Del juzgamiento de los delitos intrafamiliares

Jan van der Ploeg and Merlijn van Weerd

ABSTRACT

The Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis) is a critically endangered freshwater crocodile endemic to the Philippines. A small and fragmented population in the Northern Sierra Madre, Northeast Luzon, is currently considered to offer the best prospects for the survival of the species in the wild. Based on a detailed case study, the declaration of a Philippine crocodile sanctuary in Dinang Creek in the municipality of San Mariano, we review some of the premises on the relationship between indigenous peoples’ rights, rural poverty alleviation and biodiversity conservation. The Kalinga are the indigenous people in this area. In Dinang Creek, crocodiles have survived as the unintentional consequence of a set of traditional beliefs and practices. However, Kalinga society and culture goes through a process of rapid change. As such these indigenous conservation practices are no longer a viable basis for protecting the Philippine crocodile in the wild. Paradoxically, it appears that Kalinga indigenous’ rights are used to mobilize resistance to the plans of the local government unit to establish a crocodile sanctuary. We argue that the micro-politics of crocodile conservation in San Mariano is not simply a struggle between indigenous people and conservationists for control over natural resources but rather the manifestation of broader political conflict in contemporary Philippine society. We conclude that the polarized discourse on conflicts between social justice advocates and environmentalists is in this particular case not particularly helpful in gaining an in-depth understanding of the current local reality.

INTRODUCTION

In October 2003, the Kalinga Minority Organization (KMO) put up a protest banner in the municipality of San Mariano: “Ipaglaban and karapatang angkinin and lupang pinaghirapan ng mga Kalinga!! Tao ang mahalaga kaysa sa buwaya!” (Fight for your rights to own the land for which the Kalinga sacrificed so much!! People are more important than crocodiles). This powerful message, written in Ilocano, seems to encapsulate the divergent interests between indigenous people and conservationists in the Northern Sierra Madre. Here, conservationists aim to protect the critically endangered Philippine crocodile in its natural habitat, apparently clashing with local communities who fear that their traditional rights will be violated. On first sight it appears to be a classic case in the growing body of literature on resource conflicts between external conservation agencies and indigenous people. Or isn’t it?

On one hand, conservationists have been criticized for violating indigenous peoples’ rights by seeking to preserve a western notion of nature through reinforcing the power of the modern state bureaucracy (Peluso 1992; Colchester 2003; Chapin 2004). The rapidly growing field of political ecology has rigorously documented how coercive protection of wildlife has jeopardized the livelihoods of indigenous people (Bryant and Bailey 1997; Ghimire and Pimbert 1997; Bryant 2000). On the other hand, there is growing criticism of presenting indigenous peoples in harmony with nature in a too romantic light. Social and cultural change and population pressure erode the sustainability of natural resource use by indigenous peoples and control over natural resources by indigenous peoples does not automatically provide a guarantee for sustainable use of natural resources (Utting 2000; Kuper 2003; Lu Holt 2005).

This paper describes the political dynamics of Philippine crocodile conservation in Dinang Creek and the responses of local inhabitants. We try to refute the accusation on the protest banner, echoed in political ecology, that conservationists put the preservation of nature above the interest of indigenous peoples. We argue that this view has little relevance for Philippine crocodile conservation or for indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and social justice, and renders a critical analysis of the contemporary reality in the Philippine uplands impossible.

Let us, from the beginning, clarify our own position in the spectrum between human rights protagonists and environmentalists. This paper is largely based on our experiences in the Crocodile Rehabilitation, Observance and Conservation (CROC) project, which aims to conserve the Philippine crocodile in the wild in Northeast Luzon. Over the past years we have made regular visits to Dinang Creek to monitor the crocodile population, supervise students and talk with farmers, barangay officials and community leaders how best to protect the crocodiles. As such this paper can be read as a justification of our actions to protect crocodiles. We recognize that reinterpreting political events such as described above while being a player in the game, brings us in a rather vulnerable position. But we feel a need to distance ourselves from the rather simplistic and one-dimensional representations of nature conservation and indigenous peoples’ rights in current debates about the conflict or convergence of social justice and biodiversity conservation agendas.

