SERVICE The ancestral domain management sub-office at Barangay Dipili in Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur, is ready to serve the Subanen people. 鈥擫eah Agonoy
BAYOG, ZAMBOANGA DEL SUR, Philippines 鈥� Perched atop a mountainous terrain in Barangay Conacon, around 10 kilometers from the center of this town in Zamboanga del Sur province, the newly built Ancestral Domain Management Office (Admo) of the Subanen tribe opened on Feb. 14 to serve as the center of all gatherings and activities of the indigenous peoples in the area.
Timuay Lucenio Manda, Subanen tribal chieftain and lead claimant of the Bayog ancestral domain, said the Admo, along with a sub-office built in Barangay Dipili, would cater to all the concerns of Subanen in the town.
The facilities in Conacon and Dipili took two years to build, and used funds from the regular royalty payments of TVI Resource Development Philippines Inc. (TVIRD), which operates a mining tenement at Sitio Balabag in Barangay Depore, well within the tribe鈥檚 ancestral domain that covers all 28 villages of the town.
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Out of the royalty funds worth around P50 million in the last four years, the tribe鈥檚 indigenous political structure, which is the ancestral domain governing body, authorized the building of a P2.5-million training center that is equipped with a session hall and an eight-room sleeping quarters-cum-pension house, within a five-hectare estate in Conacon.
A convenience store also operates at the ground floor of the training center. Aside from the training center and the pension house, the tribe also created a social enterprise which runs a nursery and offers catering services.
With these facilities, and the available support services, it is now easier to assemble community folk in large gatherings to discuss matters concerning the welfare of the tribe, said Manda.
When not used for the tribe鈥檚 purposes, other groups can avail of the services of the training center and pension house for a fee.
Profit from these ventures, according to Manda, would help shore up the financial capacity of the tribe, resulting in more services to the community.
Pioneer
Lawyer Maribel Idiang, regional director of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) in Zamboanga Peninsula, lauded the Subanen in Bayog for putting up the facilities on their own, without government help, making them the first in the region to have come up with a self-financed Admo.
Idiang also cited the tribal leaders鈥� sound financial management.
Manda said that even before the economic bounty from TVIRD, and with the help of partner groups from among nongovernment organizations and national government agencies, they began planning how they could make use of their royalty funds to benefit the entire community.
Manda added that they took the financial and development planning exercises seriously as the level of royalty payments of the mining company was dependent on its gross output in a given period.
Section 16 of the implementing rules and regulations of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995 provides that indigenous communities must receive at least 1 percent of the gross output or market value of the minerals extracted from within their ancestral domain.
Aside from agricultural development, Manda cited the need to focus on educating their youth for which they recently tapped the Mindanao State University campus in Buug town, Zamboanga Sibugay province, that caters to 30 Subanen students with scholarship grants from the tribe.
The tribe bought used vehicles to ferry children from remote villages to their schools and back.