generating energies

356 Pages·2017·22.83 MB·English

GENERATING ENERGIES
CULTURAL POLITICS AND GEOTHERMAL PROJECT
IN MT. APO, PHILIPPINES
A thesis submitted for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Social Anthropology
School of Oriental and African Studies
University of London
ALBERT E. ALEJO
London
1999
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In memory of my beloved father,
Severino M. Alejo
and of two great teachers and friends,
Dr. Virgilio Enriquez
Fr. Renato A. Ocampo, SJ
GENERATING ENERGIES
CULTURAL POLITICS AND GEOTHERMAL PROJECT
IN MT. APO, PHILIPPINES
Thesis Abstract
Albert E. Alejo
1999
THIS REFLEXIVE ETHNOGRAPHY investigates both the practice of cultural
regeneration movement and fieldwork engagement in the context of contested
development. The setting is Mt. Apo National Park where the Philippine National
Oil Company has built a 250-megawatt geothermal power plant. The project aims to
reduce government’s dependence on imported oil and fuel its industrialisation
program. Mt. Apo, however, is an ecologically and politically sensitive site, being a
sanctuary of Southeast Asia’s rich biodiversity, home to indigenous peoples, and
shelter for armed insurgents. The local NGO and Church opposition grew into a
massive national and international protest. Despite the hesitant hospitality of the
affected community, PNOC managed to transform its image into a corporate
environmentalist and pursue its project.
This thesis explores the interaction among the various contextual actors,
including social scientists and the sick, the pastors, priests and protesters. It also
analyses the politicisation of rituals and the construction of advocacy in Europe. My
main focus, however, is the kin-based movement called Tuddok. Tuddok aimed at
cultural regeneration and territorial recognition. It emerged, apparently, from the
failure of both development project and political protest to take seriously the
predicament of the host community. Cultural politics research rightly treats this type
of movement not simply as resistance, but as struggle for meaning and existence.
Even recent literature, however, still equates movement with protest. I highlight,
instead, what may be called cultural energies—the human capabilities by which
people collectively re-animate themselves in face of, but not exhaustively in reaction
to, political binary oppositions.
My fieldwork (September 1995—January 1997) consisted mostly in
accompanying Tuddok from its revival of Manobo dance, to its retrieval of Mt. Apo
history and territory. As Tuddok became central to my research, my research in turn
served as resource for the movement. This partnership grew tense as the
ethnographer’s status as Catholic priest allegedly threatened the peace of the
Protestant village. The last section of the thesis reflects on the practice of fieldwork
as social intervention before it is transformed into a textual invention.
Table of contents
Abstj'act 3
List of Illustrations 7
Notes on the Local Languages 9
Glossary 11
A cronyms and Abbreviations 13
List of Personal Names 15
A cknowledgements 17
Orientation 19
Study 1 Politics, Culture, and Existence:
London View of Lumad Struggle 29
1. Lumad Voices, London Views 29
2. Politicised Environment 35
The politics of environmental change 36
Political complexity of Mt, Apo 41
In-between spaces 45
3. Cultural Movement 47
Anthropological contributions 47
Theorising everyday life 51
Toward an everyday sacredness of Mt. Apo 55
4. Existential Struggle 57
Bodily forms of social experience 58
Everyday suffering/tactics for survival 59
On learning to dance once again 60
Toward an ethnography ‘of and ‘in’ tension 63
Study 2 The Dissent of Mount Apo: Sayaban>s
Culture of Fear or Discourse of Pain? 66
1. The Politics of Arrival 67
The use of arrival accounts 67
Approaching Sayaban 70
Assembling rejection 78
Reviewing process, revealing fractures 82
2. Chronic Fear as Chronicle of Pain 84
Fear of conflict with PNOC 86
The religious question 89
Protesters’ language 94
Anthropological research and the media 96
Fear as memory of pain 101
Challenging standard ethnographic synthesis 103
5
Study 3 Dancing with Borrowed Gongs: Tuddok’s
Movement for Cultural Regeneration 111
1. En-countering Culturelessness 112
Depressed culture, bulldozed environment 114
2. Tapping Family Energies 116
Critical clan, creative plan 117
Simple Steps, Complex Moves 127
3. Mobilising Bodies: Tuddok and Ettok 139
Interpreting illness 139
Resources for hospitalisation 140
The economics of a "miracle5 143
Risks and gains 146
Study 4 Landmarks and Land Claims: Tahapantau
Mapping of Ancestral Domain 150
1. Localising Ancestral Domain Discourse 150
Sitio Waterfall 150
DA02 and the discourse of ancestral domain claim 155
Localising DA02: NABAMAS and DENR 158
2. Politics of Consultation 161
But where are the people? 161
Murmuring 162
The public consultations 164
Understanding people’s rejection
3. Alternative Geographies 170
The making of a local environmentalist 171
From ‘Bummis ’ to ‘Surbe ’ 175
Visual echoes and bodily memories 179
Reflective assessment 184
Study 5 Beyond Collating Histories: Apao
Construction of Collective Narrative 188
1. From Moments to Movement 189
Datu Santiago "Lago’ Aba: The moment of mission 191
Kapitan lyong: "Who fought the fire in Mt. Apo?’ 193
Atawan Bayawan: "Seeing my father’s land again’ 195
Tano and Beting: "Is it really worth it?’ 195
Apo Salumay and the elders 205
2. Textwork, Legwork, and Network 208
Righting history 209
Indigenous and ingenious strategies 216
