IPMRs needed in legislative bodies?

HAPPY WEEKEND

Gina Dizon

SADANGA, Mountain Province -- This argument of municipal officials here that there is no need for an indigenous peoples mandatory representative  (IPMR) because the populace of Sadanga is a hundred percent indigenous peoples implies that elected IP councilors think IP and work for IP Interests.

An IPMR is one among the members of local legislative bodies by virtue of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) and Dept. of Interior and Local Government (DILG) memorandum circular 2010-119.  

While this issue that an IPMR is not needed in an LGU which has 100% IPs has been resolved in resolutions of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) that the IPMR is mandatory as IPRA provides, this column intends to follow the line of argument of the Sadanga officials that IP councilors of local legislative councils work for the interests of IP communities they represent..

To emphasize, it is presumed that IP kagawads, councilors and board members of local legislative councils are thinking and working for the benefit of the respective IP communities they represent.

This is not always the case though as exemplified in this case.

Municipal batangan ordinances of  Besao, Sagada and Tadian did not find any positive approval from the Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Mountain Province as these ordinances were contrary to the national law which is Presidential Decree 705 or the Revised Forestry Code.

These proposed ordinances remain stagnant at the SP with said municipalities trying hard how to make these laws applicable rather than PD 705.

This, as the IPRA and Administrative Order 1 of 2008 of the NCIP and the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)  include  guidelines and procedures for recognition, documentation, registration and confirmation of all sustainable traditional and indigenous forest resources management systems and practices (STIFRMSP) of indigenous cultural communities.

Not moving an inch to where it is supposed to find favor with the SP which chose to highlight PD 705 instead, these batangan ordinances remain stuck and waiting for a break through customary application.

Cultural communities nowadays fear to cut trees for their housing, rituals and furniture lest be apprehended by the police and the DENR.

The IPRA should now be asserted to promote interests of the indigenous cultural communities particularly on customary practices of forest ownership and management. An assertion of the IPRA that local IP lawmakers should do.

As situations now stand, IP councilors do not necessarily stand for the interests of indigenous peoples or communities they represent where national laws come into play.

Florence Umaming, IP rights advocate and one of the framers of the IPRA says, “Local legislative bodies have contributed through the years in the erosion of custom laws and rules.”

How to make IP lawmakers work within the framework of their being IP and within the spirit of the IPRA is  a challenge.

For one, the DILG could make it a mandate the making of an IP development agenda with IPRA serving as a basis for IP law makers in their lawmaking.

Where there is a waste management plan and a gender and development plan in local governance espoused by the DILG, why not an IP development plan also to serve as a criteria for winning a seal of good housekeeping?

IP lawmakers-councilors, board members and  barangay kagawads have the  assumption  they know the issues, concerns, culture and ways of the place they represent and that people have known them for quite some time.

They should know IP-based issues in the communities including free education, health and medical assistance, agriculture and subsidy, IP-based economy, environment and its protection vs a vs development aggression, social services and assistance apart from participation in decision making.

Taking into consideration the local situation necessarily follows that the culture and ways of the people are considered in  formulation of ordinances and resolutions with a bias for IP interests.

Where national interests pit against rights of indigenous communities is now left to the lawmaker to think IP and interpret within the firework of what “national unity and  development” means.

It is a policy guideline that an IPMR should promote and protect the political, civil, economic social and cultural rights of IPs and ensure IPs’ full participation in decision making.  

The presence of an IPMR in legislative councils is another arena of struggle for IP rights on the correct interpretation of the mandate,” IP rights activist Bernice Aquino See says.

 It is a standing principle of IPRA that all IPs residing within a political jurisdiction be informed of the importance of their active participation in the selection process and the representation of collective interests and aspiration of IPs.  

With this, the IPMR represents the collective aspiration, interests, and welfare of all the indigenous peoples he or she represents.

As NCIP AO No 3 provides, the IPMR formulates the IP agenda with the community and conduct regular meetings with IP elders/leaders or the entire community.

The IPMR does work on delineation and titling of ancestral domain, IP documentation, ancestral domain, making a  sustainable development plan (ADSDPP), implementation of community based information on IPRA and convening of the community for agenda formulation.

Sponsoring ordinances and resolutions is another.

With the above, the question is what extent the IPMR has done as to represent IP interests.  

IP rights advocate Herminia Degawan says there is need for an assessment of the value of an IPMR.

 This includes how the IMPR is selected amidst comments that selection of an IPMR is usually politicized.

While this is so, a politician-friend says, the NCIP and DILG could do a survey nationwide on presence of IPs in all communities where an IPMR could represent them in respective legislative bodies in LGUs where they are members.