Cordillera autonomy seen to solve inequalities, injustice

EDITORIAL

The coming month of June, Cordillera congressmen would be filing the third organic act in Congress. If approved, it would be put to a vote in the region in a plebiscite.  

According to regional Cordillera officials particularly the Regional Development Council, there is rising clamor of Cordillerans for autonomy. A survey should determine whether they are correct or not.

According to officials autonomy will be solution to  inequalities and injustices committed by the national government against the region and would be driver for economic growth.

Earlier a regional autonomy summit was held in Baguio mostly attended by government officials and employees. It was organized by the RDC supposedly to gather inputs from stakeholders and improve the draft autonomy bill that will be filed this June.

Ifugao Gov. Dennis Habawel said the formula of the national government in the allocation of its scarce resources, particularly based on land area and population, has created inequalities for the Cordillera which is a mountain region that deprived it from getting a larger share.

For example, he cited priority of the national government in agriculture sector as rice and corn production but Cordillera is producer of high value crops thereby resulting to meager allocation for enhancement of high value crops.

Benguet Gov. Nestor B. Fongwan said Benguet, Mountain Province and Ifugao are source of around 80 percent of the country’s supply of temperate vegetables but government agencies do not provide substantial allocation for  enhancement of local vegetable industry that provides livelihood to over 300,000 individuals in said provinces.

Fongwan said in an autonomous set up, the regional government will work for enhancement of the industry because it is one of the region’s economic drivers unlike in the current set up wherein provincial local governments bow down to whims and caprices of those in power in the agriculture department.

He claimed the Cordillera is always left behind in allocation of the government’s resources because of a smaller land area of around 1.8 million hectares, 85 percent of which is classified as forest reservation, with total population of only 1.6 million inhabitants with close to 1 million voters compared to wide tracks of lands and rapidly increasing population in lowlands.

In terms of the 40 percent share of the host local governments from the operation of hydroelectric and large-scale mining companies, Fongwan cited difficulty in lobbying for immediate release of their share from the national government considering companies directly remit taxes to the national coffers and it will be up to agencies to decide when to release the due share of host communities.

According to him, in an autonomous set up, the law would mandate all companies exploring, utilizing and developing the resources of a certain locality to directly remit the share of the concerned local government to local government coffers with freedom to allocate funds for priority projects.

Baguio City Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan said autonomy will allow the region to issue exploration permits, water permits, ancestral domain titles among other permits for companies unlike now wherein the national government issues water permits, exploration permits among others that result to depletion of the region’s water resources and creates conflicts among indigenous peoples since it is done without the consent of host communities.

 “We are familiar with the prevailing situations in our respective areas of jurisdiction that is why the regional autonomous government should be empowered to grant such permits instead of solely relying on government agencies that willfully issue permits amidst the objections of affected sectors,” Domogan said.

Domogan said Cordillera is a major contributor to the country’s economy, especially in terms of the mineral industry and the agriculture sector as well as tourism but it is actually being shortchanged in terms of budget allocations since it remains at the bottom of the 17 regions in the national budget.

Despite having a lower poverty incidence of 17.1 percent equivalent to nearly 200,000 out of its 1.6 million population living below the poverty line compared to the 21 percent poverty incidence in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, Domogan said Cordillera received a lower budgetary allocation of P2.9 billion from this year’s national budget compared to ARMM’s 3.4 billion.

Domogan said the limitation imposed by the national government for the non-titling of lands with an elevation of above 18 degrees is again an injustice to the Cordillera people considering almost 85 percent of the lands in the region are above 18 percent elevation and classified as forest reservations thereby depriving people ownership of lands for conversion into sources of livelihood.

Mountain Province Gov. Leonard Mayaen said being the watershed cradle of Northern Luzon, the national government should give utmost priority for the reforestation of the region’s mountains and provide substantial sources of livelihood to the people in watershed areas to prevent them from ravaging the forests to ensure abundant water supply for power generation, irrigation of agricultural lands in the lowlands, domestic among other uses but the same has never happened causing massive encroachments on forests posing a serious threat to water supply for the country’s overall economic picture.

These were part of the reasons why congressmen Ronald M. Cosalan of Benguet,  Nicasio M. Aliping, Jr. of Baguio , Eleanor Bulut-Begtang of Apayao,Kalinga’s Manuel Agyao,  Ifugao’sTeodoro Baguilat, Jr. and Mountain Province Rep. Maximo Dalog agreed to refile the autonomy bill and establish a lobby group to convince President Aquino to certify the measure as urgent administration bill.

Now the question of some sectors: Were we consulted? This basic question will spell the difference if Cordillera constituents would approve the third organic act.