Ancestral Domain Research Articles

Ethnic Social and Ecosystem Approach to the Evaluation of the Lifehoods of Small Indigenous Peoples of the North

The regions of the Russian North occupy 70 % of the territory of the country. These areas considerably differ in the level of socio-economic development. Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (KhMAO) — Yugra is the most developed industrial region of the Russian North. KhMAO is also the main supplier of oil and gas resources. Thus, KhMAO is the focus of the research. The purpose of the paper is to evaluate how the traditional natural resource management transforms on the developing territories and to assess its impact on the lifehoods of the Small Indigenous Peoples of the North (SIPN). The study is based on the hypothesis of the negative impact of industrial development on the territory of the traditional residence of SIPN and, accordingly, on their social and economic development and the quality of life. We have found certain intraregional distinctions of this territorial subject of the Federation. These differences are caused by the features of natural and resource potential, transport security and geographical location. It is true for both the separate municipal entities and larger territorial and administrative sub-regions. We have identified the most acute problems in the development of traditional natural resource management on the territories of active industrial and transport development. The main industries there are reindeer breeding and fishery. We also identified the problem of the northern legislation set up to protect the rights of SIPN. The paper considers the evolutionary changes in the formation of the institution of ancestral domains and the territories of traditional natural resource management, as well as the practice of coordinating the interests of subsoil users and SIPN’s representatives with the help of economic agreements. We have demonstrated the problem associated with the difficulties of social adaptation of SIPN. We have analyzed the ecological situation and current state of traditional environmental management to compare the conditions of municipal entities of the region. Using ethnic social and ecosystem approach, we have evaluated the lifehoods of SIPN in the developed and poorly developed regions of KhMAO. The results of the assessment support the hypothesis of the research. The findings of the research can be used when working out on the roadmap of the development of traditional industries and SIPN in the municipal districts of various development level.

Evolutionary convergence and divergence in archaeal chromosomal proteins and Chromo-like domains from bacteria and eukaryotes

SH3-fold-β-barrel domains of the chromo-like superfamily recognize epigenetic marks in eukaryotic proteins. Their provenance has been placed either in archaea, based on apparent structural similarity to chromatin-compacting Sul7d and Cren7 proteins, or in bacteria based on the presence of sequence homologs. Using sequence and structural evidence we establish that the archaeal Cren7/Sul7 proteins emerged from a zinc ribbon (ZnR) ancestor. Further, we show that the ancestral eukaryotic chromo-like domains evolved from bacterial versions, likely acquired from early endosymbioses, which already possessed an aromatic cage for recognition of modified amino-groups. These bacterial versions are part of a radiation of secreted SH3-fold domains, which spawned both chromo-like domains and classical SH3 domains in the context of peptide-recognition in the peptidoglycan or the extracellular matrix. This establishes that Cren7/Sul7 converged to a “SH3”-like state from a ZnR precursor via the loss of metal-chelation and acquisition of stronger hydrophobic interactions; it is unlikely to have participated in the evolution of the chromo-like domains. We show that archaea possess several Cren7/Sul7-related proteins with intact Zn-chelating ligands, which we predict to play previously unstudied roles in chromosome segregation during cell-division comparable to the PRC barrel and CdvA domain proteins.

Living with the problem of national parks

‘You mean to say we’re not the only people in the world with the problem of a national park?’ This question was raised during a focus group discussion held with an indigenous community whose ancestral domain overlaps entirely with a national park in the Philippine Cordillera. The question encapsulates an experience shared across the Philippines, particularly in spaces where both the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act and the National Integrated Protected Areas System are implemented. This paper examines recent developments in indigenous leaders’ participation in, and critique of, the implementation of these two laws and the development of environmental policies. It follows an emerging, multi-sectoral movement calling for the recognition of Indigenous Communities Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCAs), which has led to the crafting of a draft law. The ICCA bill is envisioned as a law that will resolve indigenous peoples’ problems with national parks, while meeting biodiversity conservation targets. The authors direct attention to how indigenous leaders campaigning for the ICCA bill are asserting their right to delineate space and make decisions in the contexts of policy-making and implementation. It is argued here that their articulations are registers of indigenous critique. Taking these critiques seriously has the potential to drive conservation policy-making past the stewardship stalemate, where conservation goals are pursued at the cost of indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and indigenous peoples are expected to perform harmony with nature.

