Christian attitude towards indigenous people
By
AFOREIGNER once visited some tribal people in Mountain Province. Noticing the people’s custom of offering food mounted on bamboo stands, he asked his guide what kind of superstition this was.
** * “Well, food is being offered for some dead relatives,” he said.“And when do you think will his deceased relatives eat that food?” he said sarcastically.
“As soon as the friend you buried last week smells the flower you put on his grave,” the guide retaliated.
*** Last Sunday was Indigenous or Tribal Peoples’ Sunday. The Church invited us to become more aware of these brethren living on the fringes of society — the Aetas, Igorots, Manobos, Mangyans, Tagbanuas, Bagobos, Maranaws, Tausog, to mention some. As in the above story, we should respect their cultures and traditions, and learn lessons from their values.
*** As Christians, how can we help the plight of these marginalized countrymen?
The first way concerns ATTITUDE. How do we regard them? Do we consider them as second-class citizens – to be looked down upon, insulted and abused?
*** Remember that TV commercial aired by a toothpaste company some years? It depicted a tribal lad with scabies all over his body and had decaying teeth?
The ad insinuated that these people do not have health hygiene and proper care of their teeth. The slur only shows the kind of attitude certain countrymen have towards indigenous people.
*** That insulting commercial, however, is but the tip of the iceberg. What’s more serious are the injustices heaped upon them in regard to their human rights.
*** Fr. Dennis Flynn, SVD, a toughtalking Fil-American missionary who used to work in Panaytayan, Or. Mindoro, once related to me how unscrupulous lowlanders interested in grabbing the lands of Mangyans would drive them away by threatening them with guns.
*** The gutsy Fr. Flynn challenged his constituents not to get scared since they had the same constitutional rights as any Filipino.
*** Fr. Ewald Dinter, a German SVD missionary who has dedicated a major part of his life working with the Mangyans in Or. Mindoro, says that when the word “tribal” is mentioned, what is often conjured are images of illiterate, primitive people wearing G-strings.
*** People don’t know that in fostering their pride and human dignity, a good number of tribals have advanced in life, becoming lawyers, nurses, accountants, priests, and bishops, Fr. Dinter adds.
*** Another way of helping our tribal brethren is to EMPOWER THEM through formal and/or adult education.
A Franciscan missionary nun working in Lagnas, San Jose, Occ. Mindoro, says: “With about 90 percent of the women having great difficulty to absorb knowledge is an evidence of their lack of nutrition” (Working with Indigenous Peoples, p. 127).
*** We did not choose where to be born. We could have been born in the backwoods or from an impoverished family but God blessed us with a better and more comfortable life.
Isn’t it only right and proper that you treat your less fortunate brethren humanely as a good Christian should do? Think about that.
*** NEW BOOk — SHEPHERDING A PARISH — authored by Rev. Fr. Layugan, SVD. The book “synthesized the missionary journey of the Society of the Divine Word in our country” started by the Sacred Heart Parish Shrine in Kamuning, Quezon City. Available at National Book Store, St. Paul’s, and Catholic Trade Store.
*** For inquiry, call Logos Publications or e-mail: info@logospublications.com.
*** ST. JUDE. Today join our novena to St. Jude, Saint of the Impossible, at the Divine Word Shrine, Christ the King Seminary, on E. Rodriguez Boulevard, Quezon City, after the 6 p.m. Mass.
A healing prayer and anointing of the sick will follow.