Who should be NCIP director?

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

The reason being floated around that the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples director “must be an IP” is not important. It is not even one of the requirements listed in the book. What I feel as the one most essential qualification is “sincere love of work”. Remember, one of the authors of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act or IPRA was Senator Juan M. Flavier, a non-IP whose family migrated from Tondo to the mining camps of Benguet. He studied at the Baguio City High School.

Aside from Baguio Boy Flavier, there are many other non-IPs around who can be appointed by the President to the NCIP. Truth is, those that I know are more “Igorot” than the real Igorots that I have met. I am not saying that there are no IPs around who are qualified for the job. There are many, but their interests in applying for the job are doubtful. I am sure many of them are simply innocent job seekers, while the other applicants have personal agenda that includes pushing the interests of their clients.   

Baguio Boy Marvic F. Leonen who co-founded the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, an advocacy institution which focused on providing legal services for upland rural poor and IP communities, or anybody of his kind is good material, or the best. Unfortunately, he was appointed SC Associate Justice.

The process leading to the appointment is not a leisurely walk in the park. And being appointed to the job is the last thing I could wish for. True, becoming a regional director under the NCIP is a self-fulfilling task and is an achievement by itself, but on the other hand, it is one hated job in government because aside from unsolicited attack from colleagues in government, it can attract enemies even more than it can make friends.

In other words, it is not any plain and simple director’s work where an applicant can just submit a folder of the necessary credentials, complete with the endorsement of politicians. Being a director for the NCIP needs previous experience in fighting for IP rights, prior knowledge and direct involvement in IP problems especially on ancestral lands, participation in education and training fora about IPs here and abroad, familiarity of the problems encountered by IPs and understanding their situations, and coming up with solutions acceptable to all parties, especially for contentious cases involving ancestral lands in Baguio.

There are vacant government positions that need filling up with the necessary “backer” in the person of a padrino, kumpadre, a congressman, a governor, etc. But when it comes to filling up the position for NCIP director for the Cordillera, this should not be allowed. The IPs who were known to be independent, apparently have adopted this from their lowland brothers. So that I feel sorry for those who honestly filed their applications, thinking that their political endorsement will be enough.

Solving IP problems, especially ancestral land issues, is not an easy task. There will come a time when one has to decide according to what is right. And when that time comes, one has to choose if he will succumb to the wishes of his politician backer or decide independently. Now, if you think you are capable and have the qualifications previously mentioned, then you are in. Otherwise you are only whistling in the dark.

Last week, I was invited to sleepy Happy Hallow to attend an assembly of IP ancestral landowners and holders of the first and only Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) issued in Baguio. With the questions raised during their discussions, I saw that not only were there problems in the processing of ancestral land titles, but even those that were already issued are being weighed down by many sectors.

But I am captivated and excited with the way Mankayan boy Atty. John Ray Libiran and Councilor Poppo Cosalan managed to calm down the IP landowners’ worries. With Libiran, a lawyer who has been in the forefront of IP ancestral land problems since he passed the bar; and Poppo, an engineer who fully understands the land situation in the Cordillera, I vouch for them because I think they are the guys who are fitted to do the work in the NCIP. Awan sabalin Apo Presidente.