Bishop calls for promotion of IP rights

Photo: CBCP Media

AS the Church commemorates the Indigenous People’s Sunday on October 13, a Catholic bishop called on the faithful to protect and promote the rights of the indigenous people.

Quoting the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCPII), Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez said “Our Indigenous Peoples are among those who should receive our special concern because as the greater majority of our Pilipino society strives to become genuinely sovereign economically and politically, the Indigenous Peoples are losing their freedom and self-determination.”

He noted that the Diocese of Marbel is home to several indigenous communities— B’laan, T’bolis, Tagakaulo, Ubo and Manobo—who possess their “unique cultural tradition and value system.”

However, encroachments on ancestral domain due to mining and other development projects threaten the preservation of the IP’s “cultural tradition and value system.”

Gutierrez, together with other Mindanao bishops have been very vocal in their opposition to mining in South Cotabato because of its negative impact on the life of the communities and the environment.

In a statement released last July by the Episcopal Commission on the Indigenous People (ECIP), the Church agency called for the passage of the Alternative Mining Bill to replace the Mining Act of 1995 and a faithful implementation of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) with the IP Communities with any development project that will affect their ancestral lands, among other things.

The same statement also called for a careful study of the IP educational system that would respect and give due credit to their cultural practices, knowledge system and spirituality.

The group also urged for participation of IP leaders in local governance; resolution of conflicting issues between IP communities and government agencies like DENR, DAR, NCIP and Land Registration Authority (LRA); and respect for the dignity and rights of the IP in their ancestral home especially in cases involving mining, plantation and other related activities.

The theme of this year’s Indigenous People’s Sunday is “Evangelization and Inculturation.”