Pedro Walpole SJ
In today’s world, it is a challenge to sit with the youth and have them actively write their story from the context of who they are as a person, as a family, their relationship and their knowledge of the land.
They may have the summer months where they go back to the farm area and live there for the land preparation or harvest. They may need to go ask their parents and their elders, because much of the time they are in school and may not be conscious of the full seasonal cycle of the land. They can learn to express this part of life that sustains them and the hope that they find.
The River Above Asia Oceania Ecclesial Network (RAOEN) approaches this Indigenous youth engagement as a biome-based synodality where walking together in creation through faith provides a space to share their experience and seek responses.
One experience that can be organized with the youth is to start with a past, present, and global understanding of what is happening on their lands and life around them. Drawing together this story over three days helps in understanding their own environment, local economy and how these are very connected to the global climate changes experienced locally.
In Bendum, an upland village in Upper Pulangi, Bukidnon in northeastern Mindanao, Philippines, the story of crop change emerged with the Pulangiyēn, the Indigenous community living in their ancestral domain, and its integral connection with what is happening at a large scale.
On Day 1, the Pulangiyēn elders shared the story of the origin of the community and relations established with neighboring communities through family intermarriages and different rituals of welcome and peace.
The context of Mindanao’s upland forests includes the period of the government’s Timber License Agreements in the 1970s. Companies bulldozed roads, set up camp sites for migrant workers, and extracted the wood primarily for plywood manufacturing up to an elevation of 800 masl. This elevation is where the premontane and mossy forests are and which do not have high economic value but are most critical for water generation and infiltration.
Much of the logged-over forest was wasted and later burned by those who stayed after the logging. Transport to the city was generally available for those living along the road. At times, there was some work for local people. Several communities however moved their village away from wherever the camp or new community was established.
By Day 2, some youth gathered the different materials and discussions they shared in school and in the community. They gathered information on fire management from traditional practices and stories from neighboring villages. Uncontrolled burning can reach the community and if fields are not prepared well, fires can burn through dry forest areas and spread. There were also many stories about Roundup, a herbicide with glyphosate as its active ingredient, that contaminates water sources at times and must be kept away from drinking water.
In the Indigenous school that the Apu Palamguwan Cultural Education Centern (APC) operates in Bendum, senior high school students did a community survey for their research class that showed how food availability shifts to food insecurity during the months of July and December. This is where drought is experienced as a creeping disaster (unlike flooding) and calls for a different approach to disaster risk reduction.
Bukidnon Province is the second largest producer of corn for livestock feed in the Philippines and there is an increasing number of animal farms in the area. The corporate drive to grow more corn for livestock feed is high and expands.
Many farmers in the area grow commercial corn for animal feed, but in many instances, the cash returns from this activity are not sufficient. The family’s food supply is put at risk as the farmer has to buy the white corn variety for human consumption, as well as rice.
Some of the APC school teachers and members of the forest regenerative team put together the story of the last harvest from April to May 2026. High yielding varieties (HYV) of maize (corn), or soya bean for other farmers, are genetically modified organisms (GMOs) where the genetic material (deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA) is altered to resist chemical herbicides and grow more grain with the use of fertilizers.
Putting together the science class with community experience can be a great learning and raises questions, assumptions, and experiences. These are precisely the challenges in daily life that people have to make while knowing also how to balance the risks.
Local corn varieties used to be found on small farms until the mid-2000s when the widespread adoption of GM corn occurred. The local white corn, plus the sweet potato and cassava, provided food security but the promise of cash and the growth in motorbikes with access to the city at any time damaged the local practices of shared cropping and shared seeds, as well as the family’s financial stability.
Now, the corn grown in farms feeds more pigs and chickens in the entire Philippines than it does people. Basic food for people is no longer grown and cheaper rice from Vietnam is imported.
Day 3 is when the discussion focused on the economic promise of HYV corn. As an example, the results of a previous study on smallholder corn farming in the uplands showed that traders provide loans to farmers with usurious interest rates. This is how corporate agriculture and the need to access more land put small farmers in persistent poverty.
There is only so much these communities can do. Agroecology is not going to solve the problem until the economic model and approach is changed. It is disastrous and corporate agriculture is driven to expand more land area. It is a gamble and there is no steady growth. One can win big or lose all.
Southern Philippines, where the Mindanao region is located, is suffering grievously during this year’s long drought periods. People are struggling without fully understanding how to put the story together and what is happening with their knowledge and practices.
Temperature probabilities for August, September, and October 2026 highlight the shift in above normal temperatures of this time of the year. Much of Oceania, Southeast Asia, and South Asia are in the area of 70% above normal temperature, which means that the average of 30oC (high and 20oC low) becomes 38oC in this period, as an example.
The impacts of climate change and land use change are continuously documented, from local to global. And from the stories of communities, especially Indigenous youth, there is a need to understand how they are connecting climate with the global situation.
This understanding and documentation will then allow for a better presentation of this generation that wants climate stability. and not simply resilience and adaptation that seems to be a prevalent response imposed by the global north.
The role of narratives is critical as there is limited knowledge of what the Indigenous achieved. There are also the various communities of practice that work together for multi- and bilateral collaboration while speaking out on the technological accountability and making an integral voice. There is much work ahead but there are also many sources inspiration in stories from those who share the hope, care, practice, with a moral and spiritual grounding.
Pedro Walpole SJ, RAOEN Coordinator and APC Executive Director, facilitated a workshop and conversation in Bendum in August 2026 with APC teachers and the community’s forest, water, and land management team. They shared their experiences on risks and vulnerabilities of farming, the ongoing work of protecting and securing recognition of their ancestral domain, and Indigenous youth participation in the global conversations on climate justice.