SENATOR Leila de Lima has called for an immediate Senate inquiry into the root causes and extent of the displacement of Indigenous Peoples (IP) communities from their ancestral lands.
Based on a United Nations Commission on Human Rights’ 2015 Report, more than 407,397 IPs in Mindanao are forced to vacate their lands due to militarization, mining operations, and other "vested interests."
De Lima filed Senate Resolution 195 seeking the conduct of a legislative inquiry to determine the magnitude and reasons behind the displacement of IP communities caught in between development aggression, notably in Mindanao.
"The Senate’s appropriate committees should look into the displacement of IP communities, as well as review the implementation of Republic Act No. 8137, also known as the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA),” she said.
The mandatory representation of IPs in the local government units is not being strictly implemented according to the spirit and intent of the IPRA, de Lima noted.
“Given the IPRA, and constitutional provisions protecting the IP, we must ask: are these rights properly attended to? Is the IPRA implemented adequately," she added.
While she believes that any probe could end up focusing on identifying culprits responsible for the displacement, de Lima underscored that the end-result should be to provide legislative remedial measures to prevent the IPs’ further displacement.
"More than investigating who are responsible for this displacement, we have to look deeper into the root causes and other existing policies of the government, so that the IPs may go back to their ancestral lands and live normal lives," she said. (Sunnex)