As lawmakers deliberated the National Commission on Indigenous People’s budget today, hundreds of national minorities held a protest at the gate of the House of Representatives to condemn the ‘inutile’ government agency.
The national minorities, under the nationwide alliance Sandugo, called for a “zero” budget allocation for the NCIP. It also demanded that the NCIP be abolished.
These demands stemmed from the national minorities’ stand that the NCIP has done nothing to forward the genuine interests of the indigenous peoples across the country.
Instead, the NCIP has cooperated with paramilitary groups to allow the plunder of the indigenous people’s ancestral land, Sandugo co-chairperson Jerome Aba says. Generals of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and members of the paramilitary have been given the title ‘datu’ to legitimize their presence in communities.
Aba added that the government agency has only helped to perpetuate harassment, encampment, bombings, and killings carried out by the military on the national minorities.
At the Sandugo Assembly also held today at the Lakbayan campout in the University of the Philippines Diliman, several representatives from different regions reported the the government’s lack of free, prior, and informed consent when undertaking government projects in their ancestral land.
Every representative from all regions from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao relayed data and stories about military intervention in indigenous communities as the investment defense force in favor of mining contracts, logging concessions, plantations, dams, and other government and big business projects.
“The NCIP is supposed to be vanguards of our national minorities. Instead, it has led to the plunder of our resources by assisting big companies in exploiting the indigenous lands and peoples,” Succor said.
