Solidarity and wise planning for the Tagbanua of the Calamian group of islands (The Philippines)

A General Assembly in the aftermath of Typhoon Hayan: solidarity and wise planning for the Tagbanua of the Calamian group of islands

Baranggay Banuang Daan, Coron Island — April 7 – 9, 2014

This post-emergency PKF grant was agreed to support the Tagbanua community General Assembly in the aftermath (125 days) after the most powerful storm to make landfall in Philippine history. Internationally codenamed Haiyan, the typhoon killed ten thousand people with winds 315  kilometers per hour and tsunami‐like  surges, affected 14 million people and left 4 million homeless.  As relief aid concentrated in major urban centers, little has been heard about the devastation it wrought on indigenous communities, particularly among the Tagbanuas in the Calamian Group of Islands, north of Palawan. This general assembly – organized with the help of KASAPI and PAFID – will bring together the island village communities of Banuang Daan, Cabugao, Chindonan, Concepcion, Beeg, Turda, Tara, Malawig, Bulalacao, Biong, Buenavista, Panlaitan and Calauit and will produce a strengthening of their morale and sense of solidarity, and a strategic plan to restore their living environments.

Through plenary gathering and workshops, the assembly will formulate a rehabilitation plan for the Tagbanua communities also on the basis of assessed damage on their commons, such as forests and coastal areas conserved as ICCAs. The assembly will also formulate coordinated disaster-preparedness mechanisms, and re-orient the Calamianes Indigenous peoples’ federation—SARAGPUNTA– into a community disaster response organization. Coordination among SARAGPUNTA, the Tagbanua Tribe of Coron Island Association (TTCIA), KASAPI and other national and international support, groups will be strengthened.

TAGBANUA meeting agenda April 2014    Calamian Tagbanwa Report_Doc_5-11-’14