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STANDING TALL FOR THE AETA COMMUNITY

Carling Dumulot

“I was a school dropout, but it never stopped me from dreaming. I know who I am, and who we are as people. I have less money, but I am rich in knowledge. I am an Aeta. I stand tall and proud.”

When the Aeta community was displaced during the explosion of the Mt. Pinatubo, Mang Carling Dumulot is one of those who led in rebuilding their lives and culture. Through their establishment of LAKAS High School, they were able to teach their young ones of the Aeta values and culture.

PHOTO FROM CARLING DUMULOT

I am an Aeta, and our life is in the mountains. This is the cycle of our lives: we get married, we farm, we raise a family. School was never an option, for the forest and mountains sustain us. But I am an Aeta, and I have longed to go to school.

I was five when my mother died and my adopted family took care of me. But they were never eager to allow me to study. So when a school was built in our community in the mountains, I hoped to study. Though I studied only until Grade 3, I stopped. My adopted parents told me it was time to help the family. In our culture and tradition, Aeta children are expected to help in farming. Yet even so, I still wanted to study. Like the child I was, there are Aeta children today who

long to go to school. Yet Aeta parents like mine do not see the need for their children to study. They think there is no need to go to school.

Yet without enough education, we are easily deceived and exploited by lowland people. They buy our products at low prices, and sell them high in the cities. We don’t have enough knowledge on how business is done in the city.

To prevent this, Aeta elders from different baranggays in Zambales came together to form Lubos Alyansang mga Katutubo ng Sambales (LAKAS). Lakas, which in Filipino literally means “strong”, speaks what Aeta elders really wanted—to uphold our rights to ancestral domain as indigenous people,

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and to be self-determined and self sufficient as one large community. The Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) supported our efforts through teaching literacy and providing health programs.

But when Mount Pinatubo erupted, everything changed.

Botolanwa, our community, was drastically devastated. We left behind every little thing we had built. Pinatubo destroyed our crops and source of living. Poverty dislocated us. We evacuated and relocated many times. We lost our livelihood. We got so poor. We felt we didn’t belong. In many occasions, lowlanders alienated and discriminated us, especially because we are uneducated. They mock us and insult us for how we appear. Our children are bullied and teased, and they became very shy and afraid of people. Aeta adults could not find decent job. It was our most difficult time.

My people’s suffering opened my eyes.

So our community elders decided to buy our own land where we can stay and live the way we always know how. With the FMM sisters’ help, we bought a parcel of land for the 155 families in our community where we could rebuild our lives and our culture.

After Pinatubo, my fellow Aeta leaders and I underwent trainings from an NGO called Education for Life (ELF). We learned about leadership, networking, and how to expand our worldview. After graduation, ELF challenged us Aeta graduates to conduct the program ourselves. Our efforts formed the Paaralang Bayan ng mga Ayta sa Zambales (PBAZ). We have become leaders training new IP leaders. Still partnering with ELF, we eventually

added up alternative learning system (ALS) in this program, to teach the basics to out-of-school youth and adult Aetas.

From then on, I began to dream more for our future as a people. I dreamt of my people’s children, the Aeta children, to go on, study, and grow in our community school. I dreamt them learning and preserving our indigenous knowledge and practices. I wanted them to learn more and interact with the economic, political and cultural system of lowlanders, so they come to encounter with the right orientation.

In 2012, finally, LAKAS high school started. This school has now been a fulfillment of our dreams. Our culture has become the basis for its lessons. We partnered with DepED to formalize our school in 2015. It is the first of its kind to implement the Indigenous People’s Education Program (IPEd) . It started to teach 28 to 50 students. Now, about 179 students attend the school, mostly are Aeta children.

DepEd soon approved us Aeta elders to formally teach, despite the lack of formal schooling. It meant so much to me. I, a Grade 3 dropout, finally became a teacher in a formal school. I know it is hard to completely bring back our culture, but as teachers we can still teach our young ones the Aeta values and culture. We can still inspire in them this deep pride of being an Aeta.

Now our elders have realized the need to change and rethink our customs (among them not valuing education and early marriage) in these changing times. We should not push our children to marry early. We need to value their education above wanting them to help us in farming. We need to learn how to interact and engage with lowland

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communities without losing our identity and culture. We also see the need to prepare for their future and not just have “sapat”(enough for the day).

These efforts and experiences in my own community have led me to help other indigenous communities. Serving under the National Anti-Poverty Commission across three regimes, I was able to gather my resources to provide them trainings and show them how to find solutions. Many times I have been asked to represent the indigenous people of our country in conferences abroad, where I proudly share our culture and wear our clothing despite cold weather.

The Aetas are now a respected people. Our decisions are heard, and we can always make our own, without the dictates of politics or religion. Our community and culture continue to grow strong. We can engage with non-Aeta without losing our identity. I always tell our young AETA that only education will lighten us from the burden of poverty.

I still dream. And I dream for us to have a community college. To see our young Aetas continue cultivate our customary law and culture, despite the flooding of new technologies and media.

In the meantime, we have successful Aeta professionals: teachers, accountant, IT expert, and even an aspiring lawyer. The community has supported their studies, while parents strived to support their expenses. They are young Aetas who travelled and studied abroad, with the help of our partners. They begin to rethink solutions for our community needs. They come back to help our community.

I was a school dropout, but it never stopped me from dreaming. I know who I am, and who we are as a people. I have less money, but I am rich in knowledge. I am an Aeta. I stand tall and proud.