Philippines case study: The Dumagat’s fight against the Kaliwa dam amid the COVID-19 pandemic

This article is part of a series on the impacts of COVID-19 on indigenous and tribal peoples. The full policy report, “COVID-19 and indigenous and tribal peoples:  the impacts and underlying inequalities” which features 10 case studies, including this one, is available here.

By Marie Joyce Godio, through the help of Kakay Tolentino

 

"We’re generally strong and healthy because we grew up sleeping with our bare back to the earth and swimming in the river,” 

 

says Kakay Tolentino, a member of the semi-nomadic, indigenous Dumagat people who occupy the Sierra Madre, the Philippines’ longest mountain range. She shared her community’s long-time practice of going to their river to “wash off” their illness. If they feel any symptoms akin to malaria and/or if they suffer from a cough that lasts for more than a week, they seek shelter under a banyan tree by the riverbank. They stay there until they feel better while taking traditional medicines made from forest herbs. 

Kakay explains that this practice has always worked with other illnesses; she’s confident that it will work with COVID-19. There are currently no cases of COVID-19 among the Dumagat, but she says that they lost about 20 people during a dengue outbreak in 2017. Kakay knows that her community has no access to proper health care, and the government has not assigned any permanent medical workers in their barangay health centre. The nearest hospital is 20–35 kilometres away, depending on the Dumagat village. Those who can’t travel by road must hike and cross large rivers; the trip can take a day and a half. 

The Dumagat were in the middle of a struggle against the Kaliwa dam [1] when the pandemic hit the Philippines. Kaliwa dam is part of the Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban dam project [2] which was initially proposed in the 1980s. The Duterte administration revived the project under his Build, Build, Build programme. [3] 

The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), an institution with the mandate to support and defend indigenous rights, has failed to protect the Dumagat’s right to their land and refused to endorse their unanimous decision against the dam. The community felt the process of free, prior and informed consent organised by the NCIP was divisive and deceptive; it merely caused conflicts between the members of Dumagat. Despite the threat of COVID-19, the community is seeing ongoing road construction from the main highway of Tanay, Rizal, to the interior areas of General Nakar, Quezon. 

The Dumagat’s source of information used to be ABS-CBN, the Philippines’ largest broadcast network and the only channel that reaches their remote homes. But since the government ordered the network’s shutdown, [4] their main source of information on COVID-19 and beyond is Lodema dela Cruz Doroteo, fondly called Teacher Diday. Teacher Diday [5] is the first of the Dumagat community to acquire a bachelor’s degree. With the lockdown, she could only go to town to sell produce and buy basic necessities once a week. It was also her time to catch up on the news and access the internet. But a Facebook post expressing her dismay over the devastation of their rice produce due to military operations in their communities caught the military’s attention. Teacher Diday, her family and the rest of the community were harassed and accused of being members and supporters of the armed group, New People’s Army. [6] 

Kakay now lives in Metro Manila but she still frequents her community. Due to the government’s lockdown— locally known as a modified, enhanced, community quarantine (MECQ)—her visits are restricted, which has affected her work as an activist and indigenous rights defender. She grew up with the presence of the military in her community. At 62, she says neither the militarisation in Sierra Madre nor the harassment and human rights violations of the military [7] to the Dumagat have ever stopped. With the Kaliwa dam an ongoing issue, the military is ever more present in all Dumagat villages. 

With the Dumagat’s access to their rivers and forest restricted further due to COVID-19, they depend on the local government to provide food packages. They received a food package with 3 kg of rice and two large cans of sardines only once. NGO relief operations, which Kakay helps coordinate, were blocked by the military despite the NGOs having all the necessary MECQ passes and permits. Regardless of these challenges, Kakay believes the Dumagat will survive this pandemic; they have to, for they still have the ongoing fight against the Kaliwa dam and other government projects that aim to plunder their territory and natural resources. 

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5. www.youtube.com/watch

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