Reading 3: Protecting the forest: Learning from the Agawa women of Besao, Mt.

Province. Alangui, W.V. & Caguioa, C.C. , in de Chavez, R. (2013). Indigenous peoples, forests & REDD Plus, sustaining
and enhancing forests through traditional resource management. Volume 2. Baguio City: Tebtebba Foundation.
https://www.academia.edu/29454044/Protecting_the_Forest_Learning_from_the_Agawa_Women_of_Besao

Agawa Women’s History of Resistance

The history of the Cordillera people fighting against programs and projects resulting to
environmental degradation would always include the militant participation of women. The Agawa
women have their own stories to tell on how they were able to oppose projects that threatened
their forests and the environment. The first involved an attempt to put up a sawmill operation in
the 1940s, and the other, around 30 years later, revolved around an illegal resin-tapping activity.
The stories below were gathered from the FGDs as well as from the key informants.
The Sawmill Operation and the Agawa Women: Employing a Time-Honored Form
of Protest. Around the 1940s, an American miner named Odon started a sawmill operation in
the forest. The people believed that the operation was just in preparation for a bigger activity,
which they believed was mining. The Agawa people back then did not want any mining
operation in the area, and so they opposed the sawmill operation. The elderly women
drove Odon and his team away by burning his house, and destroying tools and equipment.
Another method of resistance employed by the elderly women saw them exposing their breasts
while chasing Odon and his team with spears and bolos (a long, single-edge machete).
Disrobing is not an uncommon sign of protest among Cordillera women, especially by the
elderly. According to the women respondents, this form of protest is employed to shame those
on the other side who are mostly men (in this case, Odon and his sawmill workers) with the
belief that these men should not dishonor their mothers, wives, sisters and grandmothers. In
fact, the women deserve full respect from their sons and grandsons, and must not go against
their will. The respondents also said that the active involvement of the women in protesting
against the sawmill operation also possibly avoided violence and bloodshed that could have
ensued had the Agawa men been involved.
According to an official from the local government unit (LGU), this story of women
protesting against the sawmill operation by employing the time-honored form of disrobing
is embedded in the memory not of only of the Agawa adults, but also among many adults in the
whole municipality.
Resin-Tapping in Agawa: Women Employ Guerilla Tactics. In the 1970s, the women
noticed that clusters of pine trees in the forest were drying up. The firewood too that they
gathered from the forest were very brittle and had lost the pine scent. They decided to
investigate and found something sinister was being done to the pine trees without the
community’s knowledge: they found plastic bags that were tied around the pine trees. The trees
had incisions in the barks spiraling downward, allowing the sap to pass through to the plastic
bags which collected them—whoever was doing it was harvesting the resin from the pine trees.
Further investigation revealed who were doing the tapping: to their dismay, it involved some
local people from Agawa as well as people from nearby villages. The collected resins were then
sold at PhP50.00 per bag to a middle man from Manila.
Secretly the women formed a team who went into the forest in the dead of night to
remove the plastic bags, which they buried away from the site where the resin-tapping
operations were being done. Because the site was usually unmanned at night, the women
continually did their clandestine operation until all resin-tapping activities stopped. They were
never caught, and they never saw who the tappers were. What was important to them at that
time was to stop the activity since they believed that it was destroying their forest. Later, the
Agawa people heard about the activities of Cellophil Resources Corporation (CRC), a logging
concessionaire, in the nearby municipality of Tubo in Abra province.
 The CRC and its sister company, the Cellulose Processing Corporation (CPC), were
awarded a Timber and Pulpwood License Agreement (TPLA) by then Philippine President
Ferdinand Marcos. The TPLA covered some 99,565 hectares of pine forests in Abra and
Kalinga-Apayao. In addition, Cellophil (both CRC and CPC) had quietly acquired almost
200,000 ha of mostly pine forests in Abra, Kalinga-Apayao, Mountain Province, Ilocos Norte,
and Ilocos Sur. The project affected an estimated 145,000 inhabitants of the area (mostly
indigenous peoples). The mill was to produce the basic material for cellophane to be exported to
Japan and Europe. Both companies were owned by Henry Disini, a known Marcos crony
(Verzola 2008). The Agawa people speculated that the resin-tapping activities in their forest
must have been part of the CRC multi-million project.
