For the past 3½ years as Chairperson of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and former Executive Director of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) I have personally witnessed how government bureaucracy works and how NCIP personnel responded to the problems confronting our Indigenous Cultural Communities (ICCs) and Indigenous Peoples (IPs). I have acquired first-hand experience on how the burning issues raised by the ICCs/IPs have been acted upon by NCIP personnel.

All these I have seen, heard, and felt during my ancestral domains visitations (AD visitations) in almost all of the ADs all over the country in the last 3½ years.

Having experienced the foregoing, I have come to the realization that there is a need to extend to the President all the help that he needs in order for him to carry out a cleansing process within and among the offices under the Executive Branch. It is of vital importance that activities within the ADs be recognized as part of the 13 economic drivers of our country; and that our IPs are only too willing to become major partners of the government in national peace, unity, and development.

Thus, I hereby call on NCIP officials and personnel to voluntarily tender their RESIGNATION. Said call is directed to those who are no longer effective in the performance of their respective mandates and to those who are unable and unwilling to respond to legitimate burning issues raised by ICCs/IPs, and which have remained unacted upon for several years now, such that a number of NCIP personnel themselves have become a big part of the problem. Further, there are those who respond half-heartedly, thereby aggravating the problem instead of solving the same. It’s for this reason that I filed cases against a number of our personnel.

Likewise, I have personally witnessed how some NTF-ELCAC personnel failed or refused to act in accordance with the avowed purpose of the Task Force. Such inaction would ultimately cause the NTF-ELCAC to become irrelevant. The absence of a formal hand-over of the series of presentations of the former leadership of the NTF-ELCAC has exacerbated the situation.

Thus, I also call for the voluntary tender of RESIGNATION of some members of the Secretariat of the NTF-ELCAC who failed to perform concrete actions since the start of the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., thereby making the Task Force irrelevant and unresponsive to developments on the ground.

I also challenge and request local officials and members of other government agencies to fight for the rights of the ICCs/IPs in order to make sure that they do not become, wittingly or unwittingly, instruments in the perpetration of unlawful acts constituting violations of R.A. No. 8371, otherwise known as “The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997”.

Let us all help and support the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.!

Mabuhay ang mga katutubo! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

#NCIP #NCIPParasaIP