Is your island holiday in paradise on disputed Indigenous ancestral land? Discover more about land ownership in our latest feature…
Words and photographs by James Whitlow Delano
Apo Rogelio Panlavi, an Indigenous Tagbanua Tandulanen community leader from El Nido, on the island of Palawan, glided downhill on his scooter into a petrol station where he’d instructed me to wait.
I’d asked him if he’d join me on a visit to the contested waterfront on the Lio Tourism Estate, where Tagbanua and other fishermen continue to beach their bangka fishing boats.
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‘I can’t go down there alone,’ he said, because there’s a Lio Tourism Estate security guard checkpoint.
His response was intriguing because, unlike most other resorts dotted around El Nido, Lio Tourism Estate is accessible to the public. ‘You won’t be alone,’ I responded, a little confused. ‘Of course, I’ll be going down there with you.’
A Manila-based lawyer representing the Tagbanua Tandulanen community, Peter Paul Danao, had previously outlined some of the background behind my local contact’s qualms.
The 4.2-kilometre strip of coastal land now known as the Lio Tourism Estate is also traditional Indigenous land. Danao, who is the grandson of a Tagbauna resident, explained: ‘The Lio Tourism Estate in El Nido is claimed by the Tagbanua Tandulanen as part of their ancestral land. A law was passed in 1997 – the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, recognising the time immemorial and ancestral rights of Indigenous people.
‘If land is not titled,’ Danao added, ‘it is considered public land, owned by the government. But if there is a claim by Indigenous peoples, then it is considered Indigenous ancestral land.
‘The same law,’ he continued, ‘states that the rights of private parties will be respected. This is the ambiguity and inconsistency in the law that private interests take advantage of to deprive Indigenous peoples of their ancestral lands.’
Panlavi and the Tagbanua Tandulanen communities of Villa Libertad and Pasadeña, adjacent to the Lio Tourism Estate, have entered into legal action against Ten Knots Philippines Inc (TKPI), which has expressed its intention to sell or lease lands further north, beyond the existing resort complex.
The Tagbanua claim all 325 hectares of land on which the Lio Tourism Estate and airport sit as their ancestral domain, protected under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA).
Here’s the thing – had I not been aware of the land dispute (and most tourists, whether Filipino or foreign, are not), Lio Tourism Estate would appear to be a model of environmentally sustainable development. Its grounds are thickly forested, some of it old growth, and open-air bars and restaurants allow guests to gaze out over a white- sand tropical paradise seemingly plucked from their wildest dreams. The estate is also open to public access.
Lio’s owners, TKPI – a subsidiary of Ayala Land Inc, the largest property developer in the Philippines, and part of the country’s oldest corporation, the Ayala Corporation, founded in 1834 during the Spanish colonial era – have secured some of the choicest, most dramatic karst islands and beachfronts in El Nido’s Bacuit Bay. But whose land is it really?
Clearly, Indigenous and other local fishermen have been priced out of land to which they’ve had access since time immemorial.
The Tagbanua are an Indigenous people whose customary lands originally extended from central Palawan Island – the long, thin, kris-knife- shaped island in the west – up through El Nido and all the way to the Calamian Islands off Palawan’s northern tip, including the equally famous Coron Island.
Centuries ago, the Spanish considered them fierce warriors. But as the centuries passed, they were driven to hide in the interior forests after repeated raids by Moro pirates from Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, who demanded tributes and kidnapped Tagbanua women when payments couldn’t be made.
That custom of avoiding confrontation has been passed down to the present day, as seen in Panlavi’s wariness.
We climbed onto his motor scooter and made our way downhill past the security checkpoint – a one-metre- square bamboo and wood kiosk.
Previously, Panlavi said, guards would stop everyone and require them to sign a logbook. On this day, a bored-looking, 20-something guard glanced up, recognised him and smiled as we eased by.
On the beach, a few dozen bangka outrigger boats were lined up, bows facing the sea under a canopy of low trees with wide, waxy leaves. To the north, the beach remained wild, with forest fronting the sand. A few coconut palms emerged above the treetops and vines encroached upon the sand, helping prevent erosion.
To the south, in the direction of the developed resorts, the beach was free of vines. The forest floor had been cleared of brush and more coconut palms planted to enhance the exotic aesthetic. A pier jutted into the bay.
Turning his back to the sea, Rogelio began: ‘This is all our ancestral land,’ his left arm extended in a long, sweeping motion. ‘We called it Talindak. It means “peacock” in our language. The land is our source of food. We plant coconuts, grow vegetables, and raise livestock.’
‘You see those forests?’ he asked, pointing towards a range of hills. ‘They’re already subdivided by outsiders. Some of the local officials act as land agents. Now, the price of land is very high… This gives incentive for corruption. That’s our ancestral land, too,’ Panlavi said, motioning towards Cadlao Island, across the bay from the Lio Tourism Estate.
Local fishermen, not just the Tagbanua Tandulanen, worry that access to the 4.2 kilometres of shoreline fronting Lio Tourism Estate will be restricted if TKPI is allowed to sell residential lots from this landing area northwards.
Why, I asked, was he so apprehensive about coming down to this quiet, publicly accessible waterfront? Panlavi looked toward the resort and quietly said, ‘Because they are my enemy.’
Just before the pandemic, in September 2019, Bienvinido ‘Toto’ Veguilla Jr was hacked to death nearby by a suspected illegal logger. In 2018, the Philippines overtook Brazil as the world’s deadliest country for environmental defenders, according to Global Witness.
That year saw 30 environmental activists killed – down from 48 in 2017. The Philippines consistently ranks as the most dangerous country in Asia for environmental defenders. In El Nido, Veguilla’s wasn’t the first murder. In 2017, father of five Ruben Arzaga, the captain (mayor) of a village, was fatally shot while leading officials to an illegal logging site.