Continuing Campaign Against Logging and Mining Operations. Aside from timber
and other forest products, the mountain range where the Agawa village is situated is also rich in
minerals, one of which is a most precious mineral, gold. This is the reason why the area has
always been a target of mining companies for exploration and other mining activities.
The women respondents said that they continue to oppose the entry of big logging and
mining activities in their community. They express their opposition by actively participating in
community meetings, signing petitions against logging and mining operations. Some of them
have joined protest rallies and other mass actions at the regional and national levels against
destructive projects such as logging and mining.
Not surprisingly, the women respondents are aware of the continuing threat of mining in
their community. They said they are watchful of the activities of the Malibato Mining Company,
which started checking their area since June 2011. And while they lament the seeming
indifference of the youth toward their traditional practices, our women respondents continue to
believe that the future generation will not allow the destruction of their environment. Speaking in
Ilocano, one elderly key informant had this say about the threat of mining to her community:
Haan mi ipalubos ti minas wenno uray ania nga proyekto ditoy Besao nga mangdadael ti
daga ken pagpag. Nataengannak ngem ammok nga aniaman nga proyekto nga
makadunor ti aglawlaw lalo ti pagpag ket supiaten ti uubing, lallalo dagiti babbae ti
Agawa. (We will never allow any mining operation or any project in Besao that will destroy
our land and our forest. I am old but I am confident that any project that will destroy the
environment and the forest will surely be opposed by the next generation, especially by
the women of Agawa.

Her story. One of the key informants of this research was Endena Cogasi, a
womanleader who has once been tagged by the military as “Mother Cordillera” and
“Commander.” At a time when Agawa women were pursuing a guerilla-style operation against
the resin-tapping activities in their forests, Philippine society was a social volcano waiting to
explode under the dictatorial rule of former President Ferdinand Marcos. In the remote village of
Agawa, Endena blossomed into a human rights activist during the Martial Law years, and her
house in the village became a ‘halfway place’ for people with different political leanings. Both
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the communist New Peoples’ Army (NPA)
benefitted from her hospitality. But those were dangerous times. Her hospitality was later
misconstrued by the military and she was put under the watchful eyes of the soldiers by setting
up a military checkpoint at the foot of the hill where her house was located. She was eventually
detained by the military for suspicions of being an NPA commander, but released the following
day, not by the good graces of the unit commander, but because of her endless chatter that
continued until sunrise, scolding the soldiers, and irritating them to no end. Her detention gave
her more resolve in actively campaigning for the pull out of the military troops from Besao during
the worst years of military operations in the province (from the 1980s through to the 1990s). She
joined rallies in front of military barracks in Bontoc, the capital of Mt. Province, denouncing
human rights violations and demanding a stop to militarization.
 On 9 December 2010, Endena was awarded the Gawad Tanggol Karapatan (or award
for human rights defenders) by the Cordillera Human Rights Alliance in observance of the
International Human Rights Day in recognition for her “intense passion and unwavering
commitment” in protecting the land, life, and resources of the Igorot since the Martial Law period
(Caguioa, 2010). The award was a fitting tribute to a woman who led the resistance against the
resin-tapping activities in Agawa in the 1970s. This initial involvement in protecting the
environment and the forests of her community eventually grew into an awareness that went
beyond the confines of her village. She was then in her forties. Endena, now 86 years old,
continues to fight for the rights of indigenous peoples.
Women at the Forefront of Forest Protection and Restoration. Recent events in
Agawa saw community women continuing the tradition started by their women elders by actively
participating and contributing in efforts to protect one of their important resources: the forest.
