3 RDC members chosen nat’l IP program reps

By Marissa Cabato

BAGUIO CITY — Three private sector representatives of the Cordillera Regional Development Council were among selected trainees from the region to the Indigenous Peoples Champions Project.
    They are Ryan Dale Mangusan, PSR for IP sector and co-chair of the committee on indigenous peoples’ concerns (CIPC), Ferdinand Gonzales, PSR for development and administration sector and co-chair of the DevAd committee, and Arline Santiago, geographic PSR of the province of Ifugao.
    The project commenced with the Cordillera leg of the “IP champions workshop on indigenous peoples’ rights in constitutions and assessment tool (IPCAT) on Oct. 10 to 15 in Baguio City.
    Mangusan, Gonzales and Santiago will join the 40 selected IP representatives from the Cordillera Administrative Region and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) who will be engaged in capacity-building and mentoring activities for two years.
    The project aims to enhance IP rights in the Philippines through empowering advocates who can demand rights and institutions responsible for upholding these rights to effectively fulfill their mandates.
    This is implemented by the Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG) and International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) supported by the European Union.
    The Cordillera is home to 13 ethnolinguistic groups listed by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples-CAR and they comprise a total of 66 percent of the region’s population in 2010 based on census report of the Cordillera Philippine Statistics Authority.