BEHIND THE SCENES

Cordillera autonomy once more with feelings
ALFRED P. DIZON

Lest the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army comes up with funny ideas they can do a peace agreement with government ala Moro Islamic Liberation Front, its leaders better think of a career in showbiz.

You see, three CPLA factions recently came up with press statements they have “united” themselves. They said the group, formed by the late Fr. Conrado Balweg, is now one in ideology. They issued press statements in commemoration of Cordillera Month last July saying they wanted autonomy for the region.
Now, CPLA members are accusing the government of reneging on its promise of making the Cordillera autonomous despite signing a peace agreement with them in 1986 for the purpose. They want a review whether provisions of the agreement were complied with by the government.

The former rebel priest, then representing the CPLA, inked the accord with the Aquino administration in 1986. In the process, they pledged to lay down their arms and join government in peace-making and in making the region autonomous. What happened after that was the complete opposite of what they were saying -- a horror show with CPLA members murdering, raping, torturing innocent civilians like the late Ama Daniel Ngayaan who was murdered by CPLA misfits in Cagaluan Kalinga in the mid-80s for allegedly sympathizing with the communist New People’s Army.

Balweg was a former NPA cadre before he bolted the communist group with some guerillas and formed the CPLA. With contrasting ideologies, this resulted to bad blood causing ambuscades and killings between the two organizations.

The CPP-NPA then was supportive to what it called “genuine autonomy,” not the kind that Balweg and the CPLA espoused. The CPLA lobbied the Aquino government then to prepare the region for autonomy which resulted to the signing of Executive Order 220 which created the Cordillera Administrative Region.

The peace agreement was signed then at the Mt. Data Hotel in Mountain Province between the CPLA and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines under a naïve Aquino administration.

As a result, the CAR’s provinces were carved out from regions 1 and 2 to include Benguet, Baguio City, Mountain Province, Ifugao and Kalinga-Apayao, the latter of which was separated as two distinct provinces.

Under the EO, the Cordillera Executive Board, Cordillera Regional Assembly and Cordillera Bodong Administration were created to pave the region for autonomy. But these failed in their mission owing to petty differences, graft and corruption, arrogance among others which earned the ire of the people they were supposed to convince.

Until now, regional autonomy for the Cordillera is just a dream. Its appeal has tapered off. People are seemingly now contented with having an administrative region. This had been shown by the fact that two organic acts presented to the people were rejected in plebiscites. ***
Despite this, the Cordillera Regional Development Council is once again pushing the government version of autonomy courtesy of a P15 million fund for information purposes which had not been accounted for. If the RDC would like the people to believe them, they should start from themselves by being transparent on how the P15 million was spent or is being spent. This, so people won’t be saying such an amount is being corrupted.

What more to billions of pesos being poured in the Cordillera if the region becomes autonomous with the same set of officials? This is the question of pundits. Put on the defensive, RDC officials said they were not “railroading” advocacy on regional development through autonomy since they were sensitive to concerns raised by the people contrary to perception of sectors they were rushing approval of the controversial issue.

Juan Ngalob, regional director of the National Economic Development Authority in the Cordillera said they were “treating the issue in a sensitive manner mindful of concerns being raised by stakeholders so they could formulate appropriate strategies to fully explain to them the real benefits of self-governance.” He said this was the primary purpose of the constitutional provision for the creation of an autonomous region in the Cordillera.

According to him, the conduct of the recent pulse survey to guide the RDC’s strategies was an indication they would give “proper information and education” for the people to come out with “proper disposition on their cause for self-governance.”

Results of the pulse survey showed 64 percent of Cordillerans were unaware of the constitutional provision which mandated the creation of a Cordillera Autonomous Region. Out of the 2,809 respondents surveyed in the different parts of the region, 40 percent said the region is not yet ready for an autonomous status.

In the same survey, 44 percent of Cordillerans said it was necessary to gradually develop the region’s capability to become autonomous. Ngalob said in a press statement “survey results guided the RDC in the formulation of appropriate strategies that would lead to the proper information and education of the grassroots level as well as capacitate the local government units and the people to be ready for self-governance.”

To prevent the divisive impact of politically-oriented debates, Ngalob, who is also the interim RDC chair, was quoted as saying “The region’s policy-making body has channeled its efforts to regional development and autonomy on massive information and education campaign to allow the electorate to have a clearer picture of self-governance and could intelligently decide on their cause in the coming months.”

The RDC said target of the information and education campaign would be the general public, the youth and the academe, regional line agencies, national and local officials, government-owned and controlled corporations, local government units and multi-sectoral organizations. If holding a symposium at the University of the Philippines in Baguio on the matter is “grassroots,” maybe, they should get also the real sentiments of the people in towns or provinces, not abstracts.

By 2010, RDC officials said they would conduct a tracking survey to determine the pulse of the people on Cordillera development and autonomy and to gauge the extent of their information drives or caucuses.

According to Ngalob, varied views on Cordillera development and autonomy were an indication that people are now becoming aware of issues around them which would create a great impact on their living standards in the future. No beef with that. But first how much was really spent out of the P15 million and how? Cordillera officials should show how an ideal official in an autonomous region would be like – upright, competent and genuinely concerned for the people. As an old adage says, “Actions speak louder than words.”