TIR Domain Proteins Are an Ancient Family of NAD+-Consuming Enzymes

The Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain is the signature signaling domain of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) and their adaptors, serving as a scaffold for the assembly of protein complexes for innate immune signaling [1, 2]. TIR domain proteins are also expressed in plants, where they mediate disease resistance [3, 4], and in bacteria, where they have been associated with virulence [5-9]. In pursuing our work on axon degeneration [10], we made the surprising discovery that the TIR domain of SARM1 (sterile alpha and TIR motif containing 1), a TLR adaptor protein, has enzymatic activity [11]. Upon axon injury, the SARM1 TIR domain cleaves nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), destroying this essential metabolic co-factor to trigger axon destruction [11, 12]. Whereas current studies of TIR domains focus on their scaffolding function, our findings with SARM1 inspired us to ask whether this enzymatic activity is the primordial function of the TIR domain. Here we show that ancestral prokaryotic TIR domains constitute a new family of NADase enzymes. Using purified proteins from a cell-free translation system, we find that TIR domain proteins from both bacteria and archaea cleave NAD+ into nicotinamide and ADP-ribose (ADPR), with catalytic cleavage executed by a conserved glutamic acid. A subset of bacterial and archaeal TIR domains generates a non-canonical variant cyclic ADPR (cADPR) molecule, and the full-length TIR domain protein from pathogenicStaphylococcus aureus induces NAD+ loss in mammalian cells. These findings suggest that the primordial function of the TIR domain is the enzymatic cleavage of NAD+ and establish TIR domain proteins as a new class of metabolic regulatory enzymes.

The regenerating forest of Magbukún Aeta in Morong Bataan, Philippines: A Biological Hotspot for Protection and Conservation

This research focused on the study of a tropical semi-evergreen rain forest community structure within the ancestral domain of the Aetas in Morong, Bataan. Point-Centered Quarter Method (PCQM) was used where five 200 m transects were laid across a 28-ha study site. Trees with ≥1cm diameter at 1.3 m from the ground (Diameter at breast height (DBH)) were sampled. Trees encountered were categorized into four groups: seedlings, saplings, pole trees and standard trees based on girth classes. A total of 76 tree species belonging to 61 genera and 35 families were recorded. The most represented family was Moraceae, followed by Dipterocarpaceae, Sapindaceae and Lauraceae. The species with highest importance percentage (IP) were Shorea contorta Vidal (Dipterocarpaceae) (IP=9.731), Macaranga tanarius (L.) Muell.-Arg (Euphorbiaceae) (IP= 5.659) and Canarium europhyllum G. Perkins (Burseraceae) (IP= 4.538). Very high values of species diversity were calculated (H’= 3.817; D’= 0.968). The area was previously a dipterocarp forest and can now be classified as a young regenerating forest, composed primarily of seedlings many of which are dipterocarps. There were 17 threatened species, including two critically endangered and two endangered species (listed in The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (2017-3) and DAO (2017-11) as well as twelve endemic species identified as present in the area. This forest is a biological hotspot that needs utmost protection and conservation.

PERGULATAN MINORITAS DALAM NEGARA HEGEMONIC: STUDI KASUS MUSLIM BANGSAMORO DI MINDANAO, FILIPINA SELATAN

This article describes the relationship between political entities of the Bangsamoro or Muslims in Mindanao and of the Philippine government which may be said in a nadir since the cancellation of the MoA-AD (Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain) signing plans between MILF (Mindanao Islamic Liberation Front) and the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) by the Supreme Court of the country in October 2008. Now their relationship is only bound by the temporary cease-fire. While the actual MILF is the only one course of representation of Muslims in Mindanao in addition to the MNLF (Mindanao National Liberation Front) and Kelompok Datu or traditional leaders. This research deduces that the plurality in the Bangsamoro itself becomes an obstacle in the peace talk process as the absence of a common platform among them. While GRP tends to speak with the faction of it separately, so it was impressed monolithic, there should be efforts to build a joint platform among different groups within the Bangsamoro. Furthermore, the GRP should facilitate the communication and the dialogue among factions within Bangsamoro. Besides, the GRP should convince people in Philippines of how important the peace with Bangsamoro is on behalf of a national interest in a whole.

