The Calamian Tagbanwa and their territories
The Indigenous Calamian Tagbanwa People—with their unique cultural heritage—are among the original inhabitants of the present-day Philippines, with an ancestral domain that spans the Calamian Islands in the province of Palawan.
According to the 2020 census, the population of Calamian Tagbanwa is 14,476. Calamian Tagbanwas live in tightly knit village communities of extended families. Their traditional livelihoods include fishing, gathering wild foods, shifting cultivation, collecting edible bird nests, and, more recently, tourism.
The Calamianes include four main islands: Coron, Busuanga, Culion, and Linapacan; all of which are municipalities of Palawan province covering an area of 1,753 square kilometers. The Calamianes are one of the Philippines’ most biodiverse island groups, boasting a varied range of habitat types that are home to an impressive variety of marine life. The rich biodiversity supports ecological balance and is crucial for ensuring food security and sustaining livelihoods in the surrounding municipalities. Despite this, the Tagbanwa People remain one of the poorest and most marginalized populations in the country.
Legal-policy framework
Tagbanwa elders value solidarity with other Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines and have been engaging in national-level policy advocacy. The Tagbanwa People have contributed to efforts by national-level movements of Indigenous Peoples to secure legal and policy reforms, including the adoption of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) and the establishment of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) in 1997. The rights of Indigenous Peoples outlined in the 1987 Constitution and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) are, at least on paper, operationalized by IPRA. IPRA guarantees to protect Indigenous Peoples’ rights to ancestral domains1 and lands, self-governance and empowerment, social justice and human rights, and cultural integrity.
Since the adoption of IPRA, some Tagbanwa communities are securing Certificates of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADTs) from the NCIP and adopting Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plans (ADSDPPs). The combined objectives of the title and plan are to recognize native title and ensure self-governance of Indigenous territories through culturally appropriate management measures.
On paper, national legal and policy frameworks should enable Tagbanwa communities to pursue their goals. In practice, however, a lack of political will among powerful state institutions, coupled with the tendency of agencies mandated to work with Indigenous Peoples to undermine these frameworks, continues to pose major obstacles. As a result, securing and maintaining Indigenous territorial rights over ancestral domains, including the recognition of native title, especially in marine areas, and exercising self-governance remain significant challenges.
In villages and areas where they are asserting their territorial rights, the Tagbanwa have been working to reestablish traditional practices and rules, protect restricted areas, and control destructive activities that degrade natural systems. In most cases, Tagbanwa communities have found it challenging to engage with the legal and policy procedures required to secure recognition from the state.
The NCIP is supposed to provide a wide range of support to Indigenous Peoples by implementing IPRA; however, it lacks an adequate budget and personnel to fulfill its mandate. Non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations occasionally provide support and technical assistance, advocate for policy changes, and offer legal aid; however, such support is currently insufficient.
Defending territories and revitalizing Indigenous governance
In the Calamianes, for decades, Indigenous territorial rights and rights to self-governance were not recognized. Eviction and dispossession, illegal logging, destructive commercial fishing, commercial pearl farming, unsustainable tourism, coastal pollution, including solid waste, rampant illegal quarrying, and infrastructure development have been keeping the Tagbanwas poor and marginalized.
Despite challenges, the Calamian Tagbanwas are relentlessly seeking to defend their territorial rights and rights of self-governance. As a maritime Indigenous People, the Tagbanwa’s very identity, existence, and well-being are intricately tied to their territorial rights over their ancestral waters and lands. When one Tagbanwa community secures these rights, it gains the ability to pursue self-governance, ensuring the sustainable use of natural resources and the protection of sacred places both on land and in the sea.
For generations, Tagbanwa Indigenous practices have protected a diversity of life and habitats. The survival of the Tagbanwa communities depends on preserving their invaluable knowledge systems and the ancestral territories they call home. For Calamian Tagbanwa communities, a satisfactory life means maintaining the custodianship and guardianship of the land, sea, and resources that sustain them. The Tagbanwa women also play a crucial role in protecting the land and waters, and are key contributors to conservation, food security, and Indigenous knowledge, yet this is rarely recognized.
The Mamepet or elders, as culture bearers, are traditionally consulted on matters affecting the clans and essential issues impacting the community. They prescribe sanctions and penalties for infractions against traditional laws, which are handed down orally from generation to generation. They settle disputes over ancestral lands and establish the rules for resource extraction. In the past, they were held in the highest regard for their knowledge of Indigenous laws and their indispensable roles in community decision-making. They have played essential roles in Tagbanwa unity. They have served as consensus-building platforms for policy advocacy and legal processes to secure territorial recognition and self-governance.
According to Tagbanwa elders and community members, their enduring motivation to defend ancestral lands stems from their deep sense of guardianship over the territory and the diversity of life it sustains. For them, asserting territorial rights is not only about legal recognition but also about fulfilling their responsibility to care for the land and sea that sustain their communities. Through these efforts, the Tagbanwas seek to secure their collective well-being, continue sustainable resource use, and uphold their obligations to future generations.
A history of self-organizing and mobilizing
Since the 1980s, the Tagbanwa People of the Calamian Islands have been organizing for their land and sea territorial rights. The positive changes sought by the Tagbanwa communities include:
- Halting evictions and dispossessions from their ancestral domains
- Halting illegal logging and destructive fishing
- Recognition of their Indigenous territorial rights over their ancestral domains
- Building consensus to develop and implement ADSDPPs.
