P1M per province for b’gay consultations on autonomy

By Gina Dizon
SAGADA Mountain Province -- A budget of one million pesos has been allotted per province for barangay and sectoralconsultations on House Bill 5595 establishing the Cordillera as an autonomous region on its third attempt.

Chairman Franklin Odsey of the Mountain Province sub-committee on the drafting of the third Cordillera autonomy organic act, said barangay consultations shall be conducted on or before the year ends.

He said the one million peso budget per province shall be available on a first come first serve basis upon submission of provincial plans to the Cordillera Regional Development Council.

Odsey added consultations shall be conducted per zonal or clustered barangays in the 10 towns of Mountain Province. Though government and religious sectors shall have separate consultations,women, business, elders, youth, and other sectors shall be joining the zonal barangay consultations.

A capacity-building session shall be conducted among municipal representatives who shall assist in the information campaigns, he said.

House Bill 5595, “An Act Establishing the Cordillera Autonomous Region” has already been approved by the congressional committee on local government.

Said bill was signed by congressmen Bernardo Vergara of Baguio, Theodore Baguilat, Ifugao; MaximoDalog, Mountain Province; Eleanor Bulut-Begtang, Apayao an Manuel Agyao, Kalinga.

Deliberations in Congress are ongoing.

In a related interview, acting chairman Marcelo Daweg of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance Mountain Province chapter, said genuine regional autonomy can only be achieved with communities asserting their right to control of their land, resources and territory.

He added regional autonomy can only be realized where laws like PD 705 shall be repealed as it limits indigenous peoples to have control over their ancestral domains IPs being located on areas 18% in slope and over.