Non-base-contacting residues enable kaleidoscopic evolution of metazoan C2H2 zinc finger DNA binding

BackgroundThe C2H2 zinc finger (C2H2-ZF) is the most numerous protein domain in many metazoans, but is not as frequent or diverse in other eukaryotes. The biochemical and evolutionary mechanisms that underlie the diversity of this DNA-binding domain exclusively in metazoans are, however, mostly unknown.ResultsHere, we show that the C2H2-ZF expansion in metazoans is facilitated by contribution of non-base-contacting residues to DNA binding energy, allowing base-contacting specificity residues to mutate without catastrophic loss of DNA binding. In contrast, C2H2-ZF DNA binding in fungi, plants, and other lineages is constrained by reliance on base-contacting residues for DNA-binding functionality. Reconstructions indicate that virtually every DNA triplet was recognized by at least one C2H2-ZF domain in the common progenitor of placental mammals, but that extant C2H2-ZF domains typically bind different sequences from these ancestral domains, with changes facilitated by non-base-contacting residues.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the evolution of C2H2-ZFs in metazoans was expedited by the interaction of non-base-contacting residues with the DNA backbone. We term this phenomenon “kaleidoscopic evolution,” to reflect the diversity of both binding motifs and binding motif transitions and the facilitation of their diversification.

Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle for Secure Land Tenure in the Philippines: Case Study of Higaonon Tribe in Opol, Mindanao

Indigenous peoples worldwide struggle for control over land and natural resources against encroachment of state interests, external development and commercial pressures such as agribusiness, dams, logging and mining. Their battle to protect land and natural resources is at the same time the struggle to preserve indigenous culture and traditions often inextricably linked to the land itself. The Philippine Indigenous Peoples Rights Act recognizes the indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral lands and domains and offers a way of improving their land tenure security. The article employs case study design to illustrate the implementation gap between the rights of indigenous peoples in law and practice and the role different stakeholders play in securing indigenous peoples’ land tenure and dealing with palm oil agribusiness and mining industries’ interests in ancestral domains on the case of Higaonon tribe in Misamis Oriental province, Mindanao. The methodology for data collection was focus group discussions and key informant interviews with representatives of tribal leaders and members, non-government organizations and government bodies. Our results indicate that conflicting laws and mandates of various government bodies and lack of coordination between them, as well as lack of resources and political will to implement the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act are important factors behind slow issuance of ancestral domain titles. At the same time, we show that significant factor in the land tenure insecurity of indigenous peoples is disunity within the tribe and conflicting interests of its members and clans used by companies to further enhance their business interests. r, regarding weaving and finishing the rim, it should be done neatly without visible welded joints, and also 5) the product quality: each part is assembled fixing by leather, inside of the product is attached by cloth as well as filled with leftover fabric. Besides, the sewing should be considerably emphasized the strength to carry weight. In addition, the overall assessment of handcraft vetiver seat cushion model is at a high level.

Tana’ Bawang (homeland): cultural safety and the Kelabit land struggle in Borneo

This article explores the significance of cultural safety in view of the struggle over ancestral domain and modernity for Kelabit youth and elders in the state of Sarawak in Borneo, Malaysia. Our participatory case study points to the challenges to cultural safety caused by the external pressures of modernization and competing knowledge systems from downriver that are breaking down the leadership and decision-making processes to protect the land. We found that intergenerational community mapping and language revitalization provide a means for supporting cultural safety. Our applied research suggests that cultural safety benefits from being defined locally. Empowering youth and elders to harness, renew, and defend the potential of Kelabit identity and unity is part of recognizing that cultural safety needs to be constantly affirmed by its proponents. It is a process that demands to be actively grappled with and defined by community members at the individual and collective levels.

STAG-CNS: An Order-Aware Conserved Noncoding Sequences Discovery Tool for Arbitrary Numbers of Species

One method for identifying noncoding regulatory regions of a genome is to quantify rates of divergence between related species, as functional sequence will generally diverge more slowly. Most approaches to identifying these conserved noncoding sequences (CNSs) based on alignment have had relatively large minimum sequence lengths (≥15 bp) compared with the average length of known transcription factor binding sites. To circumvent this constraint, STAG-CNS that can simultaneously integrate the data from the promoters of conserved orthologous genes in three or more species was developed. Using the data from up to six grass species made it possible to identify conserved sequences as short as 9 bp with false discovery rate ≤0.05. These CNSs exhibit greater overlap with open chromatin regions identified using DNase I hypersensitivity assays, and are enriched in the promoters of genes involved in transcriptional regulation. STAG-CNS was further employed to characterize loss of conserved noncoding sequences associated with retained duplicate genes from the ancient maize polyploidy. Genes with fewer retained CNSs show lower overall expression, although this bias is more apparent in samples of complex organ systems containing many cell types, suggesting that CNS loss may correspond to a reduced number of expression contexts rather than lower expression levels across the entire ancestral expression domain.

