Molbog Community Raises Concerns Over Military Construction on Balabac Island

For the Molbog people of Balabac, a military runway is taking shape amid reports of damage to ancestral sites, limits on farming, and fear sparked by live-fire exercises. Emmanuel San Esteban, head of the indigenous-led group Bangsa Molbog, says residents weren’t told that soldiers would fire weapons at the site. That account puts a basic question at the center of the dispute: how are people living beside a major construction project supposed to understand its risks if they say they weren’t informed about military activity?

Ancestral sites and community safety

At a briefing in Quezon City on Monday, October 26, San Esteban said construction had covered the burial place of his people’s ancestors with soil and cleared a mountain used for rituals. Those are not simply changes to the physical setting. For a community whose claim to land includes places of burial and ceremony, altering such sites can affect how people maintain ties to their history and pass on cultural practices. San Esteban also said unknown men had physically harmed and intimidated him, adding a personal safety concern to the reported impact on the community.

In May, Philippine, US and Australian Army soldiers held a live-fire assault on the island during the Balikatan exercises. San Esteban said residents were caught off guard when firing began. The account does not establish what warnings, if any, were provided to other residents or what safety arrangements were in place; it does make clear that he says his community didn’t know weapons would be fired there.

“We didn’t know they would open fire there at what they call the EDCA site,” he said. “People ran, especially the young ones.”

Balabac faces the West Philippine Sea and lies between the Sulu Sea and the South China Sea, linked by the Balabac Strait. The island is among four additional locations designated under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Construction includes a three-kilometer runway in Catagupan, San Esteban’s village.

That strategic setting helps explain why military facilities are being built on Balabac, but it doesn’t answer the local questions raised by residents. A runway is a visible, lasting project; its effects can be felt in access to land and familiar places before its military purpose is ever tested. The tension here is concrete: national defense plans are being carried out in a place where residents say they’re facing consequences for land, safety, and daily life.

Farming and ancestral domain claims

Anjilon Flores, another Molbog community member, raised concerns about the effect on livelihoods. Speaking in Molbog, with San Esteban translating, Flores said the government’s National Greening Program had restricted farming and access to food. Some plots the community had farmed are now part of the reforestation program. The issue, as described by Flores, is not just whether trees are planted; it’s whether a program that changes land use also leaves residents with practical ways to grow or obtain food.

In disputes over land, formal boundaries and day-to-day use can tell different parts of the story. A plot may be treated as part of a government program while residents remember it as farmland they relied on. That gap can make a policy feel immediate at household level, even when the policy’s stated purpose is broader. The reporting doesn’t provide details about how the restrictions were decided or what alternatives have been offered, so the scale of the effect remains unclear.

The Molbog are seeking a certificate recognizing ancestral domain over 26,000 hectares in Catagupan. Balabac has 42,662 residents, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority; Catagupan has slightly more than 2,000. The application matters because recognition of ancestral domain concerns the community’s relationship to land across generations, while construction and reforestation can change how particular places are used now. The two processes are unfolding at once, leaving residents to deal with present-day changes while their claim is still unresolved.

What the dispute leaves unresolved

Earlier in October, human rights group Karapatan condemned alleged military and police harassment of journalists and researchers on Balabac. The group said the incident added to local fear amid alleged intimidation and environmental damage linked to construction. Those allegations don’t establish who was responsible for each reported act, but they point to an information problem as well as a land dispute: scrutiny is harder when people investigating the site say they’ve faced harassment.

Here’s the thing: a project can be described in terms of a runway and an agreement, while residents experience it through a burial place covered over, a mountain cleared, or a field they can no longer farm. (And this is the part most people overlook.) Those are different measures of what the project means, and a public account that includes only the infrastructure misses the daily costs residents say they’re facing. This is more significant than it looks.

Rappler said it had asked the Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Command for comment, but had received no response by publication. Without that response, the reported concerns can’t be weighed against the military’s account of the construction, exercises, or community engagement. If you’re working in this space, the missing details matter: residents’ claims are on record, but the available account doesn’t explain how they were addressed or what steps, if any, were taken to inform people before live fire.

The stakes for residents

The competing demands around the site remain immediate for residents: construction and military activity are unfolding alongside unresolved claims over land, food access, and community safety. The practical test will be whether people living in Catagupan can get clear information about activity near them, retain access to the resources they depend on, and have their ancestral domain claim heard while the site changes around them. For now, the reporting captures a community describing disruption and uncertainty, with key questions still unanswered.