DATU SANDIGAN FAUSTO ORASAN: A Tribute

He was then the overall Chieftain of the Higaonon Tribe in Cagayan de Oro. He was a courageous environmental warrior but had no weapon except his great passion to protect God’s vanishing creation which he considered the highest form of worshipping Magbabaya (Creator). He was never cowed, no fear at all after seven attempts to his life, rained by bullets from high-powered guns but miraculously escaping death. I would jokingly tell him, “Duna gyud kay anting-anting Datu” and he would reply, “Kung si Magbabaya naa kanato, kinsa man ang mobatok kanato?”

On the 8^th attempt at his life, he finally met Magbabaya, ending up in Magbabaya’s warm embrace for giving up his life to protect God’s vanishing creation.  Those bullets sprayed at his back while driving a motorcycle at 3:30 in the afternoon in Barangay Tuburan seven years ago which was done in a traitorous manner may have silenced him but not his cause. Datu Sandigan was a passionate member of SULOG, a coalition of people’s organizations that I led in implementing the Writ of Kalikasan, issued by the Court of Appeals in 2013. Through his assistance, we were able to arrest illegal Chinese miners whose campsite we found high-caliber weapons, i.e. Armalites, AK-47s, and hand grenades.  But never will these diabolic killers stop a cause that is greater than any life. As Khalil Gibran said, “Death is stronger than life, but love is stronger than death.” That love for a fallen comrade will put him to remain in our hearts . . . forever.

I firmly believe that he is now in the loving embrace of Magbabaya! Each one of us is consciousness, a stream of consciousness that has no other destination but to the Ocean of Consciousness, the Unmanifested Being, the Formless, the Great Stillness, and Spaciousness called God. For Datu Sandigan who had no fear to give up his life to protect the billions of species now becoming instinct, such is a manifestation that his consciousness was indeed linked to that Ocean of Consciousness because only that kind of spiritual connection will make one surrender his earthly form. Yes, everything is interconnected in the Universe, be it a beautiful flower or a distant star. Indeed, Datu Sandigan had not lost his life for he is life, he was consciousness that is the source of all life as we are all that!

But for those who are so engrossed in unbridled materialism and consumerism, so blinded by the instant pursuit of wealth and power, be loggers, miners, and wily corrupt politicians who are sacrificing the people and Mother Earth to the altar of greed, wealth, and power, they are buried in so much unconsciousness, they have no iota of consciousness and if ever, their consciousness is linked not with the sublime but with the mundane and to a rotten system that is now collapsing as it is devoid of pure consciousness called spirituality.

Until now, the killers are still scot-free. Knowing that the picture of logging and mining operations which were done illegally, is just a “tip of the iceberg” (one-tenth known, nine-tenth hidden), I wonder who ordered the killing of Datu Sandigan?

Did the killers know that Datu Sandigan’s advocacy in stopping illegal logging and mining in the uplands of Cagayan de Oro was in line with the order of the Court of Appeals in connection with the issuance of the Writ of Kalilkasan or the Environmental Protection Order upon the petition of SULOG and the environmental movements in Mindanao? The Court of Appeals had indeed ordered in 2013 that government agencies (DENR, EMB, AND MGB), the LGUs, and Law Enforcers (AFP, PNP, AND NBI) including the Bureau of Immigration (as foreigners were acting as tourists but involved in the theft of minerals) and SULOG (a multi-sectoral environmental coalition of cooperatives, church-based organizations, academe, and tribal groups) to undertake actions to clear Cagayan de Oro, Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon, and Iligan, from all sorts of illegal mining and logging activities.

What pains me no end is that puzzling question, why must it be Datu Sandigan coming from the civilian component (SULOG) who must die? All those mandated by the Court of Appeals from government agencies have the primary duty to protect the environment, receiving salaries and allowances. Datu Sandigan, a passionate SULOG member, was just a volunteer working to stop illegal mining on a Sunday while officials of government were taking a rest. As I have said, the killing of Datu Sandigan was just the “tip of the iceberg!” We in SULOG have been shouting that justice be done in the killing of a dear colleague, an environmental warrior, and hero par excellence!

Well, on the second thought, I am not surprised. Having been in the environmental movement for five decades, there is no such thing as the rule of law in the environment as our dipterocarp forest in those elevated areas more than one thousand meters above sea level or in hilly areas with more than 50% slope gradient, logging is prohibited by existing environmental laws. There should never have been cutting of trees in those prohibited areas but all the finest trees in these environmentally critical areas have been logged from the 1950s to 1990s, in gross violations of existing laws which only stopped when Task Force Macajalar bravely took direct actions through human barricades. We were able to stop the passage of some 50 ten-wheeler logging trucks passing Cagayan de Oro every day from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. when the Cagayanons were all asleep. These logging activities could not be stopped even by those Check-Points as we were told that each logging truck with armed men escort was paying P5,000 to those in the Check-Points. Thus, we have lost not only the finest trees but all the billions of flora and fauna species living in our dipterocarp forest for millions of years plundered by the powerful untouchable loggers in cohort with agencies tasked to enforce environmental laws.

I remember confronting a former DENR Regional Executive Director (RED) telling me in 1991 when we were barricading logging trucks, telling us that “the loggers and miners are more powerful than the government.” Another DENR RED told us in the City Council hearing after I presented the horrible realities of logging and mining sometime in 2010, “Better legalize these illegal activities because we cannot stop them!”

If I remember right, my outright response was, “You know Director, if that be the case, you better legalize kidnapping, hold-upping and even rape because the victims are just very few. But when you allow these illegal activities of mining and logging to continue, a great number of people especially those living in vulnerable areas will become victims of environmental disasters am afraid thousands will die.” If I may recall, they all laughed and called me a “prophet of doom!”

Well, Sendong came just less than a year after that laughter leaving on its path the deaths of more than 3,000 people and rendering 11,000 families homeless. Somehow, the people have been awakened. But the Filipinos tend to have amnesia as still, we cannot moderate the greed of these miners and loggers whose determination to kill is as strong as their greed.

With that death of our beloved Datu who had willingly sacrificed his life so that others may live, let us serve notice to one and all that we will leave no stone unturned and call resoundingly for justice. That is the least that we can do. Better still, let us continue the fight for ecological integrity and security, all for the greater glory of Magbabaya. Datu Sandigan had sacrificed so much to put in clear categorical terms the statement that in this country, no one is above the law; all must bow down to the majesty of the law because we follow the rule of law and not of men. But that is a blatant lie! No such thing as a rule of law in the environment; it is the law of the illegal loggers and miners, plundering our natural resources for self-aggrandizement as many have become mayors, congressmen, and even senators, supported by these plunderers of our natural resources.

Datu Sandigan, you are now resting in the loving embrace of our Creator, Great Consciousness, the Unmanifested that is manifested through the billions of life forms now becoming extinct. Indeed, death has no match against your strong will to protect God’s vanishing creation. Let us feel the essence of God’s creation, be forest, mountains, rivers, seas, and savor the beauty of a flower those essence, just like a song, seems to come from the Great Beyond. Wake up all who are victims of the fallacies of life, so engrossed in the mundane. Datu Sandigan had leaped to the Great Beyond, a life that is far greater than this life. But his consciousness will always be with us, oneness with all of God’s creation as that oneness is TRUE LOVE as exemplified by our environmental hero, Datu Sandigan Fausto Orasan – our warm embrace and never-ending love!