DeCoSTAR: Reconstructing the Ancestral Organization of Genes or Genomes Using Reconciled Phylogenies.

DeCoSTAR is a software that aims at reconstructing the organization of ancestral genes or genomes in the form of sets of neighborhood relations (adjacencies) between pairs of ancestral genes or gene domains. It can also improve the assembly of fragmented genomes by proposing evolutionary-induced adjacencies between scaffolding fragments. Ancestral genes or domains are deduced from reconciled phylogenetic trees under an evolutionary model that considers gains, losses, speciations, duplications, and transfers as possible events for gene evolution. Reconciliations are either given as input or computed with the ecceTERA package, into which DeCoSTAR is integrated. DeCoSTAR computes adjacency evolutionary scenarios using a scoring scheme based on a weighted sum of adjacency gains and breakages. Solutions, both optimal and near-optimal, are sampled according to the Boltzmann–Gibbs distribution centered around parsimonious solutions, and statistical supports on ancestral and extant adjacencies are provided. DeCoSTAR supports the features of previously contributed tools that reconstruct ancestral adjacencies, namely DeCo, DeCoLT, ART-DeCo, and DeClone. In a few minutes, DeCoSTAR can reconstruct the evolutionary history of domains inside genes, of gene fusion and fission events, or of gene order along chromosomes, for large data sets including dozens of whole genomes from all kingdoms of life. We illustrate the potential of DeCoSTAR with several applications: ancestral reconstruction of gene orders for Anopheles mosquito genomes, multidomain proteins in Drosophila, and gene fusion and fission detection in Actinobacteria. Availability: http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/software/DeCoSTAR (Last accessed April 24, 2017).

High-throughput sequencing reveals circular substrates for an archaeal RNA ligase

ABSTRACTIt is only recently that the abundant presence of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in all kingdoms of Life, including the hyperthermophilic archaeon Pyrococcus abyssi, has emerged. This led us to investigate the physiologic significance of a previously observed weak intramolecular ligation activity of Pab1020 RNA ligase. Here we demonstrate that this enzyme, despite sharing significant sequence similarity with DNA ligases, is indeed an RNA-specific polynucleotide ligase efficiently acting on physiologically significant substrates. Using a combination of RNA immunoprecipitation assays and RNA-seq, our genome-wide studies revealed 133 individual circRNA loci in P. abyssi. The large majority of these loci interacted with Pab1020 in cells and circularization of selected C/D Box and 5S rRNA transcripts was confirmed biochemically. Altogether these studies revealed that Pab1020 is required for RNA circularization. Our results further suggest the functional speciation of an ancestral NTase domain and/or DNA ligase toward RNA ligase activity and prompt for further characterization of the widespread functions of circular RNAs in prokaryotes. Detailed insight into the cellular substrates of Pab1020 may facilitate the development of new biotechnological applications e.g. in ligation of preadenylated adaptors to RNA molecules.

State Recognition or State Appropriation? : Land Rights and Land Disputes among the Bugkalot/Ilongot of Northern Luzon, Philippines

The Bugkalot/Ilongot were awarded the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples in a joyful celebration on February 24, 2006. The CADT is a contemporary assertion of indigenous peoples’ ability to negotiate claims to land, livelihood, and autonomy within the nation-state. So far, however, the acquisition of the Bugkalot/Ilongot CADT has not made any substantial difference in the everyday lives of the people of Ġingin, a settlement located at the heartland of the Bugkalot area. Not only does the trend of in-migration of lowland settlers and other indigenous groups continue, there are heightening social tensions caused by growing numbers of land-grabbing incidents among the Bugkalot themselves. This issue is examined in the context of statepromoted settlement projects, the advance of capitalism, and the process of commodification, which have given rise to a new notion of exclusive landownership. State provision of land rights and capitalist market forces have combined to shape land relations in new and often surprising ways. By exposing some of the diverse and changing forms of dispossession, as well as the failure of barangay officials and government agencies in mediating and resolving land disputes, this article questions whether the seemingly novel avenues that the Philippine state has taken to “legitimate” indigenous peoples’ rights, in practice, actually extend state control.

