Special region for Cordillera

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

BAGUIO CITY -- It seems Cordillera officials are divided on what direction the region should take in terms of governance and organizational setup.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan said a “special region” created through an executive order is “not legally feasible”and unconstitutional after he learned a National Economic and Development technical working group headed by regional director Mila Rimando had started drafting said EO with help from budget experts and congressmen from the six provinces and two cities of the Cordilleras.

This was reportedly an offshoot of a suggestion from President Benigno Aquino, Jr. through Apayao Elias Bulut when they recently met in Cagayan.

EO 220 was signed into law by former President Corazon Aquino in 1987, during the transition government, when she was exercising both executive and legislative functions, Mayor Domogansaid, adding another EO could not amend said law.

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“Only Congress could do that,”Domogan said.A meeting of the RDC is being scheduled, the mayor said.

As to the Cordillera Regional Assembly (CRA), Cordillera Bodong Administration (CBAd) and Cordillera Executive Board (CEB), the mayor said assessment by the national government of their performance was “not good,” thus they are only receiving a budget of P1, which the Supreme Court sustained.

This, as some Malacanang and Cordillera officials are now questioning the legality of the proposed creation of a special region in the Cordillera even as government is spending millions in so called “information, education, consultation (IEC) activities for regional autonomy.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said here recently there will be no compelling reason to create another Cordillera Special Region that will be in lieu of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

He said political leaders, civil society groups and autonomy advocates should get their acts together and ascertain proper direction of the region.

“Cordillerans must continue conducting more consultations in the grassroots level to ascertain appropriate direction of the region, whether to push through with autonomy, establish a special region or to maintain the CAR,” Abad said.

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The DBM Secretary said if intention of creation of the Cordillera Special Region is to be able to secure more funding from the national government, rules and guidelines are already in place on how local governments will be able to access more funding support from the government, thus, there is no longer need for the establishment of an added layer of bureaucracy.

According to Domogan, the only remedy for the region to be able to get more funding from the national government is for passage of House Bill 4649 which seeks to establish an autonomous region in the Cordillera that will put an end to 27-year struggle of Cordilleras for self-governance.

But according to Abra Gov. Eustaquio P. Bersamin, who is also the RDC-CAR chairman, a special region in the Cordillera is without prejudice to the passage of an autonomy law.

“We will still work out the passage of the autonomy law and the subsequent ratification of the law by our people to achieve the dream of those who fought for our region to become autonomous,”Bersamin said.

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Bersamin added the special region will serve as transitional region in reparation for autonomy and will be abolished as soon as the six provinces of Abra, Benguet, Mountain Province, Ifugao, Kalinga and Apayao and the cities of Baguio and Tabuk shall have ratified the autonomy bill to be passed by Congress.

La Trinidad Mayor Edna C. Tabanda said she had been always open to establishment of autonomous region but there was need to sustain aggressive information and education campaign for the people to understand benefits of self-governance.

Tabanda said the proposed special region might complicate the region’s quest for regional autonomy and would result to further confusion among people.

Benguet Rep. Ronald Cosalan meanwhile said more consultations with the people were needed on what direction they wanted the region to take. He said autonomy may not be possible now or in the next few years considering conflicting position of people, civil society groups and government officials on the matter.

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Sisterhood ties were sealed and signed Thursday between officials of La Trinidad, Benguet headed by Mayor Edna Tabanda and Guam, a territory of the United States in the Pacific.

We were invited to play some songs during the event so we made an impromptu band composed of newsman March Fianza on bass, municipal administrator Paul Cuyopan on rythym guitar and vocals, businessman Art Tampoa on drums and Yours Truly on lead guitar.Romy of the municipal government also helped in the vocals.

Later, one of the Guam mayors came onstage and joined us singing Lady by Kenny Rogers, Still by Lionel Ritchie and Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton.

It was a raucous night with officials, employees and visitors joining a line dance orchestrated by the vice mayor of Kapangan town as participants mimicked a tayaw while Paul belted a medley one after the other. Other Benguet mayors attended, I was told later since I didn’t know them personally.

A pig was butchered during the event in a native ritual to ask for blessings from Kabunian which may have made the gods nod in approval, reason why everything went on smoothly until those in attendance bade each other goodbye later that night.