IP groups demand overhaul of NCIP

Cases filed against officials 

By Karlston Lapniten

BAGUIO CITY – Members of indigenous communities in Apayao and Ifugao demanded overhaul of the leadership of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) citing blatant disregard of Indigenous Peoples and inability to uphold the agency’s mandate.
    In a Tuesday press conference in Baguio City, Isnag elder Ramos Bongui of Kabugao, Apayao said NCIP failed to advocate the rights of his people against the deliberate manipulation and distortion of the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) on the proposed hydropower projects affecting their community.
    Kabugao people filed several cases against NCIP officials before the Office of the Ombudsman and the Provincial Prosecutor for estafa, falsification of documents, and use of falsified documents as well as for acts penalized by the Ombudsman Act and the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
    “They should be ashamed of claiming to be IP advocates when all they do is advocate for the projects that we don’t like, that will destroy our ancestral lands,” said Bongui.
    Earlier, some 20 Isnag from different barangays of Kabugao went on a learning exchange regarding dams and FPIC process with the people of Bokod on March on March 26 and 27.
    Meanwhile, Ifugao elder Tony Tanguid of Dulao, Lagawe added that unscrupulous NCIP officials and employees should also be held accountable for their actions.
    “They have caused division in peaceful communities like ours, and took advantage our being uneducated to mislead us to our children’s doom,” he said.
    Tanguid said the NCIP allowed the project proponent to intervene in the proposed Alimit hydro powerplant project in Ifugao, which is against the FPIC rules.
    Numerous complaints across the Cordillera region alone on the implementation of the FPIC and other programs of the NCIP is clear evidence of the incompetence of the NCIP leadership, said lawyer Ryan James Solano of RA Cortes Law.
    RA Cortes has taken up the cases of the Indigenous peoples in Kabugao and will also be assisting in filing cases concerning the plight of the Ifugao communities affected by the Alimit River hydro power plant project.
    Also, part of the legal team include Jose Molintas Law; Donaal and Partners Law; Lidua, Daping and Partners Law; BMW Law; Comafay Law; and the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG).
    “We challenge the NCIP to go back to the grassroots and see the problems and issues you have created to the prejudice of the people. And if you cannot see it the way we see them, might as well resign,” said Solano.
    Lawyer Jose Molintas, who provides legal advice to the team, also agrees with the overhaul of the seated NCIP commissioners down to the culpable persons involved in the various anomalies complained.
    Commissioners should be the genuine representation of the people and appointed based on a more democratic process of selection, said Molintas, who was the former Asia representative to the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP).’
    Molintas, also a city councilor in Baguio, even cited and refuted the claim of NCIP Commissioner Gaspar Cayat that the term “Igorot” is associated with the Communist rebels.
    The Baguio City council summoned Cayat over a video showing the NCIP official cautioning his audience in an event that the terms Igorot, Lumad and Tumandok are “the very words being used by the CPP-NPA-NDFP (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines) or communist groups” to identify IP communities.
    Cayat made the pronouncement during the launching of NCIP’s Epanaw Coffee Table Book in Baguio on March 21, 2021.
    “Whenever we dissent, they red tag us and connect us to Communists, which is not true. We are just voicing out. As if we cannot decide on our own,” Molintas said.