The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Tabsing Kolektib, an independent theater guild founded by University of the Philippines-Los Baños (UPLB) alumni and students in 2012, is set to stage this week Kasaray Duma: Mga Supling ng Sigwa (Kasaray Duma: Children of the Storm), written by Eljay Castro Deldoc and directed by Prof. Jeremy dela Cruz, in celebration of October as National Indigenous Peoples Month.
Kasaray Duma focuses on the fictional Kasaray Duma tribe of Sapang Kawayan island, who are being forced by the government to leave their ancestral land so that their mayor could turn it into a sanitary landfill. This creates division within the community.
The tribal chieftain, Labang Biwas, sides with the government because of its promise of a relocation site and financial subsistence, while Pinak, one of the tribe’s elders, strongly opposes it because he believes they are the rightful stewards of the land. Amid the conflict is Pakawakaw, the forgotten priestess of the tribe, who prays tirelessly for the most awaited coming of a storm.
Plagued by such problems, will the Kasaray Duma still find within them their innate knowledge and power as the descendants of the storm?
Presented as an advocacy play, Kasaray Duma tackles the landgrabbing and the resulting aggression of indigenous peoples. The play echoes the silenced stories of the Lumads in Mindanao and the Iraya Mangyans in Mindoro, who experienced human-rights violations, the exploitation of natural resources, and other forms of oppression in their fight for their ancestral land.
Tabsing Kolektib hopes to give awareness about these issues that are prevalent in different parts of the country. TMM
Playdates for Kasaray Duma: Mga Supling ng Sigwa are Oct. 11, 12 and 13 at 4 and 7 p.m. at the NCAS Auditorium, UPLB. For more information, call Eljay Deldoc at 0995-9777736 or send an e-mail to tabsing.kolektib@gmail.com.