TABUK CITY, Kalinga – A twin development in the boundary dispute which has disturbed the peace between the Tinglayan and Tulgao tribes of Tinglayan town, has paved the way for greater involvement from local political leaders and the government as a whole in the resolution of the tribal feud.
First, it is now the highest elective officials of the two tribes namely Vice Governor James Edduba of the Tulgao tribe and Tinglayan Mayor Sacrament Gumilab of the Tinglayan tribe acting as sipat holders or truce guarantors.
Second, a task force created by the provincial government upon the recommendation of the Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) is now calling the shots in the pursuit of a peaceful solution to the dispute which erupted into open violence on August 29, 2017.
Through Executive Order No. 2018-06 issued by Governor Jocel Baac on January 18, the Task Force Tongrayan-Turgao Boundary Dispute is tasked to work out a peaceful settlement by facilitating dialogues between the two tribes, ensuring attendance of individuals who can help in the proper and prompt disposition of the dispute and such other means the task force deems necessary to achieve their purpose.
Engr. Andres Ngao-i, task force chairman, said that the changes came about after the initial negotiations between the two tribes on January 10 in the house of Tinglayan sipat-holder Ambrosio Estak in barangay Ambato, Tinglayan resulted in a deadlock and parting of ways.
Ngao-i further said that due to the report from the Tulgao tribe that the sipat or truce has been broken, the PPOC held an emergency meeting on January 12 within which the council had asked Vice Governor Edduba to send the sipat (peace token) to the Tinglayans.
“We told him that as a member of the Tulgao tribe and as an elected official who is supposed to maintain peace and order, he should take the initiative to offer a new sipat to the Tinglayans. He accepted the recommendation,” Ngao-i said.
The council’s plan to bring the sipat right after the meeting to avert possible fresh violence was reconsidered when in answer to a phone call by Edduba, Councilor Miguel Atompa, chairman of the Tinglayan Sangguniang Bayan peace and order committee, had asked that the the tribal peace corps and the Municipal Peace and Order Council (MPOC) be given more time to intervene to prevent anything untoward, Ngao-i said.
However, according to Ngao-i, the following day, armed men from the Tulgao tribe strafed the Tinglayan village hitting some houses but resulting in no injuries prompting the PPOC to call an emergency meeting on January 15.
He said that during the meeting, the Tinglayan MPOC officially endorsed the case to the PPOC causing the council to decide to bring the sipat of Edduba to the Tinglayans the following dawn.
Ngao-i said that the delegation was composed of Department of Interior and Local Government OIC-Provincial Director Mayer Max Adong, former DILG Provincial Director Francisco Gamatero, Mayor Ferdinand Tubban of Tabuk, Mayor Johnwell Tiggangay of Tanudan, Mayor Alfredo Malannag of Pasil, Philippine National Police Provincial Director Alfredo Dangani, Roman Catholic priests Roman Macaiba and Joe Pic-it, Lutheran minister and Basao tribe elder Luis Aoas and himself.
Ngao-i recalled that at the end of an eight-hour negotiations, Mayor Gumilab accepted the sipat of Edduba consisting of a Bible and a bolo and offered a bolo in exchange.
“We make use of both government and indigenous processes because we cannot negotiate a settlement of the boundary dispute without peace and there can be no peace without the sipat,” Ngao-i said of the involvement of both the government and the bodong or peace pact system in the quest for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
On the same issue, Adong said: “We are now using the structure of the government specifically the PPOC without setting aside the indigenous ways of solving conflicts because the dispute is not just a problem of the two tribes but that of the municipality and the entire province. We cannot allow the conflict to drag because aside from negatively affecting the delivery of basic services, whether we like it or not, it reflects on the administrations of the town and the province. It is for this reason that we appreciate the immediate and decisive steps taken by the governor to solve the root cause of the conflict.”
Aoas informed that the task force is in the process of eliciting helpful information from neutral tribes even as they have already made initial meetings with the Tulgaos residing in the city.
Aoas said that they have invited the bodong holders of the adjacent tribes namely Basao, Butbut, Sumadel, Dananao and Bangad with the feuding tribes to shed light on the metes and bounds of the ancestral domain or bogis of the two tribes as declared in their respective bodongs or peace pacts.
“We want to find out what the bodong-holders know and have observed as ancestral domains of the two tribes,” Aoas said.
In a meeting of February 1, the task force has targeted they will be ready to present their recommendations during the first quarter meeting of the PPOC in March.
Edduba told the ZigZag Weekly that he had advised the task force not to arrange a face to face meeting of the two tribes until such time there is reason to believe that the two parties are ready to come to terms.
He said that as could be shown by their meeting on January 10, any premature meeting between the two tribes would run the risk of emotions and pride taking over and making the participants forget the purpose of the meeting which is to settle their difference.
Edduba implicitly cautioned against high expectations over his and Gumilab’s take over as new sipat holders saying that while political leaders wield influence in their tribes, in the end, it will still be the council of elders who will decide.
“You cannot win alone. You are just a part of the community. If the community decides, you cannot do anything,” Edduba said.
He, however, informed that the only known precedent when political leaders guaranteed the peace between their tribes has succeeded was between the Lubuagan and Tulgao tribes when former Governor Macario Duguiang of the former and then Tinglayan Mayor Johnny Maymaya of the latter exchanged sipats after a shooting incident marred their relationship in 2010. The peace is still holding.
Aoas said that before the official creation of the Task Force Tongrayan-Turgao Boundary Dispute, the group has already been intervening in the settlement of the boundary dispute of the Gaang and Dacalan tribes of Tanudan municipality after the Tanudan MPOC had endorsed the case to the PPOC.
He informed that the tribes have exchanged sipats on December 13 defusing the tensions between them generated by their conflicting territorial claims.** By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