Structure of the Escherichia coli ProQ RNA-binding protein.

The protein ProQ has recently been identified as a global small noncoding RNA-binding protein in Salmonella, and a similar role is anticipated for its numerous homologs in divergent bacterial species. We report the solution structure of Escherichia coli ProQ, revealing an N-terminal FinO-like domain, a C-terminal domain that unexpectedly has a Tudor domain fold commonly found in eukaryotes, and an elongated bridging intradomain linker that is flexible but nonetheless incompressible. Structure-based sequence analysis suggests that the Tudor domain was acquired through horizontal gene transfer and gene fusion to the ancestral FinO-like domain. Through a combination of biochemical and biophysical approaches, we have mapped putative RNA-binding surfaces on all three domains of ProQ and modeled the protein's conformation in the apo and RNA-bound forms. Taken together, these data suggest how the FinO, Tudor, and linker domains of ProQ cooperate to recognize complex RNA structures and serve to promote RNA-mediated regulation.

Reconstruction of Primordial P-loop NTPase Precursors

In collaboration with: Agnes Toth-Petroczy, Alexander Goncearenco and Igor Berezovsky (inference of the ancestral P-loop sequence) and Lin Yu-Ru and David Baker (computational protein design).Short functional peptides are likely to have served as crucial intermediates between a primordial RNA world and the extant protein world. Our working hypothesis is that relics of these ancestral peptides still exist in the form of key motifs in active sites of present-day proteins. One such motif, probably the most obvious one, is the P-loop (Walker A motif) that typically binds the transferred phosphate moiety of ATP. The P-loop's extended motif comprises a β-strand and an α-helix connected by the P-loop – a glycine-rich phosphate-binding loop. The P-loop containing nucleoside triphosphate hydrolase fold includes this motif, and is one of the most ancient folds and by far the most abundant (10-18% of all ORFs). In the present work, the sequence of a primordial β-Ploop-α motif was inferred. We further showed that this β-Ploop-α motif (∼25 amino acids) could have served as a building block for the creation of ancestral globular domains by means of duplication and fusion. Computational designed proteins were generated consisting of 2 repetitions of the ancestral motif grafted into an ideal β/α- repeat protein. Our results indicate that these simple, repetitive proteins avidly bind ssDNA and RNA (possibly a crucial step in the transition from the RNA world to a protein world). Further, a β-α-β fragment of this protein (< 40 amino acids) was found to self-assemble and thereby confer ssDNA binding. Overall, our results show that P-loop NTPases could have emerged from a relatively short P-loop containing peptide and that self-assembly played a key role in endowing biochemical function despite limited size and complexity.

The Origin of Floral Organ Identity Quartets.

The origin of flowers has puzzled plant biologists ever since Darwin referred to their sudden appearance in the fossil record as an abominable mystery. Flowers are considered to be an assembly of protective, attractive, and reproductive male and female leaf-like organs. Their origin cannot be understood by a morphological comparison to gymnosperms, their closest relatives, which develop separate male or female cones. Despite these morphological differences, gymnosperms and angiosperms possess a similar genetic toolbox consisting of phylogenetically related MADS domain proteins. Using ancestral MADS domain protein reconstruction, we trace the evolution of organ identity quartets along the stem lineage of crown angiosperms. We provide evidence that current floral quartets specifying male organ identity, which consist of four types of subunits, evolved from ancestral complexes of two types of subunits through gene duplication and integration of SEPALLATA proteins just before the origin of flowering plants. Our results suggest that protein interaction changes underlying this compositional shift were the result of a gradual and reversible evolutionary trajectory. Modeling shows that such compositional changes may have facilitated the evolution of the perfect, bisexual flower.

