Palawan IPs Face Harassment by Alleged San Miguel Corp Personnel

Fifty years after being forcibly evicted from their 10,821-hectare ancestral territory, the Indigenous peoples (IPs) of Brgy. Bugsuk, Palawan, grapple anew with armed attacks on their last remaining island.

Armed personnel allegedly deployed by San Miguel Corporation (SMC) subsidiary Bricktree Properties have been harassing 158 families of Molbog and Cagayanen IPs in Sitio Marihangin since June 29, said nine Bugsuk IP representatives in a press conference held last Sept. 24 at the Ateneo de Manila University. This 38-hectare island is one of the communities’ remaining land in the area.

It was Marcos Sr. crony and former SMC Chief Executive Officer Danding Cojuangco who displaced thousands of IPs after unilaterally grabbing nearly 11,000 hectares of Brgy. Bugsuk in 1974. Cojuangco’s long-time business ally Ramon Ang, a close friend of former President Rodrigo Duterte, has assumed the tycoon’s duties at SMC ten months after his death in 2020.

Takot na takot po ako. Nagulat po ako kasi nag-warning shot [‘yung armadong lalaki]  . . . Tinutukan niya po ako ng baril. Hindi ko na rin po hinintay [na kalabitin ulit] niya [‘yung baril]. Nakadapa na po ako sa pangpang sabay nakatakbo,” Rustene Leoncio said, recounting the arrival of 13 armed men on the shores of Marihangin on June 29.

Since June, the number of goons in the sitio has multiplied, according to the Bugsuk representatives. Residents reported that armed personnel have been setting up camps near their homes, harassing the community with drones at night, and preventing them from accessing barangay documents.

These aggressions explain why a “de facto Martial Law” still haunts Marihangin, said IP rights coalition SAMBILOG – Balik Bugsuk Movement President Jomly Callon, whose two nephews were almost hit by shots reportedly fired by the personnel.

Sabi po ng mga kabataan ngayon ay dumaan na ang Martial Law. Subalit sa amin po, hanggang ngayon ay Martial Law pa rin at hindi pa po nakuntento ang mga korporasyon na ‘to na inagaw sa amin ang aming mga malawak na lupain sa Bugsuk mula pa nung 1974,” Callon said in the forum.

While SMC already denied any ties to the armed men, SAMBILOG Chairperson Romillano Calo said that the personnel themselves had claimed to be employees of the conglomerate.

Hindi nila [SMC] pwedeng itanggi ‘yun kasi mismong ‘yung mga security guard na dineploy dun, sila ang nagsasabi na sila ay tao ng SMC. Meron kaming videos at dokumento na nagpapatunay na mga taga-SMC ang mga security guards dun,” Calo told Tinig ng Plaridel in a phone interview.

IP natives have been barred from visiting Bugsuk Island—the larger chunk of land in which most of Brgy. Bugsuk is situated—since Marcos Sr. awarded it to Cojuangco during Martial Law.

After Cojuangco’s acquisition, the original residents of the island were left with no option but to cram themselves into Marihangin, a constituent island of Brgy. Bugsuk, or flock to other islands, like the 30 families who have recently fled the sitio following the presence of armed men since June.

For the locals who chose to stay in Marihangin, various forms of harassment from SMC persist. 

Heavy presence of armed men in the area forced students to drop out and transfer to other schools. Meanwhile, fisherfolks cannot sail in their traditional fishing grounds, according to the IP delegates in the conference.

‘Another commercial encroachment’

Amid the proposed eco-tourism development project by SMC’s Bricktree Properties in Bugsuk Island, Calo fears that the encampment of goons in Marihangin may be the conglomerate’s latest step to annex smaller islands surrounding the seized 10,821-hectare Bugsuk domain for corporate expansion.

“Ang project o plano ng San Miguel Corporation ay hindi lamang po sa 10,8[21] hectares . . . Gusto nilang gawing 25,000 hectares ang eco-tourism sa Bugsuk island at sa mga karatig na isla nito na, kung saan, sa ngayon ang daming nakatira doon na hindi pa nila nagagalaw,” he said.

