Tumandok Case Study

The Tumandok’s Unwavering Spirit of Resistance

The Tumandok, with a population of approximately 94,000, is the largest group of indigenous people (IP)in the Panay region, spread out in the different municipalities of Calinog, Jamindan, Lambunao, and Tapaz.They have long lived in the mountainous terrain alongside the banks of the mighty rivers of Jalaur and Pana-ay up to the borders of Capiz and Iloilo. The Tumandokpeople have athriving, self-reliant subsistence economy, which consists mostly of communal activities such as kaingin farming, hunting, fishing, and foraging of roots and crops (Mongaya, 2014). They greatly benefitfromthe proximity of their communities to the natural wealth of mountain forests and rivers. The JalaurRiver is the second largest river in Panay and the 17th largest river system in the Philippines in terms of drainage basin size. It provides the irrigation to 15,519 hectares of farmlands and

67 (PP67) which reserves “for military purposes a certain parcel of the public domain situated in the municipalities of Tapaz and Jamindan, Province of Capiz” This continued from the 1970sto the 1990s,disrupting the lives of over 18,000 Tumandok in 17 communities. The indigenous people were forced by the military “to pay the tumado or land rent for them to be able to stay and till their lands” (PNFSP, 2013).

The Tumandok, however, did not cower, and met the military with organized resistance. They are fighting to reclaim their ancestral lands, and calling for the expulsion of the 3rd ID-PA, through the formation of the Tumandok Alliance of indigenous peoples and non-IP members of the communities.

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