IP to have voice in land offer to investors

PRESIDENTIAL SPOKESPERSON Harry L. Roque, Jr. has clarified that the government’s plan to offer land owned by indigenous peoples (IPs) to investors would be subject to the affected communities’ terms and approval. President Rodrigo R. Duterte, in an event with IPs last week, said he wants the lumads in Mindanao to move out of their ancestral domains and they will be provided with temporary shelters and stipends. “He is not forcibly removing them from ancestral domains. Let’s not claim a monopoly of knowledge of what the lumad communities’ problems are. The President has been a long time resident of Mindanao. He has said that in the BBL. He will seek a correction of the historical injustice, which includes the historical injustice being committed to lumads,” Mr. Roque said at a press briefing on Monday, Feb. 5. The spokesman added that “what (the president) meant by reclamation is, if there are investors coming in, (there is a need for) physical relocation, but it doesn’t mean that they will be expelled from their ancestral domains. Ancestral domains tend to be huge, they are not like limited to 100 square meters.” Further, Mr. Roque said: “They can refuse if they don’t want, certainly.” —