IP rights still in peril - NCIP
20 YEARS AFTER IPRA LAW WAS PASSED
DESPITE the passage of the IPRA Law 20 years ago, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples said indigenous peoples rights are still under threat.
“One specific threat is that they want to call us again national minority when we fought to be called Indigenous Cultural Communities/IP's,” NCIP Commissioner for Region I and the Cordilleras Basilio Wandag said.
Wandag added the struggle of having ancestral domain remains a problem for IP’s, especially in the Cordillera region.
“They want our ancestral lands to be redistributed but we made that as something that is not subject to any compromise when the law was drafted under the social reform agenda,” said Wandag.
“The constitution was approved by on February 2, 1987 which includes the provision of IPRA, however it took 10 years before
the Cordillerans saw its implementation only in October 29, 1997 when the IPRA Law was finally signed,” added Wandag.
When President Ramos signed the law, Wandag added it was the start of a difficult job of implementing the law due to several opposition.
There are at 14 million IP's in the country and Wandag said and only a few are aware of IPRA.
“Only a small percentage of IP's know or are conversant with their rights which are guaranteed under IPRA. If the percentage of IP is quite small, the more reason our brother and sister Filipinos do not also have knowledge of what is really contained in IPRA,” added Wandag.
Wandag said Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. who is the oversight in NCIP is pushing hard for recognition and programs of government agencies for IP rights to be implemented.
The Commissioner added they are also working out in a consortium with Department of Education to see to it that the law will be part of the learnings of the young people and for these right would be exercised and respected.