The Mamepet in the Tagbanwa villages, community organizations, women and youth groups have led integrated efforts to revive and strengthen traditional institutions, develop new organizations and networks to connect with and establish relationships with national stakeholders, and pursue legal and policy interventions.
The Tagbanwa Foundation of Coron Island’s (TFCI) success in regaining control of the Balinsasayaw caves in the 80s and repelling destructive fishing practices in the late 90s demonstrated to Tagbanwa leaders that they needed to go beyond their traditional social organizations to address contemporary challenges.
Seven Tagbanwa foundations, including TFCI, federated into Saragpunta. Beyond close kinship ties among its leaders, the strength of Saragpunta’s unity was rooted in the shared interests, identity, past, and future of its member organizations. The mobilization of Tagbanwa communities is a testament to the power of unity and collective action. Their resilience and determination shone through as they continued to fight for their rights, even in the face of adversity. Saragpunta now has 38 member-communities.
The state and businesses
While the NCIP has awarded several CADTs to Tagbanwa communities, other government agencies with overlapping jurisdiction over these territories have often been unwilling to collaborate. In some cases, their actions have even hindered the Tagbanwa’s ability to exercise their tenure rights.
A major obstacle lies in the limited understanding and appreciation of the IPRA and the concept of native title, which recognizes ancestral domains under the constitutional framework. This gap is particularly evident within local judicial systems, where court decisions tend to favor non-Indigenous parties. As a result, jurisprudence on the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ rights remains weak and has not developed into a strong body of precedent.
Local courts, local governments, and private businesses have demonstrated a limited commitment to understanding and respecting constitutionally recognized native titles. Even among policymakers and local stakeholders, the concept of ancestral land remains complex, and it becomes even more contentious when extended to ancestral waters such as coastal and marine areas. These areas are frequently regarded by non-Indigenous actors as part of the public domain rather than as integral components of Indigenous territories.
Consequently, private businesses, especially those in tourism and pearl farming, as well as local government agencies and even marine protected area authorities, continue to infringe upon the territorial rights and self-governance of Tagbanwa communities. Indigenous leaders who resist such infringements often face harassment and frivolous lawsuits from both state and non-state actors.
What does success mean?
Several Calamian Tagbanwa communities have successfully secured formal recognition of their ancestral domain, including ancestral waters. So far, NCIP has awarded several CADTs to different Tagbanwa communities in the Calamianes. With a total area of 24,520 hectares, which includes 17,012 hectares of sea, Coron Island was the first ancestral domain recognized by the state in the Calamianes. Nationally, it was the first ancestral domain that included areas in the sea. Since then, NCIP has approved at least three other CADTs in the Calamianes:
Calauit Island in 2008, Capare Island and Panlaitan Islands in 2017, and Buenavista, Malawig, Tara in 2022. Many Tagbanwa communities have started the process with the NCIP to claim their territorial rights.
While Tagbanwa leaders see the recognition of communal land rights through CADTs as an important milestone, for them, this is not the ultimate success.
While Tagbanwa leaders acknowledge the importance of victories in the long and complicated state-recognition process, they say that the success of the Tagbanwas’ struggle for territorial rights and self-governance requires creating the conditions for communities to revive, strengthen, and maintain their Indigenous governance and management systems for sustainable exploitation of natural resources and protection of their sacred places on islands and in the sea. To do so, they must also be able to resist incursions from external development pressures that do not align with their vision and values.
Some communities in the Calamianes are well on that path; they are years into re-establishing their self-governance according to their traditional practices. At least in Coron, Calauit, Tara, Buenavista, and Malawig, the Tagbanwas are successfully reviving their Indigenous governance systems and restoring degraded ecosystems.
Solidarity and support
The journey of the Tagbanwa People to defend their territories, claim their rights, and revitalize governance over land and sea is ongoing. Tagbanwa communities might benefit from various types of support from organizations interested in working in solidarity with them.
First, Many Tagbanwa communities across the Calamianes need financial resources and technical support to continue producing legal and technical documentation that supports their claims to ancestral domains where tenure is still not recognized, and CADTs have not yet been awarded.
Second, where they have already secured title to the ancestral domain, Tagbanwa communities require financial resources to strengthen their traditional institutions further and revive traditional practices that ensure transparency and accountability in the management of revenue from the sustainable exploitation of natural resources.
Third, all Tagbanwa communities require legal aid to pursue public interest litigation and face specific legal proceedings, as well as to seek legal redress against violations of Indigenous rights and forcible dispossession arising from such disputes.
Finally, due to the increasing power of the Tagbanwa People, threats, harassment, and frivolous lawsuits by private businesses occupying or planning to occupy lands and maritime areas in ancestral domains have been on the rise recently. Tagbanwa communities require support to monitor and document such rights violations and could also benefit from legal and paralegal capacity-building initiatives.
- As per the 1987 Constitution and IPRA, the right to ancestral domain refers to the communal or collective rights of an Indigenous territory, encompassing natural systems and resources on land and in water, as well as the cultural heritage of the Indigenous people. This territory is held in trust by the community on behalf of both present and future generations. ↩︎
