It was Governor Ed Gadiano who first broke the sad news to me last Friday. Over the phone, he asked me to arrange the transfer of the cadaver of the first Mangyan legislator in the country from the emergency ward of San Sebastian District Hospital (SSDH) back to their community in Kulasisi. The governor called from Cavite because he was on a business trip that day.
Gov. Ed told me that an emissary of Kuyay Burnay, the Alangan chieftain of the said cultural community, told him that his nephew, former Indigenous People’s Mandatory Representative (IPMR) to the Sangguniang Bayan, suffered from a cerebrovascular disease. He was found lifeless by passersby on the road inside the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm (SPPF) with his motorcycle on Friday, September 30, 2022. He is 43 years old for he was born January 5, 1979.
It was in 2012 when then-mayor Gov. Ed created the Indigenous People’s Affairs Office (IPAO) under his office, and I was designated as its officer. One of my urgent tasks was facilitating the process of putting an IPMR in our local municipal board in consonant with the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, or IPRA, known as Republic Act 8371.
As directed by now Mayor Bong Marquez, who was still the executive assistant of then Mayor Ed, I took part in the community processes headed by the National Commission for the Indigenous Peoples or NCIP for the mandatory IP representation in the local legislative board. Ultimately, the Philippine history’s first-ever Mangyan municipal legislator was finally sworn into office on February 4, 2012, as mandated in Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Memorandum Circular No. 2011-119 dated October 20, 2011.
It was then vice-president Jejomar Binay who administered his oath of office on that very historic day. For three years, Ruben Pasajol Dangupon an Alangan Mangyan, represented the indigenous peoples and their cultural communities. He was indeed a pioneer in such a legislative post. Despite his many shortcomings due to cultural attributes, he tried hard to be the voice of the Mangyan populace in the said august body.
In his first 100 days as Sanggunian, Dangupon already sponsored more
or less six resolutions forwarded to concerned national agencies and government
officials. Those legislations consist of the immediate awarding of the
Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADTs) of the two IP sub-tribes of
Sablayan, the appeal to stop the application of JCET Mining, and the proposed
socialized housing in specific IP areas, among others. IPMR Ruben Dangupon then
surpassed some of his colleagues regarding the quantity and quality of
legislation sponsored in the legislative body.
During his term, Councilor Dangupon worked closely with Bong Marquez and has been his people’s voice against the Mindoro Nickel Project (MNP), as the Alangan communities will be directly hit by said aggressive and destructive mineral extraction project. Dangupon belongs to the northern aboriginal ethnolinguistic groups occupying the mountainous interior of Mindoro island. The Alangans are found within the municipalities of Naujan and parts of Baco and Victoria in Oriental Mindoro, and across the high central boondocks within the towns of Mamburao, Sta. Cruz and Sablayan are on the other half of this island of our birth.
In an island-wide anti-mining conference held in Puerto Galera in 2013, Dangupon echoed this thundering message in a roundtable of known pro-environment advocates: “These destructive projects threaten the land we have inherited from our ancestors. We would not let Kapwambulod (the Alangan forest god) be disturbed and turned against us.”
According to his twin brother Rudy, Ruben will be laid to rest the lowlanders' way for some practical and personal reasons. His remains underwent embalming and will be buried not in the Alangan's burial ground but in Barangay Batong-Buhay Public Cemetery on October 4, 2022.
Kapwambulod is weeping as the clouds atop Siyaldang (Alangan name for Mt. Halcon) lament for the loss of another great earth warrior. At the same time, the Sangguniang Bayan of Sablayan equally lost another former legislator whose feat goes down in local history.
Agusop, Pakan." (Sleep well, Brother).
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