This paper is structured as follows. First, we will give a short background on the Philippine crocodile conservation program in the Northern Sierra Madre. Second, we introduce the reader to the limited ethnographic information that is available on the Kalinga. Third, we present a detailed case study of crocodile conservation activities in Dinang Creek. Two facts clearly stand out. One: crocodiles have survived in Dinang Creek due to an indigenous conservation ethic. Two: the indigenous community fears that crocodile conservation will impose restrictions on resources on which they depend, and consequently resists these efforts. However, the struggle of the local community is not primarily about the control over resources, let alone crocodiles. The indigenous people in Dinang Creek are part,

often unwillingly, of a much larger social conflict in contemporary Philippine society: the violent insurgency of the New Peoples Army (NPA). In the final paragraph we aim to respond to the challenge to conservationists (Chapin 2004) and stress the importance of including a social justice agenda in crocodile conservation activities as a matter of principle and of pragmatism.

THE PHILIPPINE CROCODILE

The Philippine crocodile (Crocodylusmindorensis) is a small freshwater crocodilian endemic to the Philippines. Intensive hunting, unsustainable fishing, and habitat loss have decimated the population below critical threshold levels throughout the Philippine archipelago (van Weerd and van der Ploeg 2003). The last nation-wide population estimate put the total number of surviving non-hatchling Philippine crocodiles at one hundred, making it the most severely threatened crocodile species in the world (Ross 1998). Crocodylus mindorensis is listed in the IUCN red list as critically endangered (IUCN 2005). Responding to this alarming situation, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) established a captive breeding program in 1987: the Crocodile Farming Institute (CFI). CFI has successfully bred Philippine crocodiles in captivity, but no crocodiles have so far been re- introduced in the wild. Negative community attitudes towards crocodiles make such a re- introduction almost impossible (Banks 2000). In the Philippines, where the much larger and potentially man-eating estuarine crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) also occurs, crocodiles are generally perceived to be dangerous. However, no fatal attacks on people are known from the Philippine crocodile. Since October 2004, the species is officially protected by virtue of Republic Act 9147, the Wildlife Act.

In March 1999, Mr. Samuel Francisco, a fisherman from sitio San Isidro in the municipality of San Mariano, accidentally caught a crocodile hatchling in Disulap River. Previously thought to be extinct in the wild on Luzon (WCSP 1997), this by-catch opened the possibility for in-situ Philippine crocodile conservation. A Philippine crocodile conservation program was set up by the Dutch funded Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park-Conservation Project (NSMNP-CP), an integrated conservation and development project implemented by Plan International. These conservation activities were sustained by the Crocodile Research, Observance and Conservation (CROC) project of the Cagayan Valley Program on Environment and Development (CVPED) mainly with funding from the British Petroleum (BP) conservation program. Since July 2003, the CROC project is an officially registered Philippine non-governmental organization with the aim to protect the Philippine crocodile in its natural habitat: the Mabuwaya Foundation Inc.

Extensive surveys in San Mariano identified three breeding areas with a total minimum population of thirty-one non-hatchling Philippine crocodiles in 2003 (van Weerd and van der Ploeg 2003): Disulap River, Dunoy Lake and Dinang Creek (see figure 1). Having few ecological similarities, Disulap River is a fast flowing river surrounded by secondary forested lime stone cliffs, Dunoy Lake a small natural depression with stagnant water at the forest fringe, and Dinang Creek a near-stagnant creek in an intensively used agricultural area. These areas share one common trait that might explain the occurrence of remnant populations of Philippine crocodiles: they are inhabited by indigenous people. Especially in Dinang Creek the role of indigenous people in the survival of the Philippine crocodile becomes apparent. Here, the traditional belief systems and resource use practices of the Kalinga prevented the killing of crocodiles, and although these cultural attitudes are now rapidly changing they gave some form of protection to the species. Had the people wished to kill the crocodiles, as happened throughout the Philippines, they could have easily done so.

This is in stark contrast to the wetlands in San Mariano used and controlled by Ibanag or Ilocano farmers where crocodiles were exterminated.

Figure 1: Crocodile localities in San Mariano

A short history of San Mariano reveals much about the processes affecting crocodiles and indigenous people throughout the Philippines. The indigenous peoples of the area, the Agta and Kalinga, depended heavily on the rivers and streams for fish, but had very limited impact on the crocodile population. In this paper we will focus exclusively on the Kalinga. For the sake of the argument we do not include the Agta in the equation; the specific problems surrounding the Agta and their fundamentally different modes of production and organization need specific attention. Agta do not directly live along Dinang Creek and have as such little relevance to the case presented here.

