RDC steps up campaign for Cordillera autonomy

By Dexter A. See

BAGUIO CITY – The Regional Development Council (RDC) in the Cordillera has stepped up its campaign for Cordillera autonomy even as it is awaiting action of new set of Cordillera congressmen on House Bill  4649 so it could align its activities with it. 

The bill seeks to establish an autonomous region in the Cordillera.

         This, as the regional Department of Social Welfare and Development sought to involve beneficiaries of the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) as part of grassroots campaign on ignite interest of Cordillerans on autonomy.

Milagros A. Rimando, regional director of Cordillera National Economic Development Authority and RDC-CAR vice chairperson, said the involvement of parent-leaders as part of the speaker’s bureau of the RDC-CAR on autonomy will greatly contribute in empowering more people on the ground to internalize the real essence of autonomy and its benefits.

“We are consistently expanding our alliances both in the local, regional and national levels for us to be able to gain the maximum support of all stakeholders in the region’s renewed pursuit for self-governance,” Rimando stressed.

The NEDA-CAR official said influential-parent leaders will surely be able to share to their fellow parents the true essence of autonomy and its benefits to the people, especially the Cordillerans in the remote villages of the region, so that they will be able to realize that there is still hope for optimum development and improvement of their living condition once autonomy will be achieved during the present administration.

Janet Armas, DSWD-CAR regional director, said it is very enlightening to listen to the insights of parent-leaders on what they understand about autonomy and that they pin their hopes to the establishment of an autonomous region in the Cordillera as the only available means by which they could move themselves out from the shackles of poverty that have been plaguing their lives for several decades now.

Aside from parent-leaders, the RDC-CAR tapped various members of civil society organizations to be actively involved in this endeavor in order to reach more through the information education campaign.

Armas revealed that the RDC-CAR and the DSWD-CAR will continue the partnership of training parent-leaders in the different provinces and municipalities so that they will become duly recognized members of the speaker’s bureau to be tapped anytime during the autonomy information education campaign.

The RDC-CAR said autonomy would be its overarching agenda during its planning workshop in 2006 as it was seen as the only mechanism that will speed up the development of the region and guarantee maximum share from the resources of the national government which it had been deprived of for over five decades.