A group of Indigenous Peoples (IPs) again called for the abolition of the government agency tasked to protect their well-being, saying it is inutile in protecting their communities against attacks by State armed forces and plundering private corporations.
Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas led a rally at the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) offices in Quezon City on Monday to condemn the agency’s “complete failure” as a supposed protector of IP rights.
“The call to abolish the NCIP rings louder now more than ever as attacks on [IPs] and their communities intensify under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration,” Katribu national convenor Atty. Beverly Longid said.
“Indigenous communities face a rise in human rights violations, yet the very institution meant to defend our rights remains silent, blind, and complicit. We do not need an agency that serves the plunderers of our lands. We demand justice, not betrayal,” Longid said.
Katribu’s protest rally followed a violent police dispersal of an anti-mining barricade in Dupax del Norte, Nueva Vizcaya last Friday where several protesters, including IPs, were arrested.
Katribu expressed solidarity with the barricading residents, stressing that Indigenous communities have long resisted destructive mining and purported development projects that encroach upon ancestral domains.
“We are not surprised how these attacks are orchestrated by the State, especially under Bongbong Marcos. Like father, like son,” the lawyer said.
“Their greed bleeds for profit and self-interest, while millions of Filipinos, especially Indigenous Peoples, are driven to hunger, displacement, and criminalization,” Longid added.
Longid said that such violence against IPs only adds fuel to their resistance as mining permits are being granted left and right that displace communities and destroy the environment.
Katribu said British Woogle Corp.’s mining exploration activities in Dupax del Norte would not have been legitimized if the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of affected Indigenous communities was respected.
The group accused the NCIP of manipulating and faking the process that consistently favor corporations.
“For twenty-eight years since the IPRA was passed, the NCIP has brought nothing but dispossession, betrayal, and injustice to Indigenous Peoples. It is beyond reform. It must be abolished,” Longid said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
