NCIP 11 renounces IP group’s claims

The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) Region 11 denied allegations thrown at them by an Indigenous Peoples (IP) group.

NCIP Regional Hearing Officer lawyer Jose “Jake” Dumagan, in a media interview yesterday, said that they welcome the “Kampuhan” of the IPs in front of their Regional Office starting yesterday as the issues presented by the party are not new.

“It is not new, the pull out of the military operations is not the jurisdiction of NCIP but of the Department of National Defense,” Dumagan said.

He added that the lumads should go in that agency instead if they wanted their plea to be listened to.

Dumagan said that the issue of mining should be addressed by the Mines and Geosciences Bureau while the issue of freeing political prisoners should be addressed by the DOJ.

Dumagan also said that the number of the IPs who were saying that NCIP has turned a blind eye on the issues involving lumads were not representative of the whole majority of the Indigenous Peoples in Region 11.

He also said that their agency is governed by the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, which has the principle of self determination, mandating them to respect different point of views of different communities even if it is against the perspective of others.

Dumagan said that Talaingod areas have around 16,000 to 18,000 population, thus the Salugpongan group is not representing the whole plea of the IPs.

He added that the Ata Manobo group are located in three municipalities of Talaingod, Kapalong and Sto.Tomas and that there are composed of four groups namely Sagya, Talakayan, Salugpongan, and Amado.

Salugpongan and Talakayan are identified groups in Talaingod, and the Talakayan group has a population of 6,000 Talakayan while the Salugpongan, there is 2,000.

He also said that rallying and picketing are not part of the culture of the tribes, as he observed that most of the tribes sit down together in case issues arise.