Int’l Igorot meet dwells on Cordillera development

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- Speakers and delegates of the 9th Igorot International Consultation here took turns calling for greater control by the Cordillera of its natural resources for its own development and the preservation and promotion of the eroding cultural heritage of this highland region.

               

Local  Government Secretary Jesse Robredo set the patrimonial tone of the three-day biennial forum by admitting that he himself had embraced the issue of enhancing cultural heritage and promoting trust among communities and the government when he was still mayor of Naga City.

                “It’s not something on my checklist,” he said of such facets of governance. “It’s something in my heart and constantly on my mind.”

The way towards good governance and development of the Cordillera , Baguio mayor Mauricio Domogan later stressed, is for the region to embrace autonomy as offered and provided for in the Philippine Constitution.

                Domogan pointed out that an autonomous set-up  would allow the region to have a greater say on the exploitation and use of its natural resources, not only for national progress but also to speed up the Cordillera’s own development.

                He noted that while the region’s mineral wealth such as gold and water resources substantially contribute to national progress, it continues to lag behind  economically compared to the other regions because it has no power, under an administrative set-up, to plow back these benefits for its own development.

                Domogan dispelled doubts on the third push for self-rule by enumerating five principles which, he said, guided the committee he headed in drafting the third autonomy charter now pending in Congress.

                These principles, he said, are: 1) establishment of regional identity but full retention of the autonomy of the

provinces, towns, cities and barangays under an autonomy-within-autonomy policy; non-diminution of existing benefits and powers of the region and its local government units  being enjoyed under an administrative region; continuous national budgetary allocation for all national line agencies in the region; additional annual subsidy from the national government, and; sustained national budgetary allocation for the region.

                Domogan explained that the region’s rejection of the first autonomy charter was partly due to mangling by Congress of the organic act drafted by the Cordillera Regional Consultative Commission.

                The second, he said, was also rejected partly due to lack of time to pursue a grassroots information campaign that was overtaken and overshadowed by the election campaign in 1998.

Autonomy, he also stressed, would be difficult to achieve if “we can not unite and fight for it as a people and as a region.”

                Domogan earlier said that the national government may not be as keen on autonomy as it would mean its losing grip on the allocation of the region’s resources for other regions such as Metro-Manila which benefits from energy being generated  and taxes from the gold being mined in the Cordillera.

                Robredo also touched on this point in his speech, saying that the adoption of laws does not guarantee the enjoyment of benefits unless the people assert their rights.

                The topical presentations and outputs from the workshops likewise focused  on strengthening public-private partnership  in governance and development, preservation of the integrity of  culture and the environment against the onslaught of commercialization.

                Former Energy Undersecretary RufinoBumas-ang urged Cordillerans to establish their own cooperatives and corporations for the development of the region’s natural resources, in tandem with investors, saying “many of us (from the region) are professionals”.

                Texas-based Prof. Andrew Bacdayan advocated government-private partnership he termed “commuvatization” in the development of and management of the region’s water resources.

                From the sidelines, Cordilleran David Tauli, now serving the power industry in Mindanao, noted that outside investors and developers of hydroelectric power resources in the Cordillera should not forever own the facilities they build up here.

                He said the region should adopted the  build-operate-transfer scheme so that developers would turn over such facilities to the village or host local govern,ent after 25 or 30 years of operation.  

                Tauli said it’s unfair for developers to permanently own these facilities while giving the host communities only a token share from the profits and extending help that may be  deducted from their taxes.

Capping the presentations, Ifugao congressman Teddy Baguilat Jr. rallied the delegates to help preserve and pass on the cultural heritage and values of the Cordillera.  

                IGO-International president Ceasar Castro and IGO-Philippines chief Manuel Ano led over a hundred delegates, mostly expatriate Cordillerans,  who attended the consultation last April 12-13 at the Baguio Country Club.

                Delegates ushered in the biennial consultation with the launching of “Igorot by Heart”, a book compilation of the key presentations in the eight previous forums, together with a trade fair, at the Country Club.

They ended with a cultural fare  hosted by London-based lawyer and businessman Richard Stone Pooten and his wife Conchita at the   couple’s home  in Asin, Tuba Benguet.

                Washington-based Mia Abeya who earlier presented the scholarship program of the Igorot Global Organization (IGO) for students in the Cordillera,  headed the new set of elected IGO Council of Elders who were inducted by mayor Domogan.

                The next consultation in 2014 will be hosted by IGO-Austria.