No Filipino without them

Based on United Nations estimates, there are almost 500 million Indigenous Peoples across the globe, spread out across almost a hundred nations. Indigenous Peoples represent approximately 5,000 distinct cultures and serve as the repositories and speakers of an overwhelming majority of the 7,000 languages of humanity. Indigenous People are caretakers of knowledge systems and unique world views that would otherwise be lost to time, and have a wealth of inherited knowledge that gives insight to their ancestral lands in a way only possible for those who have lived upon it since time immemorial. And yet, in spite of their importance and the respect that they are entitled to, practically every indigenous group struggles against discrimination, disenfranchisement and dispossession of their ancestral lands.

The Philippines was one of the first nations in Asia to explicitly recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples, first in the 1987 Constitution and later in laws such as The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA), affirming the rights of Indigenous Peoples to ancestral domains, self-governance, consultation and participation, and creating the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) from a merger of similar offices. The importance given by our nation to Indigenous Peoples is only appropriate, given that our islands are home to over 200 Indigenous Peoples groups, who in 2020 constituted almost 10 percent of our total population.

October is, in fact, National Indigenous Peoples month and an opportune time to take a long hard look at the condition and needs of our indigenous brothers and sisters – because in spite of the legal framework created ostensibly to protect them, indigenous communities in the Philippines still face severe marginalization, systemic discrimination and constant threats to their ancestral lands. While the law is meant to have empowered and protected them, in reality there are many obstacles that prevent this from being much more than paper protection.

The bureaucratic process for applications for ancestral domain recognition is too complex that the indigenous groups have difficulty navigating it without legal assistance. Securing a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title and Certificate of Ancestral Land Title under the IPRA is a very long, burdensome and expensive process. During the long wait the indigenous communities are vulnerable to being dispossessed of their ancestral lands by corporations and extractive industries driven by economic interests.

Government agencies like the NCIP, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) and local government units (LGUs) also have overlapping jurisdictions with respect to determining who has the right to own, use or manage the land and its resources. The Mining Act prohibits entering and extracting resources from ancestral lands without securing the formal, free and prior informed consent (FPIC) of the affected indigenous cultural communities. The requirement for the FPIC is reinforced through the IPRA, which is meant to strengthen the rights of Indigenous Peoples over their ancestral lands. It would have worked well if the indigenous communities’ rights to their ancestral domains have already been settled, but, since it takes a very long time for their rights to be recognized, they remain vulnerable to competing claims while their own right to the land is still being resolved.

It is good that there is a dedicated agency that is responsible for implementing the IPRA by protecting the rights of the Indigenous Peoples and promoting their welfare. However, the NCIP is often undermanned and underfunded. They also lack the logistical support, especially in the regional offices. This adversely affects the NCIP’s ability to process claims on time, monitor projects and enforce the protections that Indigenous Peoples are entitled to.

What can be done? Quite a lot. The first is to speed up ancestral land recognition. The legal framework provided to protect and actualize the rights of Indigenous People should be revisited and revised with an eye to the realities on the ground that have become painfully evident after decades. The rules and procedures must be streamlined, abbreviated and made more affordable and convenient for rights holders. A better system of grants and financial aid must be available for rights holders to properly and realistically make use of the priorities and privileges granted to them. A grant of “rights” without the authority or resources to make proper use of them can cause harm to the people they are supposed to protect, leading to disadvantageous partnerships or a legalized dispossession of lands.

The agencies involved should harmonize their policies and clarify their responsibilities. The NCIP, DAR, DENR and LGUs should coordinate in order to ensure that their procedures are not overlapping and to address other implementation problems. The government must also place additional safeguards and rules of restraint with regard to operations that affect indigenous communities. “Consultations” must not be mere checks on a list of requirements but genuine, long-term arrangements that respect the right of indigenous communities to self-determination.

In unravelling the systematic exploitation of the Filipino Indigenous Peoples, it is not enough that they be given just the same as every other Filipino or that they just be treated equally as other Filipinos – they deserve more. More must be done in order to give them back what was taken from them and to repair the harm caused by the hundreds of years of exploitation, displacement and marginalization. Restorative justice goes beyond just increasing the budget of the NCIP and repairing the legal framework – it should address the original taking of their lands, their colonization.

There should be a shift of perspective; from merely looking at the problem as a property rights issue that is solved when property rights are restored, to seeking to restore their right to self-determination by honoring their indigenous laws, cultures and traditions. The first step towards restorative justice for Filipino Indigenous Peoples is respecting and recognizing the cultures that made a home of our islands long before the Spaniards came. There is no Filipino without the Indigenous Peoples, and granting them rights to their ancestral lands and restoring their right to self-determination is not an act of benevolence but a core obligation that serves as the foundation of the identity of the nation itself.