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The
Cordillera Regional Council urged unity among Cordillerans in its thrust to
attain autonomy for the region even as Malacanang declared Sept. 13 a special
non-working holiday in the Cordillera region to commemorate the 1986 peace
talks between the government and the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA).
The militant Cordillera
Peoples Alliance called the declaration a “sham” even as Executive Secretary
Salvador Medialdea issued Proclamation 575 on Monday to commemorate the 1986
" sipat" or peace pact between the government and CPLA.
Medialdea said in the
proclamation that it was fitting and proper that the people of Cordillera be
given full opportunity to celebrate and participate in the occasion with proper
ceremonies.
The 1986 Mount Data Sipat
Agreement was the first peace agreement entered into by the national government
during the administration of former President Corazon Aquino.
On Sept. 13, 1986, the
CPLA, led by Fr. Conrado Balweg, heeded the call for peace by then President
Corazon C. Aquino through the forging of a sipat, or the peace agreement at the
Mount Data Hotel in Bauko, Mountain Province.
The “sipat” allowed both
sides to begin negotiating peace, leading to the issuance of Executive Order
No. 220 on July 15, 1987, which created the Cordillera Administrative
Region.
Meanwhile, an event
commemorating the sipat was held Thursday in Manila graced by former President
Fidel V. Ramos, Office of the Office of Presidential Affairs on the Peace
Process (OPAPP) Sec. Jesus G. Dureza and contending factions of the CPLA.
The event was
coordinated by the OPAPP with the RDC and National Economic Development
Authority-Cordillera to push creation of a Cordillera autonomous region.
In attendance were RDC
chair and Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan, NEDA-Cordillera Regional Director
Milagros Rimando who is RDC vice chairperson, Mt. Province Gov. Bonifacio
Lacwasan, Ifugao Gov. Pedro Mayam-o, Abra Vice Gov. Ronald Balao-as, Kalinga
Vice Gov. James Edduba, Baguio
councilors Faustino Olowan and Benny Bomogao among others pushing Cordillera
autonomy.
Others who attended were
regional Philippine Information Agency Helen Tibaldo, Dr Amelita Pangilinan of
Dept. of Health, Dept. of Agriculture regional director Cameron Odsey among
others.
This, as the militant
Cordillera Peoples Alliance hit issuance of President Duterte’s Proclamation
No. 575 declaring Sept. 13 special non-working day in the Cordillera
Administrative Region.
“It is a complete
travesty of the history of the struggle of the Cordillera peoples for
regionalization and genuine self determination,” the CPA said in a statement
Friday.
The CPA said “the
so-called Sipat or peace pact in Mt. Data in 1987 was a romanticized ritual of
the sipat indigenous bodong system to symbolize unity or
“embrace” of Cory Aquino and Conrado Balweg on Cordillera affairs.
Many of the Cordillera
people may not even know and understand the 1986 Mt Data Sipat between Cory
Aquino and the CPLA. It did not create the regionalization of the Cordillera.”
According to the CPA,
“the regionalization was merely formalized by Cory Aquino through Executive
Order 220 in 1987, but the movement for “regionalization” of the Cordillera was
already a broad popular work in progress led by the Cordillera Peoples
Alliance.”
“When CPLA emerged in
1986, it co-opted this political initiative with government support, then
changed its tune of “Cordillera nation” to ride on the popular clamor for
regionalization and regional autonomy,” said the CPA statement. “There is no
basis to declare Sept. 13 as holiday because the 1986 Mt Data Sipat does not
deserve to be commemorated. In fact, it must be condemned.
The so-called Mount Data
Sipat has long been exposed as a sham and totally unacceptable, as
only binodngan tribes engage in sipat. It emboldened and somehow
justified the CPLA in its terrorism against the progressive people’s movement.”
The CPA said, “The 1986
Mount Data Sipat led to the bloody human rights record and terrorism of the
CPLA. CPLA terrorism on the people’s movement in the Cordillera is marked by
the murder of Cordillera Peoples Alliance officers Ama Daniel Ngayaan and Romy
Gardo in 1987; Robert Estimada and Ferdinand Bragas in 1988; Ayangwa Claver,
son of Atty. William “Billy” Claver who was the founding Chairperson of the
CPA, in 1990 and Christopher Batan in 1993. There were many other victims in
interior villages.
“CPLA terrorism targeted
progressive Cordillera leaders and activists as well as organizations that
criticized narrow indigenist CPLA politics and the opportunism of its leaders.
“In 1987, the Movement
to Disband and Disarm the CPLA and other Vigilante Groups in the Cordillera
called for the disbanding and disarming of the CPLA. The Movement was formed by
various peoples’ organizations, including the CPA.”
In 1988, the annual Cordillera Day led by the
CPA reportedly conducted a peoples tribunal which declared the CPLA guilty of
crimes and cited “atrocities of the CPLA” against the people.
“Proclamation 575
repeats the government’s mistake of coddling the terrorist group CPLA and
recognizing the existence of the CPLA, which should have long been disbanded,”
the CPA said.
RDC officials however
said what is important now is for every Cordilleran to stop bickering, unite
and work to attain autonomy for the region.
– With a report from Pamela Mariz Geminiano
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