Paper power 220
3. Cultural Context of Historical Text 224
Thin history? 224
Divisive? Empowering? 227
Study 6 The Embarrassment of Rituals: D’yandi
in Protest and Project Practices 231
1. (Post)Protest Reflections 233
From protest rhetoric to policy research 234
From identity to strategy 236
2. D 'yandx and the Ritualisation of Protest 239
The passage of a rite 240
Reconstructing the D’yandi of 1989 243
Sealed in blood and wine 247
Sacredness and secrecy 253
3. Conflict of rituals and PNOC cultural research 257
Counter-ritual and counter-counter-ritual 257
Counter-interpretation and
counter-counter-interpretation 261
Framing (Up) Mt. Apo 266
Study 7 Ethnography and Ethnogenesis:
Fieldwork Learning and Leaning 277
1. Poetics and Politics of Ethnogenesis 278
Tuddok’s initial notion of culture 279
Expanding culture in practice 282
From movement to management 290
Insighting identities, generating energies 293
2. Ethnography, Energy, Ethics and Existence 296
What are we in fieldwork for? 298
Between and beyond objectivity and militancy 303
PostScript 311
Appendix I D’yandi Declaration of Principles 314
Appendix II Chronology of Recent Lumad Formation 316
Bibliogi'ctphy 318
7
List of illustrations
Maps
1. Location map of Mt. Apo National Park 8
2. Vicinity map of Ilomavis, Kidapawan, Cotabato 72
3. Sketch map of Bongolanon, Magpet, Cotabato 174
4. Matching D’yandi and PNOC research areas 270
Figures
1.1 Campaign leaflet in London 33
1.2 Icons of protest 34
2.1 Approaching Sayaban 71
2.2 Local school and church 92
3.1 Dancing again 123
3.2 Renewing rituals 124
3.3 Tuddok leaders and members 125
4.1 Sitio Waterfall (Tausuvan) 151
4.2 Datu Enagaro Bugcal 152
5.1 Datu Atawan Bayawan 196
5.2 Datu Santiago "Lago’ Aba 197
5.3 Apo Salumay Iyong 215
6.1 D’yandi in the media 250
6.2 Aluhamad mobilisation in the 1990s 251
6.3 Pamaas ritual of the PNOC 259
Charts
7.1 Aspects of ancestral domain claims 289
7.2 (See Map 4)
C , PHILIPPINES
LUZON
Key to main map
Manila
Mt Apo National Park
Geothermal Proiect
Land above 600 metres (approx)
PALAWAN
Land above 1500 metres (approx)
MINDANAO
Roads
o
Of Locatipn
200 km of main
map
Cotabato City
SAMAl
Kidapawan^
Matingao R
Davao Gulf
Koronadal
Ml Matutum 2302 m.
General
Santos I
Map 1. Location Map of Mt. Apo National Park
9
Notes on the local languages
In Mindanao, the eighteen major ethnolinguistic groups who refused to be Islamized
called Lumad (Lumigue 1990; Rodil 1992, 1993). One of these groups is called
Manobo. Manobo itself is a generic category that covers various tribal groups. They
live in villages spread across Mindanao. Their languages probably came from a
common Proto-Manobo root (Elkins 1977; Walton 1979; cf. Lucero et al 1994).
These various Manobo tribes, however, speak their own dialects with varying
degrees of intelligibility to one another (Grimes 1996).
The people with whom I worked on the western flanks of Mt. Apo are the
Obo-speaking Manobo (Khor Lee Kee & Vander Molen 1990/1991:3; Cagas
1990:26). Although they refer to themselves simply as Manobo, a number of them
have accepted the name Obo Manobo as coined by the Summer Institute of
Linguistics (SIL) (e.g. Walton 1979; Vander Molen & Khor Lee Kee 1991). The
Obo Manobo are sometimes called Kidapawan Manobo (Grimes 1996). This is to
distinguish them from the Matigsalug Manobo, Ilianen Manobo, Bukidnon Manobo,
Cotabato Manobo, and others, which are named after their places of concentration.
Estimates of Obo Manobo population range from 10,000 to 35,000. The SIL
literacy brochure mentions a recent survey placing the number at 71,000. Exact
figures are not available. This is allegedly because they tend to get mixed up with
other ethnic groups, or that some of them have been assimilated to the lowlanders
communities, or because they are characteristically a ‘scattered7 and hidden people5
(Vander Molen & Khor Lee Kee 1991:5; cf. Grimes 1996).
Traditional Obo Manobo literature are mostly in oral performance such as the
uwahing (epic recitation), ponguman (stories), itulan (history) and uhan-uhan
(short poems) (cf. Villarico-Ramos 1980). Recent productions have been mostly in
the form of translations of Christian songs from English such as ‘Amazing Grace5
done in conjunction with the SIL Bible translation project (e.g. SIL 1995a, 1995b).
Attempts to promote the language are underway. On 15 September 1995, advocates
formed the Obo Manobo Association (OMA) under the patronage of the SIL.
I shall adopt the spelling of Manobo words according to the way most ‘literate
speakers tend to write [them] now5 (Khor Lee Kee & Vander Molen 1990/1991:31),
that is, with the minimum of diacritical marks or symbols for glottal stops.
I have followed the more popular spelling of Obo Manobo words that are
already in circulation, e.g. Manobo, instead of Monuvu as the local speakers would
speak it, agong instead of ahong (gong), and batasan instead of botasan (local
ways). This rule also operates with proper names. Umpan7 for example, should
actually be written as Umpon, according to its original pronunciation, but it would
be difficult to alter the existing documents. Similarly, Bugcal has definitely
transformed the elongated vowel sound of the native Bugkaa.
In some cases, however, I have kept the spelling that is closer to the original
pronunciation because they serve as markers for local identification. I have
maintained koiivuungan, for example, despite the fact that kalibungan is used as the
name of the Kidapawan towncentre festival. Similarly, I keep Allow’t Sondawa