Page 8 - Empowerment and Protection - The Philippines

When forced to make a choice, those in power will likely follow the mainstream process of implementation such as the Local Government Code, rather than the traditional structure and mechanisms allowed for by the IPRA. All this prevails because higher politics dictates this arrangement. Again, IPs are made powerless because of the uneven application of the law.
“like logs loating in the sea”
We are not secured by our government. Even
with the international declaration of IP rights, the national declaration of such rights or laws and
their regional promulgations, all of these are just recognition and declarations. In reality, there is no actual implementation in our areas.
We are not secured in many aspects of our lives, such as our sustainable development, which has
no support, and our ancestral domain, another
issue that remains loating. We feel we are like logs loating in the sea, visible to all but unable to anchor ourselves onshore.
The bottom line here is that the state can’t protect our people. In fact, when we asserted our rights to the local authorities, we actually experienced more attacks on IPs as a result. By declaring our stand, we became targets of other vested groups who saw our legal claims as a threat to their own interests.
IPs are under constant pressures from the outside and we are often forced to make impossible choices that split communities apart, forcing some to ight back with arms, or others to pursue legal means. Yet guns need bullets. The legal system is pro-rich – you need to pay for every action. More often, the IPs last choice is to lee conlict. In our case for now, we still prefer setting up a new community, our “safe zone” where we can have peace, rather than ighting. In these instances, it is the women’s negotiating skills that are brought into play.
IPs don’t have a clear or accessible method of documenting their histories and experiences
other than their traditional ways of oral recall.
We have realised that we need to document the incidents we’ve endured, and we need a clear and deined mechanism for reporting such violations that guarantees action. The judicial courts have jurisdiction over such acts, but historically for IPs these have moved so slow that witnesses have died waiting to testify or for iled cases to move forward.
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Cultural respect and external intervention
NGOs who help and introduce technologies,
such as using chemicals or varieties new to the area, need to gauge their impact on traditional practices. Non-IP organisers organise along non- tribal lines, like forming umbrella organisations entrusted to speak for all the clans within a given territory. This runs counter to the ancestral domain principle, which recognises the clan rather than the organisation. These organisers sometimes insist on their methods, consolidating power among a few instead of collectively. Such organisations might ask IPs to join political rallies and burn lags and efigies, but do not address IPs’ own right to self- determination, nor help IPs reclaim lost territories or reestablish traditional plant varieties as an assertion of IP identity and territory.
To strengthen the tribes, you have to strengthen the basic units, the clans. The common territory is what the tribes build their alliances on, their basis of strength, as well as the basis on which they make their decisions. In any situation with IPs, it is best
to be consultative rather than rushing in with offers of resources, services and whatnot. Otherwise,
you will be taken advantage of for your mistake, and your efforts won’t garner you any respect or support. You must consult the leaders and honour what they say.
The indigenous People’s Rights Act (iPRA)
and governance
We were amongst the irst to push for the institutionalisation of IP governance. The 1997 Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) itself was drafted and passed as the mechanism to reconcile the social injustices of the past, as well as dealing with IP matters and their territory. IPRA is about governance, a smaller government run along IP lines, similar to what the Bangsamoro desires. As such, it has as much right to be implemented for IPs as the BBL that is envisioned for the Bangsamoro. The government has basically surrendered IP rights to the Bangsamoro, or its precursor, the ARMM through 16 years of non-enforcement of the IPRA within the ARMM. There was no political will or mechanism. This is a clear case of abandonment.
In the IP areas, governance is very fragmented. You can have as many as three local governance units functioning in parallel: the oficial one run by the government, another by the NPA, and the third
as asserted by the IPs through their right to self- determination.
”IPs are under constant pressures from the outside and we are often forced to make impossible choices that split communities apart.”