B'laan

B'laan People

The Blaan are one of the indigenous peoples of Southern Mindanao in the Philippines. Their name could have derived from "bla" meaning "opponent" and the suffix "an" meaning "people". The B'laan now number approximately 450,000 scattered all over Mindanao. In Municipality of Tampakan, the B'laan comprises 15% of the population estimated at 3,800 individuals. The majority live in the rugged highlands Northeast of Tampakan. The B'laan, the other indigenous and non indigenous groups, seek a secure future and wish to raise their standard of living which can only be achieved by increasing income/improving housing, educations and providing the means to insure a stable subsistence base through sustainable agriculture practices.

Economic Structure

Some contemporary B'laans believe that the practice of Kaingin (swidden or slash and burn) started in the past, when the vast plains and mountains were theirs for the taking. They could afford to leave one place after harvest and allow natural vegetation to re-grow. They rely on the notion that kaingin provides for a fertilized farm, as the ashes of burnt foliage serve as nutrition for the soil. 

B'laans, with their limited technology and resources, estimate their average harvest at 120 sacks of corn per hectare when the weather is favorable with drought, harvest drops as low as to 70 sacks of corn yielding around 25 sacks of dried corn with each sacks weighing 50n kilos. Though the B'laans practice slash and burn agriculture, the commercial loggers systematically harvested the timber and other forest products scarcely concerned about reforestation.

The B'laan, secure in their mountain domains, were unaware of the land laws. They were secluded and ignorant of the outside world. During the time, Mindanao had yet to be conquered. The B'laans were easily enticed by the settlers to tell their land for a few cans of sardines or sack of rice or used clothes. Hence, the B'laans, were made strangers or squatters in their ancestral lands. The most sweeping of the enroachments on the territorial domain came with LOI no. 138 issued by the President F. Marcos on October 23, 1973. The law stipulated the determination of areas which should be served for logging reforestation, parks, wildlife sanctuaries. The original B'laan territorial domain therefore ceased to exist.

The commission warned that any attempt to further marginalize the B'laans right over their land would mean the possible eruption of a bloody war and of retaliation and violence. Bishop declared that, "anything that degrades or destroys or deprives cultural minorities of their habitat is inhuman." He further stressed the necessity to pursue "Liberating Education towards Self Determination ", for the B'laans in their right to survival as a distinct people and as human beings. A provision of the bill mandates the said congressional commission to identify and circumscribe territorial boundaries of ancestral domain. The peace pact is still religiously observed between and among the tribal Filipino in Mindanao.

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