The Spanish and American colonialization of the Philippines institutionalized the distinction among peoples in the country into mainstream Christian/Muslim and peripheral tribal/minority/ indigenous populations. Through laws, the tribal/ minority/indigenous communities were deprived of the right to their ancestral domains. Through so-called “development” activities, they were dispossessed of the land they till for their livelihood. Their marginalization, dispossession and other forms of injustices continued long after colonial rule had gone.
This article briefly traces the historical development of the legal measures that led to the oppression of the indigenous peoples in the Philippines, as well as discuss the current measures that address the problem. To prepare for the article, the author reviewed the major laws as well as the political systems from the colonial period to the present, and analyzed materials related to the training programs at the Northern Illinois University that contain critical reflections that arose from the focused group discussions among representatives of indigenous peoples from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao who attended the programs.
Thriving communities existed (with political, economic, social and cultural systems) in the different parts of the archipelago (now called the Philippines) hundreds of years before Spanish colonization began. The Islamic influence that started in the south (Mindanao) in the 13th century had reached the north (Manila in particular) centuries later. But the arrival of the Spanish colonizers changed the course of history of the archipelago drastically. For the first time, a single political (and religious) authority ruled over major portions of the archipelago (including parts of Mindanao). Spanish settlements spread throughout the archipelago and merged with the major communities (Intramuros in Manila, Villa Fernandina in Vigan, Caceres in Naga for what is now Luzon area, and Santisimo Nombre in Cebu and Arevalo in Molo in the Visaya area).1
Communities were organized into towns (pueblos) under the rule of both Spanish colonial government and the Catholic Church. But the Spanish colonial government did not have enough personnel (or religious missionaries) to manage the communities, and thus it resorted to a system of land trust (encomienda) that gave lands to Spanish settlers. The system was first employed in “Spanish America in Columbus’s time.. and [L]and, with its inhabitants, was entrusted – not granted as private property – to an encomendero or trustee as a reward for his services to the king and for his support.”2
The encomendero had specific duties, despite not being a government official, to resettle the people – the original inhabitants of the islands – in permanent communities located in suitable places; establish a government for the people; and teach the people the Christian religion. In return, he was authorized to collect tributes, and recruit workers for public service (polo).3
The establishment of townships started the distinction between people who came under Spanish and Christian influence and those who refused to be so ruled. Eventually, those who remained outside the towns were driven further out into the forests and the mountains. With their traditional systems and practices intact, they were considered remontados (people who fled to the hills) and infideles (infidels).
Spanish laws were nevertheless imposed on those who refused to join the pueblos. All lands in the Philippine archipelago were treated as lands of the Spanish crown under the jura regalia doctrine (Regalian Doctrine). By the 19th century new Spanish land laws were governing lands in the Philippines. Land titles became the basis of grant from the Spanish crown. Those without the land titles had no legal right over the land. Thus, the people who remained outside the pueblos, now the indigenous peoples, and who refused to be covered by Spanish land laws had virtually no right to their own land.
With the Spanish-American War that led to the surrender of the Spanish forces in Manila to a U.S. naval fleet, a new colonial ruler from North America entered the Philippines. By virtue of the Treaty of Paris of 1898 that ended the Spanish- American war, and with a twenty million dollar payment to Spain, the Philippines became a U.S. colony.4
The U.S. colonial government kept the Regalian Doctrine and implemented a series of land laws to govern the so-called “public lands” (previously lands of the Spanish crown). It wanted uncultivated and unoccupied public lands that could be classified as agricultural lands to be distributed to those who wanted to use them – U.S. citizens included. These “uncultivated, unoccupied public lands” covered the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples. The Public Land Act of 1902 governed the disposition of the lands of the “public domain.” Claimants could apply for homestead, or buy or lease, or confirm titles (acquired during the Spanish era) to the land. A corporation or association could lease or buy up to 1,024 hectares of land. This law had a provision regarding designation of “any tract or tracts of the public domain for the exclusive use of non-Christian natives,” by which each member could apply up to four hectares of land for his own use. The same provision declared null and void any conveyance or transfer of right to land by the non-Christian natives (including “sultans, datus, or other chiefs of the so-called non-Christians tribes“) if they were not authorized by either the previous Spanish colonial government or the U.S. colonial government. The 1902 Land Registration Act No. 496 proclaimed that all lands were subject to a land title system and gave power to the government to issue proofs of title over a piece of land to legitimate claimants. The 1903 Philippine Commission Act No. 178 classified all unregistered land as belonging to the public domain and that the State alone had the power to classify and use it. The 1905 Mining Act gave the American colonialists the right to mine public lands.
Other laws allowed big American agricultural corporations to access the fertile lands of Mindanao, belonging to indigenous peoples, and to establish vast agricultural plantations.
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