The Tagakolu people are one of the many Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. The Tagakolu are in the highlands of the provinces of Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental and Sarangani. Like all the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines, the Tagakolu face the immense challenge of standing up for their rights, being accepted and respected for who they are as a people and making their voice heard in the current globalized world. Tagakolu means people who live upstream where the forests are and from where the waters of rivers flow. Kolu in the name Tagakolu refers not only to the forests but also to the land, the plants and animals, the water and the air, the people and their ancestors, the spirits of the forest, their history, their stories, their beliefs and traditions, their music and songs as well as the dynamic relationship between these elements. All this is kolu!
FOREIGN OCCUPATION
When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, they claimed all the islands for the King of Spain. Without their knowledge, the Tagakolu people had lost the ownership of their land to a monarch who had never even set foot on the island of Mindanao or on any of the islands for that matter. It did not matter much to the Tagakolu, though, for they were too far away from the national capital Manila to feel the influence of the Spanish crown. However, this would set a historical precedence the consequence of which would inevitably put all the indigenous peoples of the islands, not only the Tagakolu, at a great disadvantage for generations to come. The Spanish had very little contact with the Tagakolu people during their occupation of the archipelago; their influence was barely felt in Mindanao. This may have been due to the fact that the Spanish had their hands full defending Manila and, at the same time, did not have the necessary resources to finance the costly enterprise of expanding the crown's reach to the whole of Mindanao. The Jesuit missionaries, however, had mentioned the Tagakolu people in their chronicles as they explored Mindanao in the mid-19th century. However, their mission stations were too far from the Tagakolu to really influence them.
Toward the end of the 19th century, the United States of America purchased the Philippine islands from Spain and refused to acknowledge the legitimate existence of the Republic of the Philippines. As the new owners of the archipelago, the United States took over Spain's claim to the land. Without the knowledge of the Tagakolu, their land had once again been claimed by a people who did not know of them. Unlike the Spanish, however, these new claimants would work vigorously to exploit Mindanao and, on two occasions, would even attempt to sever it from the rest of the Philippines to make it a territory of the United States. American settlers came and encroached on the lands of the Tagakolu. They did not care much for the Tagakolu and other indigenous peoples referring to them as wild tribes, which justified, to their minds, their land grabbing. They established homesteads and forced the Tagakolu to work for them. Many of the Tagakolu workers would abandon their work and seek refuge in the mountains where the American settlers could not follow. One Tagakolu, however, dared defy the Americans. In 1906 Mangulayen, the man charged by the colonial government to oversee his fellow Tagakolu, assassinated the American district governor of Davao who was on his way to Malita.
Even after the re-establishment of the Philippine Republic in 1946, the Tagakolu continued to be sidelined in the development of their lands and were still not given ample opportunity for self-determination as a people. The passage of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) in 1997, however, gave new hope to the Tagakolu and other indigenous peoples of the Philippines. The IPRA upheld and defended the rights of indigenous peoples especially their right to their ancestral domains of which they had been divested since the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. The new law gave new hope but, regrettably, it did not put an end to the perennial marginalization of the Tagakolu. It is a tragedy today that despite the existence of a law that upholds and defends their rights, the Tagakolu continue to lose much of their land to local politicians, a number of whom are even Tagakolu. They conduct themselves like warlords, even more devious than the country’s former colonial masters, with no regard whatsoever for the rule of law. Tagakolu lands are converted into plantations and quarries. Forests are cut and the lumber sold. As their land is slowly appropriated by politicians through legal theft, many of the Tagakolu slowly lose their identity as a people as well.
Many of the youth, for example, are enticed by the tempting allure of modern Western living. Through the influence of mass and social media, many are slowly replacing their customs and traditions with practices promoted by a capitalist market economy leading to the disintegration of the Tagakolu family and society. A large number of them are no longer able to speak their own language properly, preferring to speak in Cebuano, the language of settlers in the lowlands. Another crucial factor in the disuse of the Tagakolu language besides modern media is the influence of Cebuano speaking teachers in government schools. They discourage children from speaking their mother tongue in school and, in many cases, penalize them for speaking it.
Tagakolu farmers also are tricked by the shallow promises of commercial farming. They are made to believe that planting genetically modified seeds and using synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides would bring larger and better harvests at reduced costs and less manpower. It does so in the short term but dwindles a few planting seasons later as the land is slowly poisoned by the very chemicals that had previously promised a better life. In the meantime, the cohesion of the community has already been seriously compromised as farmers now regard their neighbors more as competitors and less as partners.
