Since 4,200 B.C., WE, Subanen people exists and live with our laws in the Subanen People's Kingdom in spite of threat, invasions, attacks and coercions. Our law is our guiding principle for peace, unity and survival. It makes us unique because we are not the same with the other groups or race in the world that existed to fight for dominance, fight for competition, fight for greediness of power and authority and fight for none-sense killing with our fellow human beings. We; Subanen people are unique because we exist in compatible to all groups, compatible with all form of government while having our own, we co-exist with other rulers laws without any tight contradiction to ours, and we are having an immunity to survive from any invasion and attacks. We could exist while agreeing the dominant ruler's imposed laws and at the same time following and practicing our own tradition, culture and laws. The heavenly power created us not to compete for survival and live alone but to co-exist with anyone with full compatibility and we share what we have so the others, even to the invaders would survive with us.
" Today, we have the government of the Republic of the Philippines from the modern Malay race that migrated to our territory during the 300 to 200 B.C. that ruled our territories now. But Since yesterday, since 4,200 B.C. WE were here existing with our Subanen People's Kingdom Monarchy without any conflict with the later existed Republic of the Philippines. We did not seek to separate, we did not seek for division but we co-exist without seeking to co-exist because we are Subanen people, we are unique, we did not compete to dominate and control the other races who wants to live with us, we did not fight to live alone but welcome the others to co-exist with us and we are not greed of power and authority. I did not say that we are not Malay race because we are; we are the ancient Indo-Malayan race. In our law having visitors then settled our land permanently and claim it does not constitute invasions' but a fulfillment of our purpose of co-existence. "What invasion means in our law is if anyone would forcibly coerced our culture, tradition and belief then it means war that we should fight until our last breath"... unless we voluntarily adapt. . But we should defend our ancestral domain as well to provide a space for our future generations to live together with our culture, belief and traditions - Datu Gendao "
Customary Laws
The laws, practices, customs of the Subanen people which are intrinsic and central part of the way of life in our communities which are embedded in our culture and values of the society; We govern acceptable standard of behaviors and are actively enforced.
Generally, our customary laws are not written but are transmitted through oral tradition and practice. Since the immemorial, we were regulated by internal social-political and cultural religious structures and processes. These informal and flexible rules and functions or customs and traditions were passed from one generation to the next, eventually evolving into customary laws that are enforced.
However, since the invasion and occupancy of the migrants and the Spaniards for more than 300 years, some of the customary laws were forgotten due to external political restrictions imposed to our ancestors. We aimed to write everything from now on so our future generations would be able to know and enforced our laws.
