Military base expansion to dislocate Aetas, farmers

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When Camp O Donnel was built, they drove away the Aetas. Now they (US and
Philippine military) are expanding, and they are once again driving away Aetas.
Edwin Danan, Central Luzon Aeta Association
By MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com
MANILA While many indigenous groups in the Philippines are battling to defend
their ancestral domain from what they call as development aggression, usually of
large-scale mining, logging, agribusiness and energy projects, the Aetas of Central
Luzon are mostly battling the occupation of their land and appropriation of their
traditional jungle survival knowledge by the US and Philippine military.
It is no secret to us in Central Luzon that the annual Balikatan wargames use our
ancestral domain, Edwin Danan, leader of Central Luzon Aeta Association (CLAA),
told Bulatlat.com in various interviews since last years Balikatan. A thin, diminutive
young-looking 79-year old Aeta, Danan and his group has been calling on the
government to respect their ancestral domain all over the region most of it are
affected by government claims that it is part of a military reservation, if not the
base itself.

First day of several live fire training evolution at Crow Valley, Philippines, of
Philippine Marines and US Marines. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Joey S.
Holeman, Jr./Released/May 2014)

In April last year, US and Philippine Armed forces held combat exercises and field
training in Camp ODonnell, Crow Valley, Subic Bay and Fort Magsaysay, all
sprawling, former US military bases in Central Luzon where the Aeta and some nonindigenous farmers also live. The US Embassy in Manila said these military exercises
were to improve interoperability and contingency planning of the two countries
troops. This year, US military personnel held Balikatan activities in Bicol, but they
also continued to hold trainings in former US bases in Central Luzon.
They conducted during last months Balikatan some live-fire training evolutions
including close quarter marksmanship training, military freefall jump from a KC-130J
Sumos assault support aircraft, squad fire and maneuver training at Crow Valley in
Camp ODonnell; they also held trainings that at one time involved amphibious
assault landing at the Philippine Naval Education Training Command center near
Zambales.
In Capas, Tarlac, where Camp O Donnell is located, Danan told Bulatlat.com that
since September last year, the lands being used for Balikatan exercises were fenced
off. For the Aeta communities living in the area, he said, it represents threats of
renewed series of dislocation.
For Aeta leaders like Danan, secretary general of Central Luzon Aeta Association
(CLAA), the fences encompassing Aeta communities hinder the movement and their
meeting with fellow Aetas. He said that even if the villages concerned, Sta. Juliana
(and Maruglu and Bueno villages, too, according to the town mayor, Antonio
Rodriguez Jr.) lie within Aetas ancestral domain, they cannot move around freely
and hold meetings in their communities.
In this weeks Lakbayan of peasants in observance of the expiration of the
Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, which they call a failure anyway, Danan
said Aetas from militarized communities were barred or threatened from joining.
To go in and out of the fenced off Aeta communities in Capas, Tarlac, one has to
pass though security checks and military guard posts. The Aeta villages are within
their ancestral domain, but these were also declared as part of the nearly 18,000hectare Crow Valley Gunnery Range and military reservation in Camp O Donnell.
When Camp O Donnel was built, they drove away the Aetas. Now they (US and
Philippine military) are expanding, and they are once again driving away Aetas,
Danan said. Problem is, he said the tribe have no place else to go this time. He
shared that the rumored relocation area is far too small to accommodate all the
Aetas and non-Aetas to be dislocated by the military base expansion.
Danan decried the way the government and the military have been pitting Aetas
against each other, with the military recruiting CAFGUs from among Aetas.
He also told Bulatlat.com that contrary to what may appear in the news, most of the
Aetas are opposed to their likely dislocation and the conversion of their ancestral
domain into military training ground and base.
Military bases dislocating Aeta, farmers

Crow Valley in Camp ODonnell was a component facility of Clark Air Base, which
was extensively used by US Air Force when the Americans officially had military
bases in the Philippines. The nearly 18,000-hectare facility was reportedly the US
troops training ground for jungle warfare and for agents in tactical
counterintelligence. (Aetas claim the component of the militarys jungle survival
training came from them, after American soldiers based in Clark and Subic Bay
tapped them to teach US troops how to survive in the jungle.)

