“[Secretary] Estrella, we are pleading to you. Please have mercy on us. The attacks against us have gone too far and our human rights are being violated. We can no longer go to school because of what San Miguel Corporation (SMC) is doing to us. Many young people among us still want to study, but I am one of those who had to stop because we can no longer live in peace there,” Rustene Pelayo Leoncio said in Filipino.
Residents said that in 2023, SMC initially presented a “resettlement program” for Mariahangin families, offering money amounting to P75,000 with land or P100,000 if without land. Recently, the offer has increased to P400,000 per family to urge them to vacate their ancestral lands.
In 2023, DAR revoked the NOC of the 10,821 hectares of land of the indigenous peoples in Bugsuk, Palawan which was initially issued in 2014. Residents said that this decision by DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III prompted escalated harassment and intimidation in their community in Sitio Mariahangin.
Eusebio Pelayo, 69, a community leader and a Molbog resident in Mariahangin, Bugsuk, Palawan, is summoned to court on December 4 due to a criminal complaint filed by Caesar M. Ortega, described as the “Authorized Representative of Land owners situated within Bowen Island” in the document. Ortega is NCIP’s former OIC executive director of the NCIP and Ancestral Domain Office’s (ADO) former director.
“We cannot sleep well these days because we fear that they will enter the community. Our husbands have skipped work and our livelihoods have been paralyzed just so we can defend our ancestral land from their attempts to seize it. Our children sometimes do not have anything to eat.”
In a press conference, Sept. 24, resident Tarhata Pelayo said that drones are being used by armed men who are known in their community to be affiliated with SMC to watch them every night.