Mindanao economy continues to be highly agriculture and export oriented. Its contribution to the national income comes from timber, mineral products like gold, and nickel, aquatic resources and agribusiness like bananas and pineapples other are rice, corn, abaca, coconut, livestock, and rubber.
Tampakan , is a rich source of copper and gold. but it is also the ancestral lands of the B'laan people.The vast tracts, mostly ancestral lands, attracted numerous investors engaged in mining, logging, and agribusiness. Various agreements- Timber license agreement, Industrial forest management agreement and Financial and Technical assistance agreement, a new form of mining contract-prohibited their entry into these investment areas. In addition, government development projects opened up the areas of the country through the fishing and livestock industries and the special free fort and economic zone.
Ninety percent of the total timber production comes from Mindanao. Meanwhile, the island also contribute 48% of gold resources, 63% of nickel stocks, 50% of aqua products, 65% of livestock, 62% of coconut, 67% of corn and 100% of banana, rubber and pineapple. Transnationals and big local business develop most of these and export them.
Particular of Mindanao is the existence of three types of people. The Lumad (indigenous people), the Filipinos (christian), and the Moros (Islamiced Lumad). Almost equally with the Filipino settlers as the more predominant.
The poverty level in Mindanao is very serious, here there are 14 out of the 20 poorest provinces in the country. A yard stick of the region's poverty is the departure of 2.4 million migrant workers to different parts of the world to work as domestic helpers. This figure continuous to increase annually. Regions predominantly occupied by the Lumads and Moros have relatively lower literacy rate compared to that of areas dominated by Filipino settlers.
The Lumad of Mindanao played host to 226 development generating projects that exploited all major resources of what the Lumads claim as their anscestral domain. More ancestral lands here opened up to local and foreign investors in logging and mining industries.
The B'laan are the largest tribe among the indigenous in Socsargen area. They are peace loving people whose dreams began to shatter when migration and encroachment of the people from the lowlands accelerated and dispossessed them from their ancestral lands.ASPIRATION OF THE B'LAANS......
The B'laan people value their culture and their tradition. They want to nurture it and maintain it. They want to respect their right to do so. B'laan ancestral domain and cultural identity must be respected. The B'laan people want to live in peace in their communities. The land is the basis of B'laan political,economic, and cultural identity.
The B'laan people do not separate land from development. One of their greatest fears is that their land will be destroyed. The B'laan want to care for their land and be free from the things that threaten their land and their culture.
Ancestral Domain for B'laan people means the land and the resources found there. In land is life. And life includes their culture and spirit. Only the Dawata or God can claim ownership on it, while everybody collectively can only act as Steward. From this perspective, individual absolute ownership of land is inconceivable. Ancestral Domain for them is not only as question of land use. It implies the milleu of their cultural and spiritual life. Thus, to take this domain from them implies a serious deprivations of their life, a total erosion of their world of sacred.
The B'laan aspire to be recognized as the traditional occupiers of their domain which is supported by at least eight generations of continuous occupancy of the land.
Preservation of B'laan culture and heritage for future generations can only occur of the B'laan Ancestral Domain is recognized and supported...
Recognition of Ancestral Domain and the Right to Self-Determination are key aspirations.
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