God Forgives, People Forgive, But Nature … Never!

The second Sunday of October 2009, we celebrated the 30th Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday. Fr. Emil B. Pati, SVD, in the Mass he celebrated at the Carmelite Monastery  in Pindangan, San Fernando City, La Union, stressed the importance of protecting their ancerstral domain for the Indigenous Peoples everywhere. In doing so, he invites everyone to rethink how each one of us has been treating our environment in our quest for a better life.  


Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today, we celebrate the 30th Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday. There are more than 12 million Filipino Indigenous people in the country today. These distinct people are found in the hinterlands of Mindanao, Luzon and the Visaya islands. Their cultures antedate the coming to our shores of Islam and Christianity and the establishment of the Philippine State. They are called Ifugao, Kalinga, Igorot,  Aeta, Mangyan, Subanon, Manobo, Tinggian, Bontoc, Ibanag, Isneg, Bagu, etc.
In their world view, they look at themselves as one with the land, one with their ancestral domain. This domain includes burial sites, forests, rivers, pasture lands, not only fields and residential sites. They live in harmony with their environment.
The indigenous peoples were once, with few groups still are, called ‘pagans’ because of their different ways of reaching to God. Yet their ancestors taught them how to respect the environment and even consider Nature as their Mother. For hundreds of years their ancestors protected the forests and mountains. Would you believe it that before they cut a tree for building their houses they ask permission and pardon from the tree itself. There is a relatedness that binds the indigenous peoples to the trees and the environment. However, the passing of time has never been nature friendly. The encroachment by lowlanders into their lands, depriving them of their ancestral lands became a common scenario. Commercialization of log and construction of dams led to massive destruction of the forests and mountains including seas and rivers, destroying the indigenous’ life support. It makes my heart bleed that in just a few decades the present generation destroyed them all because of greed for money. As a result, maraming nagbuis ng buhay sa nais nilang mapanatili at maalagan ang lahat ng ito.
On a roadside, two men were looking at a huge tree. It’s been there for perhaps a hundred or more years. One is a non-IP and the other is an indigenous. The indigenous sees the tree as the abode of the spirits and therefore sacred while the non-IP sees million of peso in it once cut down and converted into logs for the market. An image of the sacred and the profane?
Some people dismiss the idea of the spirits as myth and something of the past. But let me share with you a very interesting experience to show it is not so. When I was in Pamplona, Cagayan a couple of years ago, I was asked to bless a newly opened road Tabba – Tupanna. The elders in that community believed that the extra ordinary successive occurrence of death among the residents is caused by some angered spirits living in some of the trees they cut while making the road. So on top of a Kuliglig, I blessed the road from end to end. Maniniwala ba kayo? Huminto ang sunod-sunod na lamay sa barangay na yon. Coincidence? I don’t honestly know. The people admitted openly they made a big mistake when they went out cutting the trees without performing the prescribed traditional rites. But before they came to that realization, it was too late, the disturbed environment and the angered spirits in their way of fighting back have had “claimed” six human lives.   
Lamenting on indiscriminate cutting of trees, on unstoppable destruction of rivers and forests, even ancestral domain in the name of progress and development, an indigenous elder cried, “Wait and see until nature fights back!”
It did not take long for us to wait and see.  In an span of two weeks, after “Ondoy” devastated Metro Manila area with flood, came “Pepeng” and hammered the north with heavy rains leaving hundreds of people dead and rendered thousands people homeless because of landslides and flood. You must have heard of or seen on TV the landslide in Benguet, the flooding of Rosales and nearby places in Pangasinan, the burying of a house or two in Bungro (a barangay of San Fernando City) claiming lives that included a Barangay Captain.  Until now, so many roads are impassable. Many places like Baguio City still isolated. Let us bear this mind, God forgives, people forgive, but nature never forgives…never!
As we celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday, this year the CBCP or our Bishops ask each church member to focus his/her attention on the situation of the IPs and to reflect on our faith in relation with the faith of our indigenous brothers and sisters. With all sincerity the young man in the Gospel we heard today wants to inherit eternal life. His faithful keeping of the law show how ideal believer he is. Yet, having told to give up on wealth and possessions he went away sad. How unfortunate, but it is true, many times we are like that young man. We have kept the commandments too, but we haven’t yet been able to reach out as generously as we could to other people, the indigenous people in particular. 
Once again, let me reiterate what was said at the beginning of the Mass: “Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday. We remember our own tribal Filipinos’ aspirations for self-determination and freedom, and we join their struggle against neglect, bias, and exploitation. We pray that they may be given what is justly theirs and that they may be regarded as partners in the national quest for progress and liberation.”
If you have been wondering how an indigenous person looks like, let me show you a Tinggian from Abra who belongs to certain tribe called “Maeng”…you are looking at him and listening to him right now…I am a Tinggian.