We, the Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organization, with our nine member Lumad Organizations from Agusan del Sur, Agusan del Norte, Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon, condemn the continuing plunder and militarization of our Ancestral Domains.
For decades, we have been the target of plunder schemes introduced to our ancestral lands in the name of economic development. The government and private corporations always reason that for our country to develop, we need to extract what natural resources we have. And when we resist, they send us the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Are we the enemy of the state that we have to face the barrel of a gun?
We do not say that we should not utilize these minerals. What we simply demand is for our rights over our lands to be respected. We do not want these large operations that excavate our entire mountains, we do not want our rich fields to be replaced with mud, we do not want to be evicted from our homes. We have lived with these minerals for generations. What we get from the creations of Magbabaya are only those that we need – nothing more, nothing less. With this principle, we have lived with nature harmoniously and we were able to sustain our traditional practices handed down to us from our forefathers.
Now that we have been driven to the hinterlands, we are still being forced from our homes. Where would we go? We do not want to be like the Lumad communities in Western Mindanao who are now living on the dole-out of the mining companies that destroyed their farms. We do not want to be like some Lumad communities in Agusan del Sur that now live in floating houses in a dam reservoir because their lands were flooded. We are fighting back.
Under the policies continued and introduced by the administration of PNoy, the problems of the Lumad communities only worsened. His public-private partnership only facilitated faster processes for these plundering companies to enter our domains.
Today we open our 5-day long activity, Pigsapaan 2010, which aims to bring to the consciousness of the people in the region and the entire country the unrest of the Lumad communities. Pigsapaan 2010 brings together the Lumads united against plunder operations, against militarization, against the devastation of our culture. We also call for the disbandment of the paramilitary groups that have been recruiting Lumads and making us fight against each other for what lands we have left. Pigsapaan 2010 honors the hundreds of Lumads slain over the years, courageous Lumads who valiantly fought for what is rightfully ours.
• Tagdumahan • Pigdiwatahan • Linundigan • Pigsuludaan • Tagtabulon •
• Pig-uyonan • Pigyayungaan • Pigtatawayaan • Kasilo