Macli-ing Dulag: Kalinga Chief, Defender of the Cordillera by MA. Ceres P. Doyo

Reviewed by: Macli-ing Dulag: Kalinga Chief, Defender of the Cordillera by MA. Ceres P. Doyo Laya Boquiren MA. CERES P. DOYO Macli-ing Dulag: Kalinga Chief, Defender of the Cordillera Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2015. 92 pages. In 1980 Maria Ceres P. Doyo figured in a highly mediatized military hearing because of an article she wrote on Macli-ing Dulag. Macli-ing, a pangat (peace pact holder) from the Butbut ethnolinguistic group residing in the [End Page 102] village of Bugnay in Tinglayan, Kalinga, rose to prominence during the martial law period because of his opposition to the Chico River Dam project and his leadership in forming strategic alliances among the Cordillera’s ethnolinguistic groups—actions that eventually cost him his life. Doyo expands her controversial 1980 article in the book Macli-ing Dulag: Kalinga Chief, Defender of the Cordillera. The book is a collection of eighteen thematically arranged short journalistic essays by Doyo about Macli-ing and the struggle against the dam project. The essays are based on Doyo’s field notes gathered after Macli-ing’s death, including excerpts of her conversations with the Kalinga and other respondents sympathetic to the struggle. Providing the anthropological context for Doyo’s essays are eight short academic essays by Nestor Castro that appear after Doyo’s essays. Castro, a cultural anthropologist based in the Department of Anthropology of the University of the Philippines Diliman, where he also obtained his graduate degrees, has published works on Cordillera self-determination, customary law, and ancestral domains. His dissertation was on the Dananao Kalinga’s politics of ethnic identity, while his master’s thesis assessed the communist movement in the Cordillera. In the book Doyo documents brief oral accounts of the Butbut in the aftermath of Macli-ing’s death. Doyo acknowledges the gaps in translation in interviewing anonymous resource persons in Kalinga. Nevertheless, her essays render visible the multiple dimensions that define the persona of Macli-ing, who was murdered by a military unit in his home on 24 April 1980. Salient in Macli-ing’s speeches before multisectoral gatherings against the Chico Dam, as well as in his conversations with the Butbut and government officials, was his refusal to subscribe to the Marcosian control of the commons. He articulated the belief shared by the ethnolinguistic groups opposing the Chico Dam project that it would result in the inundation of the payao (rice fields), leading to the loss not only of food security but also of the rituals, quotidian interactions, and cultural memories foregrounded by the land that is home to them. Doyo starts the book with a description of the Cordillera’s physical terrain from the vantage point of an investigative journalist unfamiliar with the region’s perceived treacherous topography. Meanwhile, Castro’s description of the setting is more expansive than Doyo’s and touches on social relations. Unfortunately, the book does not provide a background on the social dynamics and customary law specific to the Butbut (or those shared [End Page 103] in Kalinga) in relation to the contested physical boundaries and access to natural resources on the Cordillera. Although Castro enumerates existing development projects like the Ambuklao and Binga dams, the Bakun ASEAN Industrial Cooperation (AIC) Small Hydropower Project, and the San Roque Multipurpose Project, the book does not explicitly articulate how the Chico Dam issue must not be seen in isolation but as integral to a more comprehensive critique of state-centric and modernist notions of development and progress, which remain pervasive to this day. Castro also briefly assays the impact of government agencies on indigenous groups, such as the Presidential Assistance for National Minorities (PANAMIN), which replaced the Commission on National Integration (CNI), agencies which were molded from the legacy of Manifest Destiny and which assumed the right to partition the Cordillera. While Castro sees a “strong sense of communalism” (63) among diverse groups in the region, it would have been more helpful if he explained how the Cordillera’s indigenous elite mediates state and corporate interests and brokers the privatization of land. Both Doyo and Castro regard 1974 as the start of the opposition against the Chico River Dam Project, the year when Bontoc...

