbanua of Coron, Palawan, the Bugkalot and Igorot of Nueva Vizcaya, and the
Manobo of Mount Apo all have stories to tell. These poverty-stricken people are up against far more
dominant forces — mining in Nueva Vizcaya, mass tourism in Palawan, and a geothermal plant on
Mount Apo. In each of these places, the survival of indigenous communities is being confronted by
commercial enterprises and governmental organizations, as the market and the state ever more
penetrate deeply.
Many of them have lost their land, their culture has been destroyed, and their forests and seas
have been exploited by outsiders. Some tribes are on the verge of extinction because the land and
forests that sustained them have been taken by outsiders. They tell a story of loss still being written
through this day.
Indigenous peoples have actively called for their right to self-determination. There have been
threats of land problems in recent decades. The steady growth of their own population, as well as the
pressure on the lands from lowland farmers and foreign and local businesses. Farmers in the lowlands
are looking for agricultural lands. The majority of the time, corporations are interested in the
environmental assets in these areas. Mining, new plantations, and logging pose risks to them and their
communities.
 The violation of indigenous people's lives does not only come from them being robbed of
their homes and livelihood. The government turns a blind eye to their calls for help. They face poverty
with nothing, resistance, or being answered with more plans to allow investors to suck their rich land
dry. Through that documentary, I witnessed the extreme extent of these communities being
minoritized not only by society but also by the government that should have protected them.