The IP Agenda contains many of long-standing demands for justice, social services, and respect for culture – which boils down to respect for the indigenous peoples right to self-determination and ancestral lands.

By DEE AYROSO
Bulatlat

MANILA – Various indigenous groups brought to President Duterte their six-point Indigenous People’s (IP) Agenda, hinged on the call for the resumption of peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which they hope will finally bring peace to indigenous communities.

The IP Agenda contains many of long-standing demands for justice, social services, and respect for culture – which boils down to respect for the indigenous peoples right to self-determination and ancestral lands.

Groups of Ayta, Dumagat, Mangyan, Igorot and Lumad led by the indigenous alliance, Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (Katribu) staged a picket at Mendiola bridge on Aug. 8, in time for World Indigenous Peoples Day. Their representatives brought a copy of the agenda to Malacañang, but failed to get an audience with Duterte or any government official.

“We urge President Duterte to tone down on his belligerent statement regarding the peace process and instead focus on making his own words – “a peace of the living”—a reality by addressing the social injustices which are the roots of the armed conflict,” said Beverly Longid, Katribu international solidarity officer and global coordinator of the International Peoples Movement for Self Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL).

Katribu decried the attacks and violation of collective and individual human rights of indigenous peoples, which continued through past administrations: from the Arroyo regime’s Oplan Bantay Laya and Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan. Both counterinsurgency programs targeted indigenous peoples, specially the Lumád, who the military claimed compose two-thirds of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Mindanao.

In Duterte’s first month, five Lumád had been killed.

“Our communities have been considered enemies by government and targets of its counterinsurgency program,” read the IP Agenda. “As a result, hundreds of indigenous peoples have become victims of killings, disappearances, torture and trumped-up charges, while thousands are victims of forced evacuation because of militarization and paramilitary groups that sow terror to ensure the entry of giant companies in our ancestral lands.”

The IP agenda also reiterated calls for the repeal of laws that allow plunder and encroachment of destructive companies and projects into ancestral lands, such as the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (Ipra), the Mining Act of 1995, National Integrated Protected Areas Systems Law (Nipas), Aurora Special Economic Zone Act and its amended version, the Biofuels Act of 2007, and the Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997.

Katribu also called for a stop to Oplan Bayanihan and its “whole-of-nation initiative” and “peace and development outreach program,” which the military claims to implement in communities. The group called for justice for victims of human rights violations, along with the clamor for the disbandment of paramilitary groups, such as Magahat-Bagani, Alamara, Nipar, Bulif, Salakawan and the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA).

The agenda said cultural discrimination must also be addressed through the implementation of indigenous peoples education and curriculum that will recognize and respect indigenous culture, knowledge and history.

Katribu said the success of the peace talks can “pave the way to solve the roots of the armed conflict, which includes attaining our right to land, self-determination and genuine development.”

The IP Agenda contains the following calls:

1. Resume GRP-NDFP peace talks and release political prisoners;
2. Recognize and uphold all indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination;
3. Halt all cases of land-grabbing and plunder of natural resources in indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands;
4. Provide free and sufficient social services and livelihood assistance to indigenous peoples, specially those in far-flung areas, and those affected by disasters;
5. Respect and uphold indigenous peoples’ human rights;
6. Hold former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III accountable for his crimes.

Longid and Jomorito Goaynon, chairperson of the Lumád group Kalumbay-Northern Mindanao Region, hand-delivered the IP Agenda to the Office of the President. She also submitted a statement of support for the peace talks from international groups and activists.
(With top photo courtesy of Mark Ambay)