Editor's Introduction

Editor's Introduction Michael D. Pante Distinguishing between foreign and Filipino has always been a complicated act in Philippine studies, yet one often taken for granted. The line separating natives from non-natives, historically and historiographically, has existed more like erratic fissures than a stable boundary. Such fissures do not make for neat categories; instead, they point to underlying sociohistorical fault lines. The stories of three figures who tower over this journal issue—Horacio de la Costa, Daniel Burnham, and Juan Tamad—reveal these complexities. Horacio de la Costa's career as a Jesuit leader demonstrates the immense pressure that decolonization exerted upon society to delineate between native and non-native. As Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr and Nicholas Sy show, even the Jesuits' fraternal lives could not insulate them from external forces then stirring postcolonial Philippine society. The Jesuit organization in the country attained its status as a full-fledged province of the Society of Jesus in 1957, a time when calls for Filipinization of various facets of Philippine society—from economic nationalism to nationalist education—were raging. The politics of Filipinization affected the Jesuits as to cause a rift between the American and Filipino clergy. De la Costa found himself at the center of the storm when he became the first Filipino superior of the Philippine province of the Society of Jesus (1964–1970). Initially, his notion of Filipinization revolved around the need to train more Filipino priests, thereby allowing the Catholic Church to "take root" and become a native institution. Eventually, De la Costa's preference for Filipino Jesuits clashed with the lingering but dominant presence of American Jesuits, especially those who continued to teach in Jesuit schools. Under his leadership, the number of Filipino Jesuits in leadership positions considerably increased, pushing this group to gain a relative majority over foreign missionaries by 1976. De la Costa tried to strike a balance between the two camps, but ultimately supported the pro-Filipino forces within the order while giving American Jesuits a secondary role, a decision that must be understood in the context of widespread radicalism that had permeated even the Ateneo de Manila. [End Page 265] De la Costa's struggle mirrored that of Pedro Peláez and José Burgos, two priests who championed the cause of Philippine-born, secular priests against Spanish friars in the nineteenth century. The question of the natives' capacity for religious leadership was integral in both situations, despite the hundred-year gap in between. De la Costa, an eminent historian, could not have missed this uncanny parallelism. De la Costa was also editor of this journal, and Aguilar and Sy's article is our belated contribution to the celebration of his birth centenary in 2016. Landscapes usually conjure ideas of home, of unchanging permanence. In this light, the landscapes within a nation's territory can be understood as inherent parts of that nation's ancestral domain, as it were. Daniel Burnham's place in Philippine history, however, shows otherwise. Scott Kirsch's analysis of Burnham's urban plans for American-era Manila and Baguio treats the physical environment and geographical features of the two cities as dynamic and contingent. Kirsch tackles the shift from Hispanic to American in the aesthetic regime in Philippine city landscapes, a transition signaled by Burnham's 1904–1905 visit to the country. Clearly imperial in outlook, the plans turned both cities into spaces for the reproduction of US colonialism. The aesthetics embedded in them were meant to be consumed by American administrators and businessmen, not by Filipinos. Manila and Baguio became derivatives of Washington, DC, and British Simla, respectively. Thus, rather than signify indigeneity, the landscapes of Burnham's Manila and Baguio evoke the foreign. Lastly, multiple layers of cultural appropriation make it difficult to identify whether certain ideological products are foreign or native. Laurence Marvin Castillo illustrates this point through the heteroglossia of fictional character Juan Tamad. The numskull trickster Juan traces his literary lineage to the precolonial pusong genre, but this character enters Philippine literature through the awit, a colonial form of metrical romance popular during the Spanish period. As a signifier of the natives' supposed indolence, his ideological utility for colonialism was apparent. Nonetheless, in...

A Study on the Customary Laws and Indigenous Political Structures of the Ibaloi, Kalanguya and Kankana-ey Communities of Itogon, Benguet

Itogon, the largest municipality in Benguet, has one of the highest multiethnic constituencies in the said province largely due to the continuous labor demand with the introduction of the large-scale mining industry. Composed of nine barangays spread over 49,800 hectares, it is home to three major indigenous groups namely, Ibaloi, Kalanguya and Kankana-ey. The Ibaloi, Kalanguya and Kankaney’s Ancestral Domain, covering 38,683.4128 hectares, is a crucial connection for biodiversity resources that it was declared a Watershed Forest Reserve on April 2000. However, to date, almost every square inch of this domain is covered with mining reservations, mining patents, mining lease, mineral production sharing agreements, mining claims, and special land use permits. Delineations have been blurred, traditional obligations have shifted, new structures have emerged, and conflicts have arisen. This research aims to answer why and how the Indigenous Political Structures and Customary Laws of the communities in Itogon have changed across time and space; and how these changes continue to uphold, promote, and protect their rights and interests, culture and traditions — or so we thought.

Depicting Development Issues: Thematic Trends of Documentary Films of Mindanao-Based Filmmakers

Mindanao is the Philippine's second largest island in the south. Identifying Mindanao-based documentaries that have development themes remain unknown or unacknowledged. Using Phenomenology as theoretical framework and method, as a result, the researcher found out that similar to other documentary films in other parts of the country and the world, the themes showed by Mindanao-based documentaries reflect on agriculture, health, women and children, environment and population. However unlike its other foreign and local counterparts, a number of Mindanao-based documentaries anchor the mentioned development themes under the context of peace and conflict situation, human rights, indigenous peoples and their ancestral domains.