The first Catholic missionaries who had worked among the Tagakolu in the late 1970s were the PMÉ (Société des Missions-Etrangères du Quebec) from Canada. They would trek for hours to the mountains from the town of Malita to visit the Tagakolu communities. They would later organize basic Christian communities as well as literacy schools. They established the Malita Tagakaulo Mission (MATAMIS) on 10 October 1988 in the mountains among the Tagakolu. The Yarumal missionaries of Colombia came to the aid of the PMÉ from 2000 to 2005. Upon the invitation of the Bishop of Digos, Most Reverend Guillermo D. Afable, DD, the Missionaries of Jesus (MJ) came to the Malita Tagakaulo Mission to help in the ministry among the Tagakolu; they arrived on 15 June 2006. The PMÉ eventually left the mission in June 2011.
MJ's work of evangelization among the Tagakolu springs from and is inspired by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ (Jn 1:1,14), the Word becoming human like us; his kenosis (Ph 2:6-8), his emptying of self and accepting even death on the cross; and by God's call to Moses on Horeb to show respect for the land on which he was treading (Ex 3:5). We make every effort to learn the Tagakolu language. It is also of prime importance that we learn and appreciate their customs and traditions. We do this not to acquire tools for evangelization but out of respect and reverence for the Tagakolu people and their culture in the spirit of Christ's Incarnation and kenosis. Like the many peoples and cultures of the global community, we see the Tagakolu and their culture as gift from God, the God of Jesus. Thus, the very act of learning and appreciating their culture is in itself a sacred act that should not be taken lightly. It is with this awareness that we visit Christian communities to live with them, and celebrate God's Word and the Sacraments together with them.
It is not always easy to reach many of these communities in this mountainous region due to poor infrastructure or the absence thereof. Our regular formation programs for our lay leaders, youth and catechists is infused with this awareness as well. In this way, Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God becomes especially meaningful for it is shared with them from a context and reality they know. In our own simple way, we continuously strive to minister to and with them in a manner that is respectful and appreciative of who they are.
Flowing from the same faith and inspiration, we help Tagakolu communities establish their own schools that are genuinely respectful of their culture. We continue to support two communities with their elementary schools that use Tagakolu as the medium of instruction and use a curriculum that not only teaches what is required by the state but also helps the children learn about and to appreciate their Tagakolu culture. The Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples (ECIP) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines regularly assists us in the training of the teachers. Donations provide for the salaries of the Tagakolu teachers while the community provides for their sustenance. The classrooms are built and maintained by the community using indigenous materials.
Our youth formation is designed to be sensitive to and appreciative of Tagakolu culture. With the help of iEmergence, a nongovernmental organization that helps indigenous peoples, we had conducted consultations with Tagakolu youth and elders of our many Christian communities. Based on these consultations, we were able to create a program that could provide a venue for the elders of communities to share their indigenous knowledge, skills, practices and spirituality with the youth, and for the latter to share their reflections on the intergenerational sharing of knowledge with their elders and the community. We had started this program in two communities and it has borne wonderful results! The same program is now being implemented in two more communities. It is hoped that new leaders would come from these communities in the future who could help organize the program in other communities.
The MJ team has also established a network with a number of universities in the city of Davao and NGOs to help us raise the awareness of the Tagakolu vis-à-vis their ancestral domain. We believe that the land of the Tagakolu is sacred and entrusted by God to them to be cared for in order that the current and future generations of Tagakolu be able to enjoy and appreciate God's gift of life. The current reality of land grabbing of Tagakolu land and the abuse of their rights by politicians runs counter to Jesus’ preaching on the kingdom of God. Through this network, MJ hopes that abuses against the Tagakolu will slowly be put to an end by helping them find their voice to speak out and eventually be listened to.
After many years of ministry among the Tagakolu, the Missionaries of Jesus remain committed to this work to which the God of Jesus Christ has called MJ. Like the Tagakolu, we have learned to live in the now, firm in the belief that God would always be with us as long as our intentions and actions are for the good of the community. In this way we hope to be able to share Jesus Christ who had come that we may all have life and have it to the full (Jn 10:10). Updated 7 July 2019
The evolution of the orthography of the name of the Tagakolu community.
If you google “Tagakolu,” your search results would probably yield various spellings of the name. The most common question people ask is: “So, which one is the correct spelling?” To help find an answer, I started looking into published documents from the past to the present to see what I could find. I would like to share what I have discovered that helped me understand why there are several ways of writing the name of the Tagakolu people. Click here to read more.