During forest fires, women do not sit idly by. On the contrary, they can be seen actively clearing
areas and perimeters to help stop the spread of fire. This was again evident in 2009 when the
village experienced widespread forest fires. While the men took charge of putting out the fire,
the women were not far behind as they joined the various community fire brigades that were
organized. Recently, the community women were again called upon to help in a reforestation
drive of the municipality, an idea proposed by the Vice Mayor. The men got seeds and
seedlings of native trees and medicinal plants from the pine and mossy forests, and the women
were the ones who planted them around the vicinity of the village. While this project had them
cooperating with the local government unit, another project saw them at odds with the elected
officials who supported a road construction project that would have passed through their rice
paddies and necessitated the diversion of the flow of the river. The women said they were
suspicious of the true intent of the project since the proposed road would lead directly to the foot
of the pine forest. Again, the Agawa women voiced their opposition to this road construction
project, which as of this writing, has not progressed.

Reading 3.1: Women who dare. Bagayaua, G.B. (2004). In Torres, W.M. (2014) Rido: Clan
feuding and conflict management in Mindanao. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press)

“Kati-i ako! Si Babu iyo!” (I am here, your aunty!) These words, spoken by Tarhata Lucman, a
slightly built woman of royal blood, could barely be heard amid the sound of gunfire that morning
in Tugaya, a remote town in the neighboring province of Lanao del Sur.
This was sometime in 1987, and the scene was not a shootout between soldiers and
rebels. It was a fight between young men belonging to two distantly related families, which had
been in conflict with each other for decades. Princess Tarhata, in her 50s and governor of
Lanao del Sur at the time, was herself related to both families.
Bad blood between the two families-known in these parts as rido - started in the ’50s,
the result of rivalry between two suitors over a girl. This turned into a full-scale war when one of
the suitors murdered the other after they attended a local gathering. Their families were soon
locked in a war that lasted three decades and killed many of the town’s promising young
leaders.
Earlier that morning in 1987, another member of one of the families had been killed by
members of the rival family. The victim’s relatives were bent on getting back at his killers. Blood
could have flowed once again had Princess Tarhata not positioned herself physically in between
the warring camps. 
Regarded highly among her people, she managed to calm down the combatants enough
to enable the victim’s killers to seek refuge in her Marawi City home. She then prevailed upon
the other family not to retaliate anymore, stressing that the cycle of violence had to end.
 To this day, Princess Tarhata remains a regal and commanding presence. When
NEWSBREAK interviewed her in September, she was still involved in resolving at least 10
ongoing rido cases in Lanao even if she had long retired from politics.
Why Women? Princess Tarhata is not the only woman here who is known for
intervening in conflicts between families. Paradoxically, in a society where females often take
the backseat, women, particularly those who are regarded highly in the community, are often
called upon to help resolve rido cases. 
In Matanog town, this province, 54-year-old Hadji Sitti Imam is known to have helped
settle at least 10 rido cases. She once settled a case involving the family of her uncle (her
father’s brother) who was killed by her uncle-in-law (her husband’s uncle). 
By tradition, the family of the murdered man would have considered it their duty to
retaliate. It is all part of defending the family’s maratabat, loosely defined as family pride.
To prevent more killings, Imam decided to intervene. 
“I did not want any more trouble because they are neighbors,” she said. She asked her
husband’s family to have the culprit jailed and give the family of the dead man blood money.
After the victim’s family received the blood money, a ritual gathering of the two clans - called
kanduli - was held in Marantao, the village in Matanog where the families live. During the
ceremony, the heads of the two families were made to swear upon the Koran that no further
hostilities would ensue. 
At the moment, Imam is mediating a conflict between her uncle, the former mayor of
Matanog, and the incumbent mayor who is the nephew of her husband. 
As in other aspects of governance and politics here, women are often given the
backseat when it comes to official conflict mediation. But they play crucial roles in settling
conflicts between families because, as locals point out, families here are often matriarchal in
nature.
