The Manobo of Midpanga and Midtungok

(Blogger’s note: The following is an excerpt from the book Defending the Land: Lumad and Moro People’s Struggle for Ancestral Domain in Mindanao, specifically pp. 105–6. The publishers welcome and even encourage the reproduction of the book in part or in its entirety, so I am posting this excerpt here without prior permission. To cite the book, please see Webliography.)

Sitio Midpanga of Barangay Kuden is two and a half kilometers away from the barangay. The rolling terrain made the place unreachable, except by carabao and horses.

According to Datu Kulap Manguda, he is the oldest person in the community. He came from Landingan, Kulaman and moved here long before the Second World War. They are the only family in the area who lived there for a long time, until other Manobos arrived in the 1960s. The area now has 63 Manobo households or some 90 families.

The Manobos still plant corn, upland rice and coffee, evident in the fields dotting the hillsides. Most of the Manobo residents built their huts on hilltops or on the hillsides, offering a breathtaking view of the slopes below. Christian settlers did not bother them, but they say they will feel more secure if the land is theirs to keep without risk of encroachment.

The Manobos lived in Barangay Midtungok since time immemorial. The place had once been lush forest, with wild animals aplenty for hunting. No Manobo table was without roasted deer or pig or monkey, even birds, as the Manobos were good hunters. Their means of livelihood, in addition to hunting in the forest and fishing in the Kulaman River, was planting rice, corn, camote and camoteng kahoy.

Informants Datu Angkay Omot, Datu Mog Pandim, Kagawad Teb Pangki, Danny Salaya said the Ilocanos started arriving in the early part of the 1950s, the first being led by the Narvaez, Nacional and Erpos families. The Ilonggos followed suit in the 1970s. Shortly after the arrival of the Christians, the sitio opened a primary school. Lately, they added Grade V classes, and there is a plan to open Grade VI classes in 1998.

Many Manobos occupy the central portion of the barangay. There are some fifty Manobo families, with more than 500 registered voters. There are about four hundred Christian families in the area.

The election of two Manobos in the barangay—Teb Pangki and Kapali Sonap implies the Christians’ acceptance and recognition of their leadership. Ted Pangki even emerged as number one kagawad in the last elections. There are also four datus in the community: Datus Angkay Omot, Mog Pandim, Abung Ateng and Dyanon Sasa.

The Dulangan Manobo and Their Domain: Kulaman

(Blogger’s note: The following is an excerpt from the book Defending the Land: Lumad and Moro People’s Struggle for Ancestral Domain in Mindanao, specifically pp. 103–4. The publishers welcome and even encourage the reproduction of the book in part or in its entirety, so I am posting this excerpt here. To cite the book, please see Webliography.

Except for inserting a minor correction, enclosed in brackets, I did not change a single word and kept the style of the text as it appears on the source. Note, however, that some descriptions of geographical locations in this excerpt are not accurate. For a disambiguation of the term Kulaman, see the blog page About Kulaman.)

In Kulaman (now Ninoy Aquino), Sultan Kudarat, the names of sitios, barangays and other places were often derived from the names of people such as their ancestors, events or things. For example, Lambak is the other name of a place called Basag, a term used referring to the soil in the middle of the forest. It also referred to the core (ubod) of a Tapican (palm variety) abundant in the vicinity.

According to the informants, Datu Keson Mamo, Eddie Labe and Jessie Andang, at first there were twenty Manobo families in the area. When the Visayans started arriving in 1974, only ten Manobo families stayed in the area. Their means of livelihood consisted of hunting wild animals, which were plentiful in the virgin forest; fishing in the nearby river or stream; and engaging in kaingin agriculture. As with the other Manobos, they subsisted mainly on dagmay (gabi), sugar cane, sweet potatoes, cassava, corn and rice. Later, they also planted coffee.

The barangay officials of the poblacion of Bugso set a reservation for the Manobos comprising 42 hectares. There is also a proposal by the same officials to make the sitio a separate barangay by itself.

The name of Sitio Todog of Barangay Bugso came from the name of a hunter from Malegdeg who rested and died under the shade of a large tree. The sitio is eight kilometers away from the Municipality of Sen. Ninoy Aquino or Kulaman, and three kilometers from the center of Brgy. Bugso. Its view is splendid, with hills similar to Bohol’s Chocolate Hills, though fields dot the hillsides.

Later, a Manobo named Dipunto Kalay, claimed some 1,500 hectares of land for the use of his family, much to the consternation of the other Manobos. The clan numbered about 30 families, with a population of more than a hundred, including children.

The name of Barangay Lagubang is derived from the oldest resident of the area. A nearby sitio also bears the name of his wife Kapatagan.

Barangay Midpanga was named in honor of a certain datu who went hunting in the lush forest one morning and never returned. His family and relatives went searching and found him dead under a big tree, apparently killed by a falling branch (sanga). Since then they called the place where they found him Midpanga.

Barangay Midtungok got its name from a creek where a mother and a child drowned during a [raging] flood. The child rushed to save his mother who was carried downstream by the strong current. Both disappeared in the swirling waters, their bodies found a couple of days later.

Baranagay Nati was named after the first known leader of the community who died by drowning during a devastating flood long before the Spanish and American colonization.

Killing for Honor

To round off our discussion on violence in Manobo culture, I’ll say a few things here about the most recent violent incident involving Manobo men.

More than a year ago, a Visayan family of five was murdered in the village of Midtungok. Here’s the report from Mindanews.

The village where the massacre happened is quite far from where I stay, at least an hour away by motorcycle. My village, however, is swarming with the relatives of the victims, about a quarter to half of the population. Jolly Fegurac’s parents and brothers live here. I am, therefore, privy to some information that didn’t make it to the papers.

Some people here say that Josephine Fegurac was a little too sharp-tongued, and she might have let out stinging remarks against her Manobo enemies in front of them. The killing, therefore, might have been more for honor than due to material interest. It is said that the Feguracs obtained a lease on a land owned by a Manobo, but the two parties did not agree later on whether the trees could be cut as part of the contract. The Feguracs insisted they had the right to the trees and bought two chainsaws. Right on that night, before the machines could be used the next day, the Feguracs’ home was raided.

So far, one suspect, an official of the village, has surrendered to the authorities. That’s the only development on the case. Take note that the suspect surrendered and was not apprehended. I could go on and on about the ineptitude of the local police and the slothfulness of the local government officials, but let me stop myself. I’m here to discuss the causes of violence in Manobo culture.

Fr. Rafael Tianero, in his book Violence and Christianization in Manoboland, cites a similar but less grisly case. Sometime in 1998, a merchant Visayan couple from Kulaman village went to the hamlet of Tinandok to collect some debts. When one Manobo could not pay, the Visayan woman berated him in front of his wife and children. The Manobo man bore the humiliation is silence, and the merchant couple went off to sell their wares to other houses. The couple was not able to go back home to Kulaman. The next day, their motorcycle and their bodies were found lying beside the road. They had been hacked to death, their money and wares left untouched.

I’ll leave it to you to think further why such things happen between Manobo and Christians.