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Poverty, illiteracy and unemployment levels are high among the 18 indigenous groups that live in Mindanao. The IFAD-funded Northern Mindanao Community Initiatives Resource Management Project has helped empower tribes to take the lead in the education of their children and in their own self-governance – two important routes to a better future.

A makeshift classroom. SIKAT schools provide indigenous children in upland areas with a basic education while reinforcing their cultural and linguistic identity.

An indigenous school in a remote community

“Illiteracy has haunted our people for years. Now we are determined to eliminate it.” Michael Montenegro, a 23-year-old member of the Manobo, an indigenous cultural community of over 157,000 people, is passionate in his support of the School of Indigenous Knowledge, Arts and Tradition (SIKAT) where he teaches. The school is one of four in the municipality of San Miguel established with financing from the Northern Mindanao project with the aim of making education accessible to indigenous children in remote areas.

The school is in Bacaca-an, a settlement in the isolated upland village of Bagyang, San Miguel, Surigao del Sur, where Michael was born and spent part of his childhood. Until recently, there was no school there at all and none nearby. The few people in his community who had gone to school had needed to move to non-indigenous local communities in the lowlands to do so.

The fourth of eleven children, Michael was fortunate that his family could make that move. His father, a tribal leader and former village councillor, travelled frequently to the lowlands to sell their farm produce. He then decided to base the family there, travelling back to his farm periodically, so that his children could go to school.

Michael was top in his secondary school class and won a full scholarship to attend college under the Educational Assistance Programme of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, becoming the first and – so far – the only college graduate from his community.

Upon graduation, Michael immediately faced a dilemma. The tribe offered him a job as a teacher at a new school for indigenous children back in Bacaca-an. His first reaction was to turn the offer down unequivocally. But after careful thought, he decided to accept: “I am a Manobo and if I don’t help these kids, then who will?” he says.

Michael teaches 68 children, from grades 1 to 3, using a curriculum that he and other teachers designed after receiving training in curriculum development from an NGO contracted by the project.

The school’s approach is unconventional. Michael takes his pupils to lakes, forests and farms, and uses these visits as a springboard for lessons in English, mathematics, science and agriculture. To ensure that children understand the lessons well, he translates them into the vernacular. Now at least 90 per cent of Michael’s pupils can read, write and count. They can also catch wild boar and trap birds and other animals that destroy plants thanks to Michael’s lessons in traditional hunting methods.

The Bacaca-an school has proved to be a significant and life-changing element for the indigenous peoples. It has also attracted more people to the area. Parents help maintain the school and have planted vegetable and herb gardens for the school’s use.
Determined to become a better teacher, Michael is currently enrolled in a distance learning degree course in education.

Steps towards reclaiming self-governance

Michael’s story is unusual. Many indigenous young people who have been educated outside their communities find it difficult to return to the traditional way of life. Some find work in the lowlands; those in conflict areas may be recruited by armed groups. This brain drain is weakening indigenous communities.

Leaders of the Higaunon, an indigenous cultural community of about 100,000 people who  live in the mountainous regions of Misamis Oriental, have spent considerable time reflecting on the plight of their people and community. Once a self-governed and self-sufficient tribe within their own territories, they, like other tribes, lost their political voice during colonialism. Their traditional territories were divided into provinces, municipalities, villages and settlements. Political leadership was assigned to people they had not, and would never have, chosen. Centuries of powerlessness and silence ensued.

Guided by the coalition-building component of the IFAD-funded Northern Mindanao project, the Higaunon, over a three-year period, put together the broken pieces of the customary laws transmitted to them through oral tradition. In particular, over time, they recovered many of the basic laws that define tribal governance, including those relating to the justice system, political structures and processes, leadership, spirituality and education. They also defined the roles and responsibilities of their different representatives, and determined the qualifications and criteria for their selection.

As a result, first-ever guidelines were drawn up for the tribe’s representation at local legislative councils – from village to municipal levels – and at special local bodies such as the peace and order council, the local school and health boards, and the people’s law enforcement board. These guidelines have been agreed by the tribe, local government units, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and the Department of Interior and Local Government.

Recovering their voice through such representation, the Higaunon hope to be able to spread understanding of their culture, while also gaining experience for themselves in local government systems and processes. Their representation will also ensure that government services are responsive to their needs. This IFAD-supported initiative is the first of its kind in the Philippines.

“After 20 years of working with indigenous peoples and for their empowerment, it is only now that I am seeing the direction of self-governance established by the Higaunon themselves, not forced on them by outsiders,” says Datu Lumandong, a tribal leader.

Some considerations

Support for the indigenous peoples component of the Northern Mindanao project was slow in gaining momentum, and the many bottlenecks encountered delayed the start-up of activities and slackened the pace of implementation – this despite the fact that IFAD had provided US$100,000 in grant financing before the full project began to help demarcate the ancestral domains of some of the major indigenous cultural communities in the province.

A major hurdle was the low level of engagement of the indigenous cultural communities themselves. Addressing this problem required the project to expend far greater efforts than anticipated, relying on local champions, such as Michael in the above story, who forwent more lucrative rewards elsewhere to help his tribal community build self-confidence and feel truly empowered.

Other difficulties arose because of institutional weaknesses within the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples, the main government body responsible for supporting indigenous cultural communities and subsequently implementing this project component. 

The commission needed first to be strengthened itself before it could help deliver the expected benefits to the indigenous communities under the project.

The project’s efforts subsequently yielded major results by working out mechanisms for identifying local leaders among the indigenous peoples. They became members of local councils, thereby further strengthening the empowerment of indigenous peoples in local decision- and policy-making.

Source: IFAD