By Joel B. Belinan
As the month of October ends, does the observance of the Indigenous Peoples/Indigenous Cultural Communities also ends? My guess is yes for the general public. I think that except for the Cordillera Region where an overwhelming majority of IPs (indigenous peoples) in this country are found, other regions might not even have noticed the passing of October, much less giving any serious thought of the IPRA and the IP rights contained in it. To be fair though, some areas with a good number of IPs, or where the top government executives are IPs or are sympathetic to IPs, might have given some thought on the observance of the IP month.
One thing is for sure, the level of commitment or sincerity of the national government to implement the IPRA is almost none. So it is in this region where there is hope for the achievement of proper respect for IP rights if we finally become an autonomous region. As explained by former mayor congressman Mauricio Domogan in his online message for the IP month observation, the main reason why the implementation of the Indigenous Peoples Right Act (IPRA) was adjudged a failure is the government’s too centralized system. The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) commissioners and its Central Office have been issuing or granting resolutions confirming Ancestral Land Titles to certain clans or individuals that did not pass the process in the places where the lands are located. In fact sources at the NCIP said that the CALTs (Certificates of Ancestral Land Title) issued by the NCIP commission 10 years ago covering the Wright Park area including those of the Mansion House, the Casa Vallejo and the Forbes Park in South Drive were not verified first on the ground before the applications were forwarded to the central office. It was alleged that the Baguio service Office and the NCIP regional office were surprised when they received a resolution from the commission that already granted the claimants the land titles. And that the Baguio office and the Regional Office were then ordered to make the necessary verification on the ground and complete the needed staff work. This was a very funny situation where an application was granted first by the supposed last layer of the process.
If we were autonomous, former mayor Domogan explained, all those processes would have been done in the region. We are very familiar with our local situation and as such we know the legitimate ancestral land claimants based on the IPRA law. This reminds me that the original Igorot Claims in Baguio were only numbered 48. It multiplied or spurious ones were added. Worse, some of the latter were even granted titles ahead of the genuine claims, if at all. The result however is a disaster with respect to the reputation of IPRA and the ancestral land titles.
IPRA implementation in an autonomous region should be much better but our dream of establishing our Cordillera Autonomy is still a pie in the sky.
There are three bills that are pending in both Houses of Congress. If I am not mistaken, the first bill filed in the House of Representatives was the one filed by all the 7 congressmen of the region in 2019, another was filed by Benguet caretaker representative and ACT-CIS Partylist Cong. Eric Yap recently. Another bill is now pending in the Senate. But the movement of these have been adversely affected by the pandemic, in fact, these were sidetracked.
In short, 34 years after the Mt. Data Sipat on September 3, 1986 when the government of then Pres. Cory Aquino and the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA) led by Father Conrado Balweg was signed, the dream of a Cordillera autonomous government is still nowhere in sight. It’s been 33 years since the Cordillera Administrative Region was created by virtue of Executive Order 220 that was signed by Pres. Aquino on July 15, 1987 supposedly to prepare the region for autonomy. Two previous organic acts were passed to establish autonomy but these were disapproved when presented to Cordillerans for ratification. For those who forgot, the first plebiscite was in 1990 when all the Cordillera local government units except for Ifugao rejected it and the second was in 1998 when again all the local government units except Apayao failed to ratify the second organic act.
That year, I had the chance to discuss and listen to the thoughts of Ernesto Garado (AKA Ka Sungar) on our quest for autonomy. It should be noted that Garado is one of the remaining CPLA leaders and before becoming a CPLA was a veteran New People’s Army commander in the Cordillera. He was responsible for the creation of the once famous Lumbaya Company of the NPA composed of native fighters who fought against the Chico Dam project of the Marcos government in the 70s and the early 80s. He said, the issuance of EO 220 that created the present Cordillera Administrative Region may have delayed Cordillera autonomy by several decades if not actually killed it. His thought is that the Cordillera people and of course their local leaders became complacent that when the organic acts were presented for ratification, they felt that there was no more need for it because we were already a separate region. And no amount of explanation that an autonomous status is much better could change such thinking especially when anti-autonomy groups were also using this to fuel the opposition. “Can you imagine if we were still a part of region 1 and region 2 at the time we had our first plebiscite in 1990? We would have won it outright like the Muslims in Mindanao because everybody would want to leave those regions where we were a minority and treated badly. While many will not agree with me, the EO220 was a kiss of death and that opinion will only change if at least the government and our political leaders will finally work for the attainment of a Cordillera Autonomy while I am still alive,” Ka Sungar said.
And while majority of Cordillera autonomy advocates were very hopeful when Duterte became president in 2016, it appears that the Cordillera is not in his radar. All those assurances from people close to Duterte that CAR will be given much attention like the Bangsa Moro in Mindanao remain a lip service. The filed autonomy bills now pending in Congress were not even certified as priority bills. Thus it seems that the advent of IPRA in this country and the quest for autonomy for the Cordillera are still on a roller coaster ride.**
