SEN. Cynthia Villar yesterday said the Department of Environment and Natural Resources should relocate more than 3,000 members of the Socorro Bayanihan Services Inc. since they are illegally staying in a government-protected area in Surigao del Norte.
This after Villar learned from the DENR that only one resident out of the 174 “tenured migrants” has been allowed to stay at the SBSI sanctuary in the 353-hectare protected area located in Sitio Kapihan, Barangay Sering, Socorro, Surigao del Norte.
DENR Undersecretary for Field Operations-Mindanao Joselin Marcus Fragada told the Senate finance sub-committee tackling the agency’s proposed budget for 2024 that since the DENR allowed the SBSI to occupy the protected area under the Protected Area Community-Based Resource Management Agreement (PACBRMA) in June 2004, “hundreds” of tenured migrants were allowed into the area.
Fragada said the number of tenured residents went down to 174 through the years due to deaths or some have left the area. He added that only one tenured migrant was left to date, which he identified as Oscar Arcolar.
Fragada said the SBSI has a total population of 3,315, of which 1,017 are children.
He said that even Jey Rence Quilario, alias Senyor Aguila, the president of SBSI that senators said has turned into a cult, is not a tenured migrant under the PACBRMA.
The PACBRMA is an agreement entered into by and between DENR and organized tenured migrant communities or interested indigenous peoples in protected areas and buffer zones which has a term of 25 years and is renewable for another 25 years.
The DENR earlier said it had suspended the PACBRMA of SBSI amid various violations of the group that were unearthed during a Senate investigation.
Villar said the DENR should immediately relocate the SBSI but Fragada said it is not the sole decision of the agency since an inter-agency committee was created to determine the plight of the SBSI in Sitio Kapihan.
Aside from the DENR, Fragada said the other agencies are the Department of Justice, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Human Settlement and Urban Development and the PNP.
Villar said nothing will happen if the DENR waits for the inter-agency committee to decide on the relocation of the SBSI members.
DHSUD-Caraga regional director Cristie Reyes said Sitio Kapihan is far from Siargao Island, which will make it hard for the government to relocate the SBSI.
Reyes said three residential sites have been identified but all of them are located in Surigao City.
She said the relocation to the three sites will all depend on the SBSI members agreeing to be relocated.
Villar said the government should not allow the SBSI members to decide on their relocation site, since doing so will surely be met with resistance.
“They don’t have a choice…If you give them a choice, they will not follow. They are illegally staying there. Our legislated protected areas should be preserved…They should relocate to where there are projects of the NHA (National Housing Authority),” Villar said, adding the relocated families can pay for the housing project in 20 years.
DENR Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said the agreement of the inert-agency committee was to first finish the investigation before deciding on their next move.
Villar said there is a basis to relocate the SBSI members since they are illegally staying in the area.
“There is only one tenured migrant left, so everybody else is illegal. You know, somebody has to decide what to do. It’s really hard to reach a decision if there are a lot of people who will decide, and sometimes a decision cannot be made because of that,” she said.
Villar said there should be no problem with structures in the relocation site since the SBSI members can do them themselves.
The SBSI has been the subject of Senate investigations after reports said that Senyor Aguila, with the help of his officials, committed several abuses, including obliging young girls to marry older men whom they have not even met, depriving SBSI members of proper medical care in hospitals, honing young boys to be members of his Soldier of God army, and not allowing children to go to school, among others.
Senyor Aguila and three of his officials have been detained at the Senate building after they were cited in contempt for continuously denying that forced marriages exist among SBSI members even as copies of marriage certificates to prove it were presented, on top of the testimonies of young females who were forced to marry older men.
Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, who heads the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs which conducted the hearings, said the SBSI has been converted into a cult by Senyor Aguila.
He also urged the DENR to relocate the SBSI members so that cultism will “die a natural death” since it thrives in a secluded area.
