Kalinga, Apayao police now under Region 2 command: Regional pols slam PNP for 'disintegrating' Cordillera

BY MIGUEL B. GUIMBATAN JR.

BAGUIO CITY – Top Cordillera leaders warned they would oppose the plan of the Philippine National Police to return the supervision of two provincial police offices back to the Cagayan Valley region.

Chief PNP Deputy Director General Oscar Calderon issued an order transferring the management and supervision of the provincial offices of Kalinga and Apayao to Cagayan
Valley Region effective Aug. 30 citing proximity management Cordillera leaders composed of governors, congressmen and autonomy advocates immediately reacted opposing the move saying the PNP chief failed to consider politico-legal, socio- cultural and economic considerations
before issuing the order.

Other cordillera leaders said there was no consultation prior to the disintegration move.

Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan said he just signed a resolution along with all the Cordillera congressmen opposing the PNP action. Gov. Maximo Dalog of Mt. Province said the league of Cordillera Governors were opposing the PNP move.

The Cordillera leaders said the Chief PNP must not have been fully briefed on Cordillera issues specially the creation of the Cordillera region. Police Regional Director Chief Supt. Eugene Martin said he would abide with the directive saying advance information was already floated during the recent Chief PNP's visit.

He said that management-wise, there would be lesser areas to administer but as a Cordilleran, it was a step backward in the bid for autonomy. National Police Commission Regional Director Rodolfo Santos Jr. said they were studying the possible effect in the management and administration of police affairs in the region.

But he said if the PNP can segregate a fraction from the Cordillera region, this will not prevent other line agencies to disintegrate the Cordillera back to its mother regions. Observers said that Calderon must not have been abreast that Executive Order 220 creating the Cordillera Administrative region was issued under the then freedom constitution and that makes it a regular law which can not be amended by another Executive Order but requires only congressional amendment.

It is now exactly twenty years ago when CAR was created in July 15, 1987 to prepare the region towards autonomy after Fr. Conrado Balweg and his group of former communist rebels negotiated with the government for federal autonomy starting with the creation of the Cordillera region composed of provinces with common culture and distinct social system.

The provinces of Abra, Benguet including Baguio City, and Mt. Province were culled out from region I or Ilocos region while the provinces of Ifugao, Kalinga and Apayao came from region II or Cagayan Valley region.

The creation of the Cordillera region with over 1.3 million populace with 92 percent belonging to indigenous or ethnic people was in response to item 3 of Balweg's 26 point demand during the September 13, 1986 peace accord he had with then President Corazon Aquino.

Balweg's agenda 3 states “respect the integrity of the Cordillera national community and dismantle those artificial and divide-and-rule political boundaries cutting across the tribal peoples of the Gran cordillera Central and contiguous areas in complete disregard of their common indigenous culture binding them together in a single society with a distinct identity” .

The main purpose of CAR is to accelerate the economic and social growth and development of the region as well as to prepare for the establishment of the autonomous region in the Cordilleras .

On October 23, 1989, Congress indeed enacted RA 6766 or the Organic Act creating the Cordillera Autonomous Region but on January 30, 1990, the organic act was rejected in a plebiscite except Ifugao. A similar Organic Act RA 8438 was again rejected in March 1998 except for Apayao province.

The Supreme Court however decided that one province can not constitute an autonomous region thus the region remained as an administrative region.