In 1896, the Spanish colonizers established an administrative center on the convergence of the Pinacanauan and Disabungan rivers, and called it San Mariano (Keesing 1962). It marked a turning point in the political control of the area and the fate of the Philippine crocodile. San Mariano experienced a steady influx of Christian Ibanag migrants (Huigen 2004). These groups claimed the best agricultural lands along the extensive riverbanks and flood plains for the cultivation of upland rice, root crops, vegetables and bananas. Crocodiles were regularly killed, but human population was too low to severely threaten the animals: in 1939 there were 7,046 people in San Mariano (Keesing 1962: p. 262). With the construction of Maharlika highway in the 1960s logging corporations expanded their operations to the forests of the Northern Sierra Madre (Van den Top 2003; Persoon and van der Ploeg 2003). A large inflow of impoverished immigrants from Ilocos followed the logging companies and settled in the region, in many cases acquiring the lands of the Kalinga. As of today, 53 percent of the people in San Mariano are of Ilocano origin. These farmers can still recall the days that crocodiles were widely distributed in San Mariano: in the 1960s large crocodiles were still observed in the Pinacanauan and Disabungan rivers. In the 1970s,

commercial hunters from Mindanao systematically searched the river systems of the municipality killing crocodiles for the trade in hides. As a result, the crocodile population collapsed. Rapid economic change continued to threaten the remnant crocodile population: intensive fishing regularly killed crocodiles and freshwater swamps and marshes were converted into rice paddies. Crocodiles were often captured: purposively for the pet trade or accidentally in fishing nets. These factors, combined with a strongly growing human population, in 2000 San Mariano had 40,995 inhabitants, jeopardized the survival changes of the species in San Mariano. The Kalinga who inhabited the river valleys of San Mariano met a similar fate: they were assimilated into mainstream Ilocano society (Scott 1979). San Mariano appears to offer clear evidence that loss of cultural diversity is intricately linked to the loss of biological diversity.

THE KALINGA

The Kalinga are widely considered as the indigenous people of the region currently known as San Mariano. In an article published in 1861, the German naturalist Carl Semper first made notice of the Kalinga: “Nirgends aber sah ich gröβere Eintracht und Friede, gröβere Ordnung und Zufriedenheid ohne das mindeste Zuthun irgend einer obrigkeitlichen Gewalt, die sie nich kennen, als in der einen Hälfte de Rancheria’s der Iraya’s (…). Diese Iraya’s oder Calinga’s bewhohnen das Fluβgebiet des (…) Rio de Ilagan”. (Nowhere have I seen more unity and peace, more order and satisfaction without the least need for violence of government, which they do not know, as in the Rancherias of the Irayas. (…) These Irayas or Kalinga inhabit the watershed of the Rio de Ilagan) (op cit.: p. 255-56). Semper described the Kalinga as a distinct cultural community, calling themselves the Iraya or Catalangan:

“Naturvölker (…) die frei von fremden, indischem, muhamedanischem oder chinesischem

Einflus geblieben sind” (a primitive society (…) free of foreign, Indian, Muslim or Chinese influences) (op cit.: p. 253)

There seems to be some confusion over the term Kalinga. The general term Kalinga appears to be mainly used by the Ibanag communities in the lowlands of Isabela to describe the infidel tribes in the mountains: kalinga literally means enemy in Ibanag (Scott 1979). Hence, the confusion with the people of Kalinga Province in the Cordillera Mountains with whom the San Mariano Kalinga have no direct historical, economic, cultural or linguistic connections. Also the term iraya has an Ibanag origin, meaning upriver (Keesing 1962). Early Spanish sources talk about the Catalanganes (Scott 1979). Blumentritt (1890) referred to the Irayas in Las Razas del Archipelago Filipino. Otley Beyer (1917) on his turn distinguished three groups: the Kalibugan, the Katalangan and the Iraya. And in his book ‘The ethnohistory of Northern Luzon’, Felix Keesing (1962) mentioned that: “On the Sierra Madre side, the Gaddang speakers are sometimes called Kalingas, in the general sense of “enemy” mountaineers, or else have local river names such as the “Katalangan” and the “Kalibugan.” But one group east of Ilagan is still called Irraya. Their numbers are small, and they are dry cultivators except as they have adopted lowland wet cropping in contemporary modern times” (op cit.: p. 239). William Henry Scott, based on his visit to San Mariano in 1978, called these groups Kalingas, simply because that’s how they were called in San Mariano (Scott 1979). Indeed, today the people refer to themselves as Kalinga. This rather academic labeling exercise finds its origin in different views about the history of the Kalinga. Semper (1861) and Scott (1979) concluded that the Kalinga were a distinct cultural minority with their own identity and language. Felix Keesing (1962), however, claims that the Kalinga are Ibanag and Gaddang runaways: refugees fleeing military raids aimed to pacify the violent uprisings against the Spanish rule. In the rebellions that shook the Cagayan Valley from 1615 to 1755

