Photo: Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC)

Bae Magda and I travelled early this morning to visit the wake of Datu Kinoc at Sitio Lumpang, Barangay Mangga, Matan-ao, Davao del Sur.  Timuay Melanio Ulama with four (4) BTC staff waited for us at the crossing of Matan-ao highway so we could convoy together into the interior.  As we were passing through the dirt road, Bae Magda declared that Datu Kinoc is truly an IP leader.  Why? Because he lives in the mountains.  We were the first ones who arrived there, his niece told us.  Datu Tony died last Saturday, May 2 at around 11pm.  He was 66 years old and was survived by three children, his eldest son, Jan and the lady twins named Queen and Princess.
 
While waiting for the children who were just arriving from Manila, his niece told us that Datu Tony did not inform his relatives about his true health condition.  He did not want us to worry.  He just kept saying he will be well, that there is no use for the doctors because they have no “findings” anyway.  The relatives were shocked when they discovered from the personal effects of Datu Tony that he actually had cirrhosis in the liver.  He hid it from us.  He did not want us to worry for him.  He insisted that he will only submit to the traditional medicines for his treatment.
 
In his last 10 days, Datu Tony stayed with his own Blaan community where a traditional healer took care of him.  He was just drinking herbal medicines from leaves and barks of trees.  His legs and feet were swollen and sweating all the time.  We asked him if it was painful, and he said it was not.
 
A nephew described Datu Tony as someone who can easily relate with all types of people.  Whether you are young or old, you can be his buddy.  He does not discriminate people.  “We did not only lose a leader, the Blaan tribe actually lost a big library.” Datu Tony is the walking library of our tribe.  You can ask him anything from culture, vocabulary, customary laws, conflict settlement, history and current events.  He even had a repository of jokes which he often texted to his friends.  Now we do not know who can replace his role.
 
One of his nieces showed me an envelope that contains the personal effects that was turned over by the traditional healer to the family.   We checked through it one by one and what we saw are copies of the Bangsamoro Basic Law, the annexes on Normalization, the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, the extension of the International Monitoring Team and a copy of a land title consisting of four hectares.  His niece said “he did not have much, these are his only treasures.  He may not have checks, cash deposits, investments or funds to bequeath but what he held on to till the very end was the Bangsamoro Basic Law.   And this is much more than any material wealth to leave behind.  This is in fact, Datu Tony’s legacy for the tribe, the Bangsamoro people and the next generation.
 
One young lady approached me and asked, “how can we possibly link with those groups and offices that Datu worked with?” He has around 19 scholars.  He recruited young IP students to avail of the Sajahatra scholarship program.  Contrary to the expectation that the scholarship will provide full tuition and stipend for the students, it turned out that the said program could only provide P5,000 subsidy for the tuition of the scholars.  And as the chieftain, the Datu ended up supporting these students.   This is a very common cultural practice where the Datu will end up absorbing the problems of his own community.  How can these young students possibly continue their studies this coming June, was the predicament of a Blaan mother there.
 
His only son Jan, expressed during the ecumenical prayer this morning that he is overwhelmed by the love and honor that all these people pay to his own father.  “For us, he is simply our Dad.  He did not pressure us to become what he is.  He did not force us to also carry his advocacies.  In the limited time that he can spend with us, he was simply a father to us.”  One thing Jan could not forget about his father are the values of freedom, respect and humility that he instilled on his children.  “My Dad will not spend the longest time in his life for a cause if he did not think it is worthy to strive for.”
 
Datu Tony’s children thanked all of us who came to visit and pay our last respects to their father.  “Dad is not the typical father that you have.  He is in fact an absentee most of the time.   He is not the kind that will send and fetch you from school.  But he has his own unique way of caring and loving us despite those limitations and demands of the struggle.  We understand him because we know he has a much bigger community to serve.  We appeal to you to continue the work of our father.  That is the best thing that you can do for us.  We are sad that he has not live to see the establishment of the Bangsamoro government and even the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law.”
 
I often heard Datu Tony declaring that he is a full-bloodied Blaan, born a Blaan, lived a Blaan and will die a Blaan.  That is exactly the message that Datu Tony shared to the world.  While he may be with the MILF Peace Panel, he had always kept his own identity intact and had actively promoted and asserted the indigenous peoples rights and identity into the letters of the peace agreement and the Bangsamoro Basic Law.  Up to his last days, he refused to submit to Western medicine.  He returned to his roots and from there simply welcomed the call to return back to his creator.  He did not even struggle to live longer.  For Datu Tony, it is destiny.  When it is our time, it is our time.
 
Even up to his death, Datu Tony seemed to have that power to embolden our hearts and tell us, “don’t waste your time with me, stop crying and go back to work”.  Come to think about it, with Datu Tony, there are only good memories to share.  We will all miss the jokes, the tap on the shoulder, the food, the pasalubong, the buzz sessions over coffee and the blow-by blow updating on the peace talks.    And as his own children said, “please continue the work that my father left behind.  That is the best way to honor his memory.”