The “Amano: Walang Agwat sa Pagdunong” short film documentary depicting the story of a small indigenous village dreaming of attending school got its premiere public screening last April 19 (online global film launch) and on April 24 at the 40th People’s Cordillera Day in Kalinga, Philippines.
Amano is a youth-led short film that focuses on Indigenous Peoples’ rights to education, particularly the displaced Aeta community of Sitio Gayaman, Tarlac, a small village around 100 kilometers north of the capital Manila.
Access to education has become a right that is historically and continuously denied to Indigenous Peoples. The Aeta Learning Center is one of the few community-led projects by Indigenous Peoples advocates to help further the education of the indigenous Aeta Youth and empower the Aeta community. Despite the continuous marginalization and attacks on Indigenous Peoples’s rights to education, land, and self-determination, the center is a testament to the determination of the community’s elders and children to uphold their rights and use education as a means to assert them.
“At the heart of the Gayaman, the indigenous Aeta community build their right to education from the ground up enabling the community to gain the skills, capacity, and confidence to secure their rights,” AYIPN Secretary-General Funa-ay Claver shared.
“Knowledge and learning has always been valued among Indigenous Peoples and it’s not just limited to the image of traditional educational systems, confined within the four walls of a classroom. There is knowledge shared and found in the crops they grow to feed their communities; it’s in the traditions, culture, and values passed down to them by their elders, and it’s in the land that they defend, nurture, and live in. Without the land, there is no life,” Sabrina de los Reyes, SIKLAB Secretariat Staff said.
Under the Duterte administration, 216 indigenous Lumad schools were closed while their communities were being bombed and militarized. These attacks did not stop under the current Marcos Jr. presidency, who continues to enact human rights violations towards Indigenous Peoples including those in the Cordillera region in the northernmost part of the Philippines.
With the recent celebration of the 40th People’s Cordillera Day, the documentary serves as a reminder that the solidarity between and among different Indigenous communities is more important now than ever in these trying times. Not only are their livelihoods at stake but so is the future of the Indigenous youth.
“Despite the deliberate effort of the state to halt the 40th People’s Cordillera Day, we manage to collectively assert, along with the community members of Lubuagan village, the long history of resistance of indigenous Igorot. This attempt should be a step for us to see that we should charge the fascist state even more. Just like the film Amano, we want to depict the necessity of advocating for a nationalistic, scientific, and mass-oriented curriculum of education that will serve the interest of the indigenous communities, and further their knowledge in defense of their ancestral lands and assertion of their self-determination. We, in Kabataan Para sa Tribung Pilipino and SIKLAB firmly believe that education should be a right and not a privilege to fully develop the community’s potential to understand their intertwining struggle with different indigenous communities,” Kei Crisostomo, one of the documentary directors and SIKLAB Secretariat Staff stated.
“It’s truly gratifying to witness in Amano the art depicting the challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples signaling a broader awareness of their effort to combat systemic oppression and forward a sustainable, self-determined future,” Beverly Longid, IPMSDL Co-convener delivered in her message during the launch.
The documentary launch was organized by Int’l Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self Determination & Liberation, Siklab Philippine Indigenous Youth Network, Katribu Youth, Liwanag at Dunong, Cordillera Peoples Alliance, and Asia Young Indigenous Peoples Network – AYIPN. “Amano” is made possible with the support from Voice and The Constellation.
Reference:
Funa-ay Claver,
AYIPN Secretary General
ayipn.youthnetwork@gmail.com
Kei Crisostomo
SIKLAB
siklab.ipyouth@gmail.com