several pagan groups fled to the mountains to escape Christianization and forced labor. Interestingly, Spanish colonization in the Philippines often reinforced parallel ethnic and religious boundaries or remodeled these when necessary. Consequently, the most relevant distinction between groups in Cagayan Valley became those between the Christian and civilized tribes on the one hand and the pagans and enemies on the other hand (Keesing 1962; Salgado 2002).

Whereas scientists debate the exact origin of the Kalinga, mainstream society classifies them as indigenous to San Mariano. The comprehensive land use plan (CLUP) of the local government unit (LGU) of San Mariano, for example, refers to the Kalinga in very much the same dialectic way as the Spaniards did: “The Kalingas and Negritos in the area today are not significantly different from the group as Semper described 120 years ago but due to the influx of more civilized/cultured groups of people and the continuing education of these aborigines, some socio-economic changes in their lives are observed and noted. At present, there is only a mild trace of this culture in the developing communities especially in the poblacion for the original ethnic groups are nomadic in nature. Thus, they reside in remote and forested areas of the municipality” (MPDC 1995). At present there are 2,541 Kalinga in the municipality of San Mariano. They are concentrated along the Catalangan River and the Pinacanauan de Ilagan, or the Rio de Ilagan as Semper called it. In San Mariano, the Kalinga are among the most marginalized groups in society: average incomes are less than US$ 2 per day. Generally, they depend on slash-and-burn farming in the uplands. However, the traditional swidden agricultural practices as described by Semper no longer exist. The devastation of the forests of San Mariano by logging companies through the state-sponsored Timber License Agreements (TLAs) and the subsequent massive in-migration of Ibanag and Ilocano farmers have made land scarce. Most Kalinga now permanently cultivate an average area of 4 ha. Banana and increasingly yellow corn are important cash crops. Most farmers are self-sufficient and cultivate upland as well as irrigated rice varieties. In addition, beans, kamote, cassava and peanuts are usually grown. Land tenure is, as we will see below, a serious problem: most farmers do not have formal ownership of the lands they cultivate. Small-scale logging is an important additional source of income for many Kalinga families.

William Henry Scott’s (1979) main aim was to describe the acculturation process taking place among the Kalinga: “Semper’s Kalingas (…) appeared to be on the verge of absorption into the anonymity of the majority population. (…) A century of migration into the Katalangan Valley has outnumbered its Kalinga inhabitants and limited their access to potential swidden land. (…) It was due to the social pressure -and ridicule no doubt- that the districts unhispanized Filipinos gave up their tattoos and earrings, and all the esthetic expressions of their religion. This impetus for change appears to be relatively mild, with an easy mingling of Kalingas and Ibanags, but less benign forces are confronting the same people in the 1970’s -namely, modern logging operations and military counterinsurgencies campaigns.” Twenty-five years, a logging boom and a revolution later it has become almost impossible to distinguish the Kalinga from their Ibanag and Ilocano neighbors. The traditional clothes, tattoos, earrings and statues that Semper (1861) admired can no longer be found. The changes in immaterial culture are obviously harder to quantify. But religious duties, rituals, healing practices, and oral history have largely disappeared or have fundamentally changed as people were converted to Christianity (Knibbe and Angged in prep.). Without falling in static and romantic prejudice, it can be concluded that Kalinga culture is rapidly changing as these upland communities are being incorporated in Filipino mainstream society. And in this case change indeed implies the loss of identity. There is no explicitly stated wish among the Kalinga to retain a distinct cultural identity with an own language, territory and material culture. On the contrary, in many cases the Kalinga do no longer identify themselves as