The subsidiary’s proposed project in 2023 intends to construct a resort and various “eco-luxury and tourism” facilities on more than 5,000 hectares of Bugsuk land. Still, an SMC-built airport had long been operational by 2021 to accommodate crop transport for an experimental coconut plantation. 

Master plan of the proposed 5,568-hectare eco-tourism project in Bugsuk Island, Palawan. Screenshot from Bricktree Properties.

Under Ang’s official instatement as SMC’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer this year, the conglomerate is now erecting two more airstrips on the island, further mulling an expanded 25,000-hectare beach resort that will flaunt 20 kilometers of white beach in Bugsuk. 

Still, SMC is not acting on these plans alone, said Molbog leader Angelica Nasiron, stressing the complicity of the local government.

‘Yung local government po namin sa [Balabac, Palawan] at saka ‘yung Brgy. [Bugsuk] po namin ay tauhan din po ni San Miguel Corporation. Kaya hindi kami tinutulungan. Kahit nga sa pagkuha ng mga requirements katulad ng mga sedula o mga barangay certificate ay hindi kami binibigyan. Hindi rin kami makapasok mismo sa aming barangay,” she explained.

According to Bricktree’s 2023 project proposal, the Municipality of Balabac endorsed the plan to the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development. The document adds that the subsidiary did not receive any objections from Brgy. Bugsuk on Sept. 2023, despite hundreds of locals opposing. 

Without consent from residents, a Balabac mayor also entered into a 2011 lease agreement with Jewelmer Corporation, a luxury accessory brand established by Cojuangco and a French partner. This international company has built coral farms in Bugsuk and restricted fisherfolk from their ancestral waters since 1979. 

Besides the local government, the IP leaders slammed the decision of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to suspend Marihangin’s coverage under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).

Ratified in 1988, the CARP covers all public and private agricultural lands, restricting landlords’ ownership to a 5-hectare maximum and recognizing the “rights of indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral land.”

Marihangin’s supposed protection by CARP since 2014 has been removed from the program’s coverage after DAR issued a notice on June 27 arguing that the sitio’s soil type is ”unsuitable for agricultural production.”

IP rights group Balik Bugsuk Movement founder Mel Bundac disputed this claim, saying Marihangin is abundant in coconut and natural fertilizers on the island’s soil.

Kung hindi po fit for agriculture ang isla, bakit gano’n katataba ang mga niyog, gano’n katataba ang mga mga puno? Hindi na kailangan po fertilizer kasi ‘yong mga bato po dun ay corals . . . Sagana po kami dun sa gubat,” Bundac said in the conference.

DAR’s decision came a day before it made a joint visit with SMC in Marihangin to “inform” the residents of the revocation, and two days before the armed men allegedly stationed by the conglomerate invaded the island.

Lobbying efforts

In a bid to protect Marihangin from further encroachments and retrieve their ancestral Bugsuk Island, the IPs have urged incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to reverse DAR’s revocation of the sitio’s CARP coverage and “correct a historic wrong” committed under his father’s regime by returning 10,821 hectares of Brgy. Bugsuk to the IPs. 

The written petition further called on Marcos Jr. to order the withdrawal of armed men from Marihangin, probe and penalize them for human rights violations, and suspend all of SMC’s projects on their ancestral lands.

Sa Balabac [government] po namin, hindi po kami pansin. [Pero] ang totoo lang po, kahit anong mangyari, ‘yung lugar namin ipaglalaban namin talaga ‘yun. Sa mga katutubo po namin ‘yun mamanahin. Bakit aagawin po nila sa amin na hindi naman po ‘yun sa kanila?” said Tarhata Pelayo, the granddaughter of a Marihangin tribal leader who holds ancestral claims to the sitio.

Filed in 2005, the Bugsuk community’s application for a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title remains in limbo. If granted, it would recognize the IPs’ exclusive rights to own their ancestral lands.

Still, for SAMBILOG Chairperson Calo, efforts to resist encroachments and “collusive” land grabbings in their homeland could not triumph without the public’s help. 

Sana po hindi na mangyari [‘yung pangangamkam] sa tulong niyo, sa ating pagtutulungan na maisakatuparan at maipaglaban ang karapatan ng mga mangingisda at mga magsasaka sa Southern Palawan, ang maiparating sa lahat ng mga ahensiya at sa ating pamahalaan,” he said.