{ "id": 19002, "date": "2026-08-10T20:18:51", "date_gmt": "2026-08-10T12:18:51", "guid": { "rendered": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/?p=19002" }, "modified": "2026-08-10T20:18:52", "modified_gmt": "2026-08-10T12:18:52", "slug": "a-vow-to-the-pangi-tree", "status": "publish", "type": "post", "link": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/a-vow-to-the-pangi-tree\/", "title": { "rendered": "A vow to the pangi tree" }, "content": { "rendered": "
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“I look up and the clear purple sky is already punctuated with stars. As I turn to go back to my people and leave the comfort of the forest, I hold my hand up to reach for the trunk of the pangi tree. I whisper a promise that her branches would continue bearing fruit and never be empty.” <\/p>\n– We Call Her Ina Bai: How Strong Women Are Made<\/em> by J.R. Santiago II & Margarita Valle<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the weekend, this book briefly transported me to a dense forest in the Pantaron Range in the year 1994, where the figure of Bai Bibyaon stood. She rested in the heart of the thick wilderness, catching her breath after leading a successful pangayaw<\/em> (tribal war of defense) against the combined forces of a logging company, its hired goons, and the state military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She let the cool breeze soothe her weary body, a quiet counterweight to the storm of thoughts in her mind. She wondered whether she was truly ready to keep walking the path she had chosen. Would she carry on the struggle to the point of taking up arms to defend their ancestral land? She knew only one thing for certain: the war was far from over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she rested, she felt the fallen leaves of a pangi<\/em> tree beneath her feet. For the Manobo, the pangi<\/em> tree is a natural marker of the seasons, signaling when it is time to plant and when it is time to harvest. She remembered how simple their lives once were, that at this exact time of the year, they would have been clearing the land, preparing the soil for another season of sowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bai Bibyaon knew that plunderers would return to Pantaron. They might come in greater numbers, armed with even greater power. She understood this all too well. Yet beneath the weight of that certainty, a quiet vow took root: the pangi<\/em> tree would never cease to bear fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Manobo would never cease to fight for their ancestral land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am thrown back to 2026, to the bitter reality that the State continues to treat indigenous peoples (IPs) as though they cannot think, decide, or speak for themselves\u2014that they are ignorant. So accustomed is the government to trampling on their rights that whenever indigenous communities give voice to their anger, defend their ancestral land, or resist injustice, the government dismisses them as merely “manipulated” by \u201cagitators\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State then casts itself as the savior of Lumad youth, even as it was the primary entity that deprived them of their right to education in the first place. And through its many instruments, the State continues to pursue and criminalize those who choose to stand beside the Lumad youth and the IPs in general, as though solidarity itself was a crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Land grabbing intensifies across every corner of the country. The IPs\u2019 right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) is stripped away even further under the new 2026 FPIC guidelines. Consultation periods are shortened, and projects are sorted into categories to rush approval. The Marcos Jr government is driving the IPs off their land, clearing the way for private development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the rainy weekend drew to a close, it occurred to me that August 9 had been the International Day of the World\u2019s Indigenous Peoples. The Philippines is home to more than 180 ethnolinguistic groups of around 14-16 million people, roughly 10% of the country\u2019s total population. Their rights and welfare are as valid as everyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bai Bibyaon\u2019s promise will live on. The pangi<\/em> tree will bear fruit again and again, season after season, long after those who sought to silence the forest are gone. Perhaps she knew that every fruit carried the seed of another generation of defenders and warriors who would return to the land, reclaim what had been taken, and gather a harvest made possible by struggle, history, and the stubborn refusal to disappear.<\/p>", "protected": false }, "excerpt": { "rendered": "

The pangi tree will bear fruit again and again, season after season, long after those who sought to silence the forest are gone. <\/p>", "protected": false }, "author": 32, "featured_media": 19005, "comment_status": "open", "ping_status": "open", "sticky": false, "template": "single-nosidebarbanner.php", "format": "standard", "meta": { "_acf_changed": false, "_exactmetrics_skip_tracking": false, "_exactmetrics_sitenote_active": false, "_exactmetrics_sitenote_note": "", "_exactmetrics_sitenote_category": 0, "footnotes": "" }, "categories": [ 1, 2048, 2049 ], "tags": [ 3576, 1053, 880, 2857, 2972, 4449 ], "class_list": [ "post-19002", "post", "type-post", "status-publish", "format-standard", "has-post-thumbnail", "hentry", "category-advocacies", "category-banner", "category-bird-feed", "tag-bai-bibyaon", "tag-indigenous-people", "tag-lumad-schools", "tag-lumad-struggle", "tag-marcos-jr-administration", "tag-pangayaw", "wpautop" ], "acf": [], "publishpress_future_action": { "enabled": false, "date": "2026-08-18 01:08:08", "action": "change-status", "newStatus": "draft", "terms": [], "taxonomy": "category", "extraData": [] }, "publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger": { "enabledWorkflows": [] }, "_links": { "self": [ { "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19002", "targetHints": { "allow": [ "GET" ] } } ], "collection": [ { "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts" } ], "about": [ { "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post" } ], "author": [ { "embeddable": true, "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32" } ], "replies": [ { "embeddable": true, "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19002" } ], "version-history": [ { "count": 16, "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19002\/revisions" } ], "predecessor-version": [ { "id": 19026, "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19002\/revisions\/19026" } ], "wp:featuredmedia": [ { "embeddable": true, "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19005" } ], "wp:attachment": [ { "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19002" } ], "wp:term": [ { "taxonomy": "category", "embeddable": true, "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19002" }, { "taxonomy": "post_tag", "embeddable": true, "href": "https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19002" } ], "curies": [ { "name": "wp", "href": "https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}", "templated": true } ] } }