CORDILLERAN elders are pushing for an Ibaloi to be the legitimate Ibaloi Indigenous People’s Mandatory Representative (IPMR) in Baguio City.
During the Cordillera Elders Workshop on Regional Autonomy, elders are now pushing the resolution, which likewise calls on the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to support the selection of the IPMR for Baguio City through a process determined by Ibaloi groups.
The groups will then certify the representative is the duly selected IPMR for Baguio City, while the motion calling on the City Council to pass a resolution supporting the selection process and pass a city ordinance appropriating the necessary funds for the IPMR to sit in the City Council are being heard.
The resolution was presented by Jill Carino, who belongs to the original inhabitants of Baguio and vice chairperson of the Cordillera People’s Alliance.
The gathering recognized the Ibalois as the original inhabitants of what is now Baguio City, long been proven to be their ancestral domain, based on numerous historical documents including the legal doctrine of Native Title.
Based on the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Ipra) of 1997, the law provides the right of IP/ICC to participate fully at all levels of decision-making through procedures determined by them as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous structures.
It specified also that AO of 1998 - Rules and Regulations Implementing Republic Act 8371 providing mandatory representation to ICC/IPs in all policy-making bodies and other legislative councils. It added that NCIP AO 001 of 2009 states that ICC/IPs representatives shall be qualified and chosen by their own communities in accordance with a process to be determined by them; and that the NCIP in close coordination with the DILG shall come up with appropriate measures to ensure the full participation of ICC/IPs in matters affecting their development DILG.
It stated the NCI, as well as the DILG and the Baguio City have failed to facilitate the implementation of these provisions of the Ipra and its IRR in Baguio City for the past 18 years, thereby depriving the indigenous peoples of Baguio of their right to mandatory representation in the City Council.