Ancestral Land Between Two Rights

The issue of ancestral lands in Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan is one of the root causes of the armed conflicts which have characterized life in those areas through the centuries. And final settling of the issue is not only relevant to the economic well-being of the indigenous peoples of MinSuPala but also critical to the resolution of the armed conflicts.

The indigenous people of the Philippines represented in Mindanao by the Bangsamoro and the Lumad people rightfully claim historical rights to the entire MinSuPala region as their homeland divided only by natural geographic and cultural boundaries into several ethno-linguistic groups which have mostly survived today. These groups include the Sama, Tausug, Yakan, Subanun, Molbog, Tagbanua, Melebugnon, Palawan, Tiruray, Sangil, B’laan. Tasaday, Higaonon, Bukidnon, Bagobo, Mansaka, Mamanuas, Kalagan, Kalibugan, Giyangan, Ata,Tagabili and still others.

The indigenous concept of ancestral land rights revolves around the beliefs (1) that land is God’s gift to the people for their sustenance and enjoyment and not to individuals, (2) that man’s relationship to the land is not only physical but also spiritual, and (3) that it must be preserved from destruction, pollution and desecration. As a consequence, land ownership in pre-Spanish Mindanao and throughout the rest of the ancient Philippines was communal. The ecological balance was religiously maintained by rituals and sacrifices to spirits and supernatural beings, asking them to protect the land and by communal efforts preserved its productivity and natural beauty.

But the advent of colonialism in the 16th century with its laws and military subjugation deprived the indigenous peoples of their rights to the ancestral lands, and these gradually passed on to new colonial possessors called enconenderos, hacierideros, and corporate owners including the government who claimed by its new laws all private lands as public lands. Consequently, the indigenous people under what then was called the regalian doctrine lost their legal rights to the lands they occupied and cultivated and had to compete with other individuals applying for land titles. Because of ignorance and colonial prejudice, the Lumads and Muslims lost to Christian migrants, whose numbers increased tremendously during the American regime.

The American colonial rule from 1899 to 1946 in Mindanao was marked not only by the progressive loss of ancestral lands to the new settlers due to the torrens system introduced by American rule (which encouraged observations and distribution of public lands into individual homesteads and corprate estates) but also by the radical transformation of Mindanao to Christian majority by 1946.