PRESIDENTIAL Proclamation No. 1906 series of 2009 declared October as the National Indigenous Peoples Month.
Signed on October 5, 2009 by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the proclamation points out that the "Constitution mandates the recognition and protection of the rights of indigenous cultural communities/indigenous peoples (ICCs/IPs) within the framework of national unity and development."
It also referred to Proclamation No. 486 declaring October 29 of every year as National Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Day to give attention to the IPs and to uphold the United Nation's General Assembly Declaration of the years 2005-2014 as the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People. The decade, however, has already ended, and so just the National Indigenous Peoples Thanksgiving Day remains.
The past months, we have seen, read, or heard of the state of the indigenous peoples in Mindanao; their sorry state at Haran House in Davao City, and on the bleachers of Tandag City in Surigao del Sur.
It's a wonder then to be reminded that the Philippine constitution mandates the recognition and protection of the lumad rights. If indeed, this is so, then we are actually witnessing how government is violating the constitution, and that is sad.
We, Mindanaoans, rile over how the Imperial Manila rules over the island as if the people trapped in the humongous traffic of Metro Manila knows how the situation is in Mindanao. We're not getting much progress in being heard though. After long years of forging a peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liebration Front, what the Congress and the Senate quickly did was change everything that has been agreed on and then absent themselves conveniently so that the peace pact cannot be made into law.
The lumads from different villages in Mindanao are echoing the same sentiments at the macroscopic level, they are being brushed off as well. But they are worse off for they are being accused as communist and rebels who deserve the military offensives they are getting in their hinterland villages.
From where we are, there is no solution to our complaints and problems, much less to the lumads' complaints and problems.
In a recent forum, a retired military man asked, "Why is it that media always find fault in the military and not demand the same from the New People's Army?"
The answer is simple: The military is government and for government to violate the rights of its people is the worst crime. The military and government have vowed to protect and serve the people. The rebels are claiming the same, but they are operating against government, and there lies the difference. We, as law-abiding citizens of the country can only demand from the government, not the rebels.