Bukidnon tribe seeks endorsement from city for ancestral domain claim

The Bukidnon tribe is seeking endorsement from the city government of Malaybalay for its Daraghuyan ancestral domain claim over at least 4,700 hectares inside the Mt. Kitanglad Range and Natural Park. Bae Inatlawan Adelina Tarino, head claimant, said the city government’s endorsement is the last requirement for the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to process their application.

“We hope you will help us in this requirement, which is the last document we need for the application,” Tarino’s September 23 letter to Mayor Florencio Flores, said. Tarino’s letter was written in Cebuano.

Flores endorsed the request to the city council on the same day. The legislators have calendared it for October 7, Tarino said, adding Councilor Manuel Dinlayan, the council’s committee on indigenous people’s chair, assured here it will be tackled this week.

She noted the tribe’s great difficulty in acquiring an endorsement from the barangay government in Dalwangan village, where the tribe is based.  Read full story here.

The never ending story of war —right in our backyard

Waking up to a broadcaster howling against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front one morning, I was tempted to turn the radio off.

 

The grain of his voice has pestered me in my space in that corner of the house.

 

“Maayo ng girahon sila kay gusto man diay nila og Independence!” Gusto pa gyod nila iapil ang tibuok Bukidnon aron mohimo sila og regional government!” (It’s good to go to war with them since they wanted independence. They also like to cover the whole Bukidnon in a bid to form a regional government!).

 

I was really forced to get on my feet even if I only had three hours of sleep yet and dialed the radio station.

Waway Saway on videos and books on peace for children

“Iitsa, tamoka, yataki, tumbi!”  “Iitsa, tamoka,
yataki, tumbi!”

Iitsa, tamoka, yataki, tumbi! (That’s throw, catch, step and stamp!)

I thought for a while it was a line in a Kenyan song I learned from
someplace else, but the words sounded familiar even if it was belted
out in a universal beat.

Waway Saway’s song lingered in my hearing perimeter even hours after
watching a video on it, which he posted at Youtube.com.

The song was about care for the environment in which the singer urged
the listeners to throw, catch, step and stamp on one’s fear against
caring for the environment.

The video showed Gali (“fellow” or Binukid equivalent to Cebuano’s
“Bai”) perform in an international audience with fellow Talaandig
artist Balugto Necosia in a peace concert in South Korea’s tourist
favorite Naminara Island.

Kalilang in a hotel under renovation, and identity in Mindanao

It was a bit awkward for me and Omar, a reserved Maguindanaoan who tried to be informative, as we took a peek at the wedding of a couple from two big Maguindanaoan families in Cotabato City.

We were looking through the window from our side of the conference hall— we looked like kids wanting to gate crash or something. Everybody in the training was doing just that as we waited for our morning session to start.

We were holding grassroots documentation and reporting training next door and the arrival of wedding guests drew our attention —especially when traditional wedding songs and hymns began to play.

Living in a Mindanao suburb

“Suburbs are commonly defined as residential areas on the outskirts of a city or large town. Most modern suburbs are commuter towns with many single-family homes. Many suburbs have some degree of political autonomy and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods.”

I enjoyed attending a village social gathering last Saturday. It was a fellowship party for a new organization, one that sought to gather the professionals in our suburban village called Kalasungay.

Ours, now a village of at least 1,000 households, is home to Bukidnon’s earliest recorded native settlements. Majority of the residents belong to either the Bukidnon or Higaonon tribes.

There is much pride in me to settle in this village, where I could trace history by recalling the family names of our neighbors.

Davao choral group wins Asian tilt

Davao City’s renowned Himig Singers won the grand prize of the 1st Asian Choir Games in Jakarta, Indonesia over the weekend, City Councilor Myrna Dalodo-Ortiz said. But Ortiz still could not give other details of the group’s victory. The all-Dabawenyo choral group won in one of the 21 categories of the pioneering tilt participated by more than 70 choral groups, mostly Indonesian-based, from around Asia-Pacific.  

The group was one of 12 from the Philippines that competed in various categories in the competition.  According to the competition’s website, the group was conducted by Aldwin Curambao and Alvin E. Aviola.  

The other Mindanao-based group in the competition is the Xavier University Glee Club from Cagayan de Oro City.  Read the rest of the report on MindaNews.com.