Scene from Balikatan 2014 live fire training: Philippine Army Special Forces do
freefall jump from a US Sumos assault support aircraft, over Crow Valley, home of
Aetas. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Allison DeVries/Released)
Even when the US military bases were turned over to Filipinos in the early 90s, then
President Fidel V. Ramos exempted Crow Valley from the coverage of the Bases
Conversion Development Authority (BCDA), and reserved it mainly for use of the
Armed Forces and the Defense Department. Nowadays, Crow Valley also served as
venue for annual Balikatan US troops wargames.
Claiming to defend the interest of indigenous Aeta and some non-indigenous
farmers in his town of Capas, its Mayor Antonio Rodriguez Jr. attended on June 9 a
hearing of the Committee on Bases Conversion in Congress to urge it to segregate
the nearly 2,000 hectares of Aeta villages, which, he said, are currently covered by
the military reservation. Aside from Sta Juliana, Maruglu and Bueno, the villages of
Sta. Lucia, Aranguren, Lawy and ODonnell with Aeta and non-Aeta residents were
also declared as part of the military reservation. In calling for these villages
segregation, Rodriguez cited the need to respect the rights of indigenous peoples
who make up the bulk of people residing in the declared military reservation.

Over half or 23,024-hectare of Capas, Tarlacs total land area is considered part of
the military reservation.
What is worse is that aside from the direct dislocation the expansion of the military
reservation would do to Aeta communities, the rest are facing greater difficulties
with their day-to-day survival needs because of another government policy. Aeta
leader Edwin Danan said that aside from being under the military in their own
communities, Aetas are finding it harder to survive as their sources of livelihood are
being limited by the Green City Project of the Bases Conversion Development
Authority (BCDA).
Aetas live by planting rice and vegetable. To prepare or clear land for farming, they
turn fallen trees into coal, which they sell in the market. For hundreds of years,
Aetas live nomadically, leaving a farm for another to allow new forest growth after a
time. But in recent years and given the development and military or government
claims on the land, they are finding less and less freedom to move around.

First from left of this picture is Edwin Danan, secretary-general of Central Luzon Aeta
Association.
Danan told Bulatlat.com that under President Benigno Noynoy Aquino III, it
appeared at first that the indigenous peoples are being given their rights under the
National Greening Program, which almost entirely covered all forested mountains
and overlapped ancestral domain claims of indigenous peoples. But the greening
program also served as pretext for limiting the action of indigenous peoples over

their own lands. Meanwhile, tree-cutting continues where the government allowed
big companies to do so.
At the Committee on Bases Conversion hearing at the House of Representatives last
June 9, Capas Mayor Rodriguez confirmed in his speech that the Green City Project
of the BCDA and the expansion of Crow Valley Gunnery Range by the Philippine Air
Force (under the Department of National Defense PAF/DND) are threatening to drive
away some 30,000 indigenous and non-indigenous farmers in affected villages of
Capas.
Rodriguez has promised to support the Aetas, Danan said, but the mayor himself
has not yet directly talked with the Aeta elders of Central Luzon Aeta Association
(CLAA).
The Aetas want the BCDA to stop its Green City Project; Capas Mayor Rodriguez told
the Bases Conversion Committee in Congress he is happy and wholeheartedly
accepting the BCDA and Phil. Air Force projects, although he added there is also a
need to protect the rights of the citizens who would be directly affected, meaning
the Aetas mostly, and some non-Aeta farmers.
CLAA is opposing the continuing expansion of US military bases and reservation on
Aetas ancestral domain not just in the vicinity of Camp O Donnell in Capas, Tarlac
but also in Subic, Zambales, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija. From last year to now,
Danan said Aeta communities have further been occupied by the military.
Military detachments in IP communities did not leave with Palparan, Danan said,
referring to the retired and now fugitive Brigadier General who is implicated in the
alleged enforced disappearance and torture of UP students Karen Empeo and
Sherlyn Cadapan. These students, according to witnesses, were brought to camps
and heavily tortured in remote areas believed to be part of the Philippine militarys
extensive military bases and reservations in Central Luzon.
While the Capas mayor is silent on the presence of these soldiers and their camps
all over the IP communities, he has been angling for the release of nearly 2,000
hectares of IP lands, comprising their village and parts of it, from the military
reservation. He demanded last June 9 Transparency on the part of implementing
agencies, as he urged BCDA and the Phil. Air Force or DND to make public the
Development Plans for the projects.
Particularly on the BCDA/Green City Project, which the Aetas oppose, Rodriguez
asked for definite answers as to what are the plans and policies of the BCDA for the
indigenous peoples, farmers and residents affected by the project.
Regarding the Crow Valley Gunnery Range Development Plan, Rodriguez urged for
respect of indigenous peoples rights. But in the same breath, he wanted the
assimilation of affected barangays by demanding that their territories be freed from
the reservation, for it to be truly under the local government. The mayor decried
how, over the years, his town has not benefited from these lands because of

prohibition on any construction there, and as for parts that are included in baseconverted economic zones, he complained that they get too little share in the taxes.
Capas Mayor Rodriguez also asked the Committee on Bases Conversion to legislate
the permanent lifting of the prohibition on the entry of construction materials inside
the Crow Valley Range.
As for Danan, he reiterated their demand for respect of their ancestral domain, and
for the military to decamp
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