The National Democratic Front (NDF)-Palawan joined the Molbog and Palaw’an national minorities’ defense of their ancestral land in Barangay Bugsuk, Balabac, Palawan, which is being seized by Ramon Ang’s San Miguel Corporation (SMC). The indigenous people are being evicted from their land to make way for SMC’s ecotourism business.

Land grabbing for ecotourism

The land is being grabbed by SMC for the construction of the Bugsuk Island Resort, an ecotourism project that covers over 5,500 hectares. SMC has colluded with local agencies and officials to railroad its grand project at the expense of the indigenous people.

The Department of Agrarian Reform unregistered 10,821 hectares of land in Barangay Bugsuk and Pandanan from the agrarian reform program for the construction of the resort. This decision, along with the demolition of their community, was announced to the residents only in June.

The Balabac Municipal Council passed a resolution supporting the project. Subsequently, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued an Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) that allowed the construction of the resort.

For the residents of Bugsuk, the ongoing threat is a repeat of the nightmare under the regime of the dictator’s son. They were first evicted from Bugsuk by the Marcos Sr regime in 1974, 50 years ago, to give way to the coconut plantation business of his crony, Eduardo Conjuangco Jr, the former owner of SMC.

The case of Barangay Bugsuk exposes the rottenness of the reactionary government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER). The Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act and its accompanying Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title have likewise been useless to defend and recognize their ancestral land.

“The people of Bugsuk should continue to fight in various ways for their rights to their ancestral land, livelihood, and culture,” said the NDF-Palawan.

Other evictions in Balabac

Aside from Barangay Bugsuk, national minorities in the town of Balabac in Palawan are also facing eviction and oppression due to the construction of US military bases and facilities in the province. The US imperialists desperately want to evict the residents of Balabac so that it can freely use the island as a strategic military base and facility in the war being prepared against China.

The island of Balabac is one of the nine “agreed locations” under the EDCA. The island is the largest of the islands that make up the town of Balabac. It is located southeast of the island of Bugsuk.

Currently, the construction of the Balabac Military Runway and a command and control center is nearing completion. The expansion and dredging of the port on the other side of Balabac Island is also being expedited to accommodate large US warships. The Balabac base is the closest to the disputed Mischief Reef, where China has built an artificial island with military facilities and installations.

According to the NDF-Palawan, amid land grabbing, it is only just for the indigenous people to defend their ancestral land in various arenas of struggle, from legal to illegal, armed and unarmed, to prevent the grabbing of their land by bourgeois compradors and US imperialism.