Residents said that the private blue guards are deployed by the JMV Security Services again, the same agency that deployed 80 armed private blue guards in their community on April 4.
A Mindanao anthropologist said that it is “ridiculous and preposterous” to say that Kamigin Indigenous People do not exist.
Nearly 20 years in the making, their application for CADT remains uncertain. Current Molbog indigenous leaders said that ten of their elders have already died waiting in vain.
In total, ten indigenous and non-indigenous residents of Sitio Mariahangin are currently facing a criminal complaint filed by Caesar M. Ortega, former NCIP director for the Ancestral Domain Office (ADO) and former officer-in-charge executive director, who identifies himself as the “authorized representative of the nine (9) land owners of the nine titled properties situated within Bowen Island (Sitio Mariahangin).”
Residents said that in 2023, SMC initially presented a “resettlement program" for Mariahangin families, offering money amounting to P75,000 with land or P100,000 if without land. Recently, the offer has increased to P400,000 per family to urge them to vacate their ancestral lands.
“We (IPs) protect the ancestral lands against mining and plantation companies because we ourselves are dependent on those lands for food security."
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