Thoughts about some literature
This entry was posted on 8/14/2007 1:56 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
A study by J.J Canonizado and L.L Rebugio in September 2004,
reported that there were 72,000 people in 42 barangays in the four
municipalities covered by SAMMILIA.
On the other hand, SAMMILIA accounts for 28,000 or 40% of this
population. This covered 19 of the 42 barangays of the four
municipalities. Initially 21 organizations took part in the formation
of the organization; it dwindled to 15, later to 12.
In my recent visit, there were only eight cooperatives left. Some
informants reported that most of these cooperatives were no longer
existing or broke away from the mother organization of SAMMILIA.
The dwindling membership within the primary cooperative and the
reduction of the number of primaries gives an impression of a shaky
federation. Today the decision-making processes are now reduced to the
nine board-of-directors and not from the majority of the membership of
the cooperatives, which they consider as the general assembly. The de
facto managers are therefore not the majority of the community in the
four municipalities but the BOD. Most of the informants said that
though the total membership of the primary cooperatives could well be
about 20% of the population, it could not be representative of the
actual community within the CBFM area. In fact very few of the
members of each coop actually lived within the forest.
Most of the people who occupied, utilized and managed the forest within
the CBFM area since time immemorial are the same people who were
sidelined during the TLA times and continued to be marginalized during
the CBFM time.
Yes, they benefited from the logging activities of SAMMILIA in as much
as they were laborers of the previous logging companies. However, they
were not given the right to manage their forest and its resources.
I have to pose a question, and this is for all of us-DENR, NGOs Research Organizations, or anybody.
Who are we really empowering - the marginalized majority in the uplands or the few elite communities from the lowlands?
