RAVANERA..

“concentration camp” is still vivid in the inner recesses of my thoughts, wondering if justice had been done to our oppressed Lumads in the upland hinterland barangay. When I wrote about it, I was threatened by an armed cowboy inside the University where I studied then. In fact, I was ordered arrested and had to stay in prison for two days.

Well, I suppose that kind of oppression does not exist anymore, perhaps, not that brutal because oppression in contemporaneous Philippine Society has many faces, more subtle, more deceitful, more scheming but nevertheless exemplifies exploitation by those who control, by those who benefit, by those who decide over a group of ignorant and helpless people.

There is no “turning of barangay into ranch” now; only converting the lands once owned by the Lumads into giant plantations, planted with all kinds of fruits, not for us, but to satisfy the consumerist lifestyle of foreign people and fellow citizens far beyond their share of the world’s natural resources.

In fact, there is a tremendous commercialization of land now in Mindanao and our Indigenous People are now willing “partners” as tens of thousands of ancestral lands in this beautiful but forsaken island are converted into plantations, mostly for bio-fuel, this time jeopardizing our food security and ecological integrity as toxic chemicals are massively applied. Oh when will we ever learn?

Look at our wily politicians especially those who dare to monopolize power through political dynasties. While our Fundamental Law prohibits political dynasties, the same cannot be translated into laws for the simple reason that such goes against vested interest.

Indeed, when economic dictatorship by a few oligarchs is grafted into the electoral, representative democracy, a toxic growth of religious fundamentalism and right-wing extremism is the consequence, resulting not only in the death of democracy but in the democracy of death.