By Joel B. Belinan
In a flash, it’s now July and we do have a new administration in place. While I did not vote for BBM, I do hope he will succeed even if not with all he had promised during the campaign period. That’s not, however, my subject for this week.
July is the Cordillera month as the law (EO220) creating the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) was signed into law by then President Cory Aquino on July 15, 1987. EO 220 re-unified the old Mountain Province, namely, Benguet, Baguio, Mountain Province, Ifugao, Kalinga-Apayao plus Abra to become the CAR. The law intended to prepare these overwhelmingly Igorot-populated mountainous provinces for the eventual creation of our Autonomous Region. Thus it also created the Cordillera Executive Board, the Cordillera Regional Assembly, and the Cordillera Bodong Administration or the so-called Cordillera bodies to oversee the affairs of the region.
Unfortunately, while the very intent of this EO 220 and its implementing Cordillera bodies are clear, the result was a disaster to our quest for autonomy. Instead, these Cordillera Bodies became the best ammunition for those anti-autonomy individuals and groups on why we should not become autonomous. To even complicate things, Cordillera leaders became complacent and are now contented with our status as an administrative region and don’t see the need for the push for autonomy. Hence after two organic acts in two plebiscites, one in 1990 and another in 1998, we failed to become an autonomous region.
After that, there was a lull in the clamor for autonomy until 2010 when again leaders in the various provinces and the City of Baguio initiated the drafting of the proposed 3rd organic act which our region’s seven lawmakers willingly filed in the House of Representatives. Then a counterpart bill was filed in the Senate. Unfortunately, it did not see the light of day before the 2013 election. In the following congress that started in 2013, our lawmakers again filed the same but still, it was not passed before the 2016 national and local elections. With President Duterte becoming the president in 2016 and with all the noisy supposedly assuring his support for our cause, the bill that was kept on being filed in both houses of Congress did not become a law.
With BBM now in Malacanang and with many Cordillerans supporting him during the campaign, I am quite sure that there will be a litany of statements of his supposed support for our autonomy during events relative to this Cordillera month. And clearly, our leaders and others involved in previous autonomy drives would only be too happy trumpeting such news. But for me, and I am sure I am not alone in this pessimism, given what we had experienced, the more expectation the greater the frustration. **
The other big thing in July was when the July 16, 1990 killer Earthquake struck Northern Luzon killing thousands of people and destroying public and private infrastructures worth billions and billions of pesos. Baguio City, Cabanatuan City, and Dagupan City were the worst urban centers that took the brunt of the Earthquake’s wrath. It is also July that marks the start of many destructive typhoons visiting this god-forsaken country. Thus, it is just but fitting that Natural Disaster Consciousness month is being observed in July aimed at making all of us conscious of natural disasters that may suddenly strike. Of course, we are conscious, ergo it follows that preparation and proactive measures should be in place and that the government and the private sector must always be ready. Since the 1990 Earthquake, there is a big difference on the government’s capability to cope with natural disasters. Even if every time a big calamity comes it appears such capability was not enough.
Come to think of it, Cordillera month in July, a month that is also the Natural Disaster Consciousness month, boon or bane? Maybe that is the very reason why our autonomy dream always ends up in disaster. **