“On the surface, the men make the decisions. But at home, they always consult their
wives,” says Tarhata Maglangit, head of the Regional Commission on Bangsamoro Women.
Losing Manly Pride. Women are both protected and highly regarded in local Muslim
society, explains Zenaida Tawagon, leader of a nongovernment organization in Marawi City and
herself involved in settling rido cases. A woman’s murder during a rido, she says, commands a
higher price in terms of blood money. Thus, unless the rido started with the murder of a woman,
a man is considered a coward if he retaliates by killing a woman. 
Perhaps for this reason, women are able to penetrate places where nobody would go
because there is an existing rido, says Tawagon. In one case, she recalls, women were sent by
the family of ii man killed during a rido to get his body. 
Aminah Paglas of the Alliance of Concerned Women for Development in Buldon,
Maguindanao, says that women are sent as emissaries in conflict resolution because they are
often more patient and less hotheaded than men. Paglas recalls that her mother had played
peacemaker in conflicts between their own relatives.
What makes women crucial in peacemaking is the concept of maratabat, says Koko
Lucman, a son of Princess Tarhata. “It is an insult for the family of a man if he is the one to
initiate peace talks,” Lucman says. “It’s like losing your manly pride.” It is a lot easier if a woman
initiates the talks, he explains.
Qualifications. Not everybody can play peacemaker, though. One has to be highly
esteemed in society to be able to intervene in a rido, says Maglangit. 
For instance, people in her town listen to Imam because not only is she the daughter of
a datu; she has been selected as the local bai alibi – a rank equal to princess in the Christian
world. Keeping the peace is one of the traditional responsibilities of a bai alabi, says Princess
Tarhata - who has been asked but refused to serve as bai alabi. Her father, the late Senator
Alauya Alonto, was a Maranao sultan. Tawagon, on the other hand, is the wife of a sultan in
Marawi. 
 The mediator must be able to show the parties involved that she is impartial, Imam says.
“She must be fair. Not the sort who betrays.” 
Education, particularly knowledge of the Koran, is also important because Koranic
teachings are often cited by mediators in persuading combatants to reconcile with their rivals,
says Linda Burton, a professor at the Xavier University who is studying rido cases. “Islam is
peace,” explains Princess Tarhata. “This is because our prophet is a trader. You can’t trade if
there is war.” 
Princess Tarhata, whose family owns the Jamaitul Philippine Al Islamiyah - the first
Islamic school in Marawi where both English and Arabic subjects are taught - is considered very
highly educated, Burton says. On the other hand, while Imam may not have been schooled in
the national education system, she is considered highly learned in Islamic teachings. As a
young maiden, her daughter recalls, Imam was champion of a Koran Reading Contest in the
former town of Bugasan (now divided into the towns of Parang, Buldon, Matanog, and Barira).
No Easy Task. Playing the mediator is not for the weak of heart if one fails to handle
matters well, one can invite trouble or unwittingly get caught in the crossfire. Yet these women
dare to break through the barriers between combating parties in order to wage peace. 
It has not been easy. Young men nowadays are much more hotheaded, says Imam.
And, she adds, guns are much easier to acquire now, unlike before when men fought using only
their bolos. Which is why Princess Tarhata, who shares Imam’s views on the matter, is
campaigning for a general disarmament.
To be an effective mediator, one also has to be a person of means because sometimes
the mediator is called upon to chip in for the blood money required to appease an aggrieved
party. 
Tawagon recalls having to spend for the hospitalization of somebody injured in an
automobile accident to prevent hostilities between the family of the injured and the family of the
other party in the accident. She also hosted the kanduli between the two parties at her own
house. Tawagon was a relative of one of the parties in the case. 
Another case that Tawagon resolved involved a land dispute. To settle matters, she had
to buy the property in order to give it to the other family. That family later paid her in installment
but at a much-reduced price. But Tawagon considers it money well spent. “This is how we help
each other.”