The Higaonon indigenous cultural community (ICC) claimed a “significant win” after getting recognition during this year’s Indigenous Peoples (IP) Month.
Rolando “Datu Diamla” So-ong, the mandatory IP representative of the Iligan City Council, said in a video message Friday that the local government unit (LGU) has provided them with infrastructure projects like tribal, health, and daycare centers in Sitios Malumpayag and Kadayonan.
“We are thankful, as a community, that the local government has acknowledged the struggle of the tribal community to be recognized, seeking for equality,” he said in the vernacular.
So-ong has also been active in encouraging residents to report the activities of communist rebels in their area and that they must help in driving the rebels away.
Iligan City Vice Mayor Jemar Vera-Cruz thanked So-ong and his community for their contributions in keeping the IP culture and traditions part of the city’s progress.
“This celebration of IP Month is not only a reminder for us of the contributions you made to our beloved Iligan City but also to help us remember to continue to fight and support the rights and collective good for our IPs,” he said in a statement written in the vernacular.
IP Month is celebrated every October to commemorate the passage of Republic Act No. 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act on Oct. 29, 1997.
Higaonon is derived from the native words higa (living), goan (mountains), and onon (people), or literally people of the living mountains or people of the wilderness.
Pinky Grace Pareja, who oversees the Ethnographic Region for Northern and Western Mindanao of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), said in a recent online conference that she is still hoping that the 11 Building Blocks for ICC and IP would come into realization.
She said this has been her hope since she started working for NCIP as a clerk in 1997.
“I’m hoping that someday, we can achieve genuine self-governance and empowerment with IPs, and that there will be no ICC or IP that will be left behind,” she said in Filipino, referring to the processes and mechanisms in the protection and preservation of the ICC and IP ancestral domains.
Source: Philippines News Agency
