THE INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

ESPERANZA Y. CLAPANO [*] Introduction I belong to the society of sisters from the Philippines called the Missionaries of the Assumption. The Philippines has 74 million people of whom 85% are Christians, around 5% Muslim and 10% are Indigenous People. We are in Davao City, Mindanao, which is the third largest island in the Philippines. We have been colonized since 1521 and the name of the Philippines came from King Philip of Spain. Since then, many foreign missionaries came to the Philippines bringing with them their own perspective and culture, plus their religious practices and devotions. Among those were the first sisters of our original congregation who came to the Philippines in 1954 and established the congregation of Filipina sisters. From Martial Law in 1971 to 1989 a growing tension arose in our congregation on how to respond to the political situation. It was really a conflict of different perspectives: their perspective and our indigenous perspective to discern the signs of the time. In 1989, twenty-nine of us decided to leave the original congregation to re-found ourselves as missionaries to the poor, especially to our Indigenous People. One of the very important reasons for our separation was to recapture our indigenous perspective in our life, mission and spirituality. Our Indigenous Peoples The Indigenous Peoples of Mindanao are estimated at 2.5 million. There are 18 ethno-linguistic groups spread out in at least 17 provinces in Mindanao. The decline of their population continues to be alarming. This is triggered by an intensifying loss of livelihood, shrinking ancestral land, the constricting power of self-government and vanishing customs and traditions. All of this is due to a framework of development that is aggressive and destructive to our indigenous peoples and nature. One example of this is the intrusion of mining corporations to our indigenous communities, which resulted in a series of evacuations and massive dislocation. In the process of gradually losing our Indigenous People, we are losing at the same time our indigenous wisdom and perspective. Our indigenous perspective Our indigenous perspective is creation-centred. It has a holistic approach to life, and is interconnected with and interrelated to the whole of creation. Creation here means all things and us. We respect life in all its forms, the seen and the unseen. Life is sacred, relationship is sacred, and nature is sacred. Every creature is the manifestation of God, a Bible and a book about God. In this orientation, land is sacred and the source of life. All our existence depends on it. To deprive us of our land is to deprive us of life. This is based on the conviction that the whole planet earth in its entirety is the context for our life, our mission and our spirituality. Earth is our home. All life comes from it. The earth, the water, the air and the whole universe with its planetary bodies are one and interconnected. A spirit permeates every creation. Everything that has life has a spirit. Our spirituality is based on this: reverence for life in all its diversity as a reflection, manifestation, expression and presen ce of an all-wise and loving Creator who is the great designer of all these wonders. This spirituality has empowered us to stand for justice because justice has been integral to creation from the beginning of the universe, which itself has order, harmony and balance. This spirituality helps to heal injustice by having right and just relationship with the earth, with other creatures, with the poor, deprived and oppressed, because Jesus Christ, the Cosmic Christ, is found in every person and in every creation. Our prophetic island Our option for the poor as a charism of our congregation, is an overflow of our deep compassion that comes from our experience of a compassionate God from within and from outside, who hears the cries of the poor. …