Activists are often ‘red-tagged’, accused of ties to the New People’s Army – Asia’s longest-running Communist insurgency – and labelled enemies of the state. This leads to harassment, intimidation and sometimes assassination.
On 7 March 2022, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples issued a cease-and-desist order (CDO) against TKPI to halt all further sales and leasing of land claimed by the Tagbanua Tandulanen.
‘TKPI,’ Peter Paul Danao told me earlier, ‘is continuously defying the CDO by continuing to sell lots in Lio Tourism Estate.’
I couldn’t confirm this. When asked, a Lio Tourism Estate representative stated that TKPI wasn’t offering land outside of already developed areas at present, but was ‘finalising arrangements’ to begin selling lots in the contested areas north of the resort complex.
An island without developers
Strong seasonal gusts lifted orange clouds of dust across the barren expanse of land reclaimed from the bay at Coron Town’s port. At the seawall, bangka boats – traditional outriggers now powered by diesel engines – waited to ferry visitors to the karst-studded, coral coves of Coron Island, whose transparent waters draw travellers from around the world.
Despite its name, bustling Coron Town isn’t on Coron Island. A narrow strait separates this expanding, overburdened municipality on Busuanga Island from its pristine namesake in the Calamian Islands group of Palawan. ‘Where do you want to go?’ shouted Al, the boatman, above the waterfront noise. ‘There are a couple of Tagbanua fishing villages down along the west coast,’ I responded, pointing with my chin – as is customary here – towards the south.
Price agreed, the bangka eased out into the wind-whipped indigo strait. Coron Island rose steeply, its ridges jagged and dramatic, with no visible sign of human habitation – only untouched forests the Indigenous Tagbanua of Coron call geba.
Rounding the northwest headland, towering limestone ramparts extended southwards like a fortress wall, sheltering us from the gale beneath a near-cloudless dome of blue.
The Tagbanua of Coron received their Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) in 1998 for Coron Island. By 2003, they had become the first Indigenous people in the Philippines to gain autonomy over their ancestral domain – 24,446 hectares of dry land, a 200-metre marine buffer zone around the island and their traditional fishing grounds further offshore.
Coming ashore at Tuwa village, I climbed a white- sand beach shaded by coconut palms and backed by vertical limestone cliffs. Something about the scene felt familiar.
Then I remembered: this setting was almost a twin of a beach I’d documented in 2016 for a European magazine, 120 kilometres south on Entalula Island in El Nido – but with one critical difference.
Entalula Beach Club, part of El Nido Resorts and owned by TKPI, is a private island accessible only to paying guests. In the TKPI’s portfolio in El Nido, there is also the private-island El Nido Resorts Miniloc Island, where a quick TKPI website search shows one night going for US$726 – US$825. That would eat up the 2019 per capita GDP in Palawan in 3.2 nights.
At Pangulasian El Nido Resort, also on a private island, nightly rates climb to between US$1,000 and US$1,150.
Tubi Apuin, 34, of Tuwa looked mildly perplexed when asked if developers had ever shown interest in his beachfront village under its lush coconut canopy. It seemed the idea had never crossed his mind.
‘Once a foreigner asked to rent part of the beach,’ Apuin recalled. The community declined the offer. ‘Ninety-five per cent of Coron residents are Tagbanua,’ said Gina Aguilar Francisco Andai of the Tagbanua Foundation of Coron Island. ‘The others are married to Tagbanua. Otherwise, outsiders are not allowed to live on the island.’
‘There is no threat to our land anymore,’ she continued. ‘Our biggest concerns are environmental destruction and the rising cost of living due to tourism. ‘You cannot cut a tree for construction without a permit,’ Andai added. ‘We follow kustumri [customary law] when we fish or collect wood,’ she explained. These traditions, passed orally from one generation to the next, include taboos and spiritual observances. ‘If we break kustumri, people get sick,’ she concluded.
All the troubles of the outside world can seem distant inside Coron Island’s protected CADT. But powerful developers and extractive industries continue to nibble at the edges – testing for legal loopholes, sowing division and seeking corruption to exploit.
Threat of overtourism
Across the strait in Coron Town on Busuanga Island, the dry-season dust of the reclaimed waterfront – part of the Coron Bay Development Project – had by now turned to monsoonal mud.
The project began in 2007 when then-provincial governor Joel Reyes obtained an environmental compliance certificate (ECC) from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to reclaim three hectares from the bay.
But the plan expanded. In 2009, another ECC was approved, ballooning the project to 48 hectares of reclamation. It promised hotels, docking stations and tourism infrastructure that would transform Coron from an ecotourism escape into a hub of overtourism – until it stalled due to a lack of funds. DENR undersecretary Jonas Leones later told GMA
Network: ‘We were shocked. During the pandemic, they took advantage of the situation,’ fast-tracking the project and burying 48 hectares of mangroves and coral while public movement was restricted.
On 16 June 2022, the Philippine Reclamation Authority ordered the forfeiture of the Coron Bay Development Project from Palawan’s provincial government to the national government – slamming the brakes once again. Local environmentalists have vowed to rehabilitate the site, but the damage is done. What was once a bay brimming with life is now barren, with an uncertain future.
‘Our ancestors entrusted us to protect Coron,’ said Apuin. ‘Sometimes large fishing boats come from Cebu and take our fish. We are always watching for them.
‘Fuel is expensive. Sometimes, when we don’t have food or money, we can’t eat three meals a day… Life is hard work. But gradually, it’s getting easier.
‘It’s important to pass down our way of life to our children,’ he concluded – a sentiment that reminded me of something Peter Paul Danao had said. ‘It’s hard, with all the forces against Indigenous people,’ Danao reflected on his legal advocacy. ‘But someone has to do it.’
