Let's Adventure to Mindoro!

“ALAMAT NG MGA PUTING MANGYAN”
(Myth of the White Mangyans)
An I-Witness documentary
Aired last January 28, 2008
GMA-7 / Pinoy TV

Howie Severino travels to Mindoro to investigate the legend of “lost tisoys,” a tribe of Mangyans called Olandes, mountain people in Mindoro descended from shipwrecked Dutch sailors.

Various people give conflicting accounts, including a scholar who proclaims that the “white Mangyans” are a myth, along with other popular beliefs such as Mangyans with tails.

But are the white Mangyans really a myth? In a Mangyan tiangge in the remote village of Bait, Howie is told of Mangyan tisoys in the local high school. He finds them there and learns they come from a mountain community called Panaytayan.

But it is not what he expected.
Descending not from Dutch sailors from centuries ago, the tisoys are four children of a Dutch priest who married a Mangyan and has lived in splendid isolation for four decades. He is now among the foremost experts on Mangyan culture. In the village, he has set up institutions designed to teach and preserve ancient tribal practices such as the script, music, and weaving.

His daughter Anya is a 23-year-old tisay who proudly calls herself a Mangyan and is following her father’s footsteps in championing the Mangyan while presenting a new face of the tribe to the outside world.

She accompanies her bahag-clad, betel-chewing uncle Anheng as he ventures down the mountain to town, faces of the old and the new Mangyan. As Anya and her siblings age and produce families of their own, the myth of the Olandes village may yet become a reality.

Cinematography: Egay Navarro
Director: JJ Villamarin
Field producer: Rommel Bernardo
Executive producer: Ella Evangelista

MANILA, Philippines — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s naming of controversial retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan as an official of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) is dangerous to the agency, but she was just being consistent.

This observation was from the militant peasant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), which lamented on Saturday that Palparan’s appointment came at a time when farmers were commemorating the 22nd anniversary of the Mendiola Massacre.

Thirteen militant farmers were killed and over a hundred others were injured when government troops fired live bullets on protesters trying to march to Malacaňang Palace 22 years ago to demand genuine land reform.

"Major Gen. Jovito Palparan is yet to pay for his crimes and now Mrs. Gloria Arroyo considers him to the drugs board post. Their teamup, as Arroyo self-proclaimed herself as an anti-drug czarina, is still bonding, as how they dealt with the legal-democratic movement, attempting to wipe-out activists that call for genuine land reform and Arroyo's ouster," said Danilo Ramos, KMP secretary-general, in a press statement.

Palparan has been blamed by activist and human rights group for the disappearances and summary executions of a number of leftist activists in the central and northern Philippines when he was in the active military service.

KMP said that since Mrs. Arroyo assumed the presidency in 2001, a total of 933 people became victims of extra-judicial killings, of which 528 were peasants and 109 were KMP leaders.

It said there were also 129 peasant activists and leaders who were victims of enforced disappearances and scores are accused of criminal cases and imprisoned in different jails around the country.

“Of this Arroyo's sickening human rights record, Gen. Palparan served as one of the promoter as he experimented on the activists of Oriental Mindoro in 2003 to 2004," the group said.

Palparan has repeatedly denied the charges, but maintained that his campaign against the communist movement had been very effective.

"The peasants call for punishment for Palparan as even the United Nations Humans Rights Committee concluded that the government and military are responsible to the murders of Eddie Gumanoy and Eden Marcellana in 2003 in Oriental Mindoro," said Ramos.

Eddie Gumanoy was the former chairperson of Kasama-TK (KMP Southern Tagalog chapter), while Eden Marcellana is the Karapatan-Southern Tagalog secretary-general and wife of Kasama-TK secretary-general Orly Marcellana, who is included in the ST 72, framed up with multiple murder case.

"The Arroyo government is really consistent, as those who commit crimes against the people are being promoted or assigned with luxurious posts. We firmly believe that Gen. Palparan is not considering the post to resolve the drug problem but attracted with the level of bribery hounding drug cases, such as the alleged P50 million bribe," Ramos explained.

KMP affirmed opposition to Arroyo's consideration of Palparan to the drugs board post, instead he should be castigated. Also, the group believes that the drug problem would never be solved under the Arroyo regime as Mrs. Arroyo herself is grossly corrupt, as she is involved with the P728 M Fertilizer Scam, P217.8 M Rice Scam and more. The corruption in the Justice department is just an offshoot of her governance.

"Certainly, if Gen. Palparan gets the post, either we all get killed being framed up as pushing drugs, or we get arrested accused of being drug pushers and users," Ramos said. The group believes that the drugs body would also be used against activists who is calling for Arroyo's ouster. - GMANews.TV