SIPA 2008

Mindanao lumads to march against SONA’s lies

DAVAO CITY – Indigenous peoples coming from different parts of Mindanao will march in the major thoroughfares of the city on Thursday, July 31, to manifest their disgust over the failure to address the issues affecting the IP communities.

The IPs, who are also participants of the State of the Indigenous Peoples Address (SIPA), will be joined by various non-government organizations advocating for the rights of the Lumads.

SIPA is a three-day gathering of Mindanao Lumads at Camp Alano, Toril this city to expose the real state of the IPs in the region.

The IPs will march around 9a.m from Rizal Park to Freedom park and hand over the SIPA to the local government officials. They will end the event with solidarity lunch with their indigenous food.

The IPs lamented the snail-paced processing or awarding of certificate of ancestral domain titles (CADT) as compared to the processing of the mining tenements.

Records from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) show that as of December 2007, 240 mining tenements have already been issued in Mindanao.  Almost 60 % of these are within the ancestral domains of the indigenous people.

During President’s Arroyo SONA in 2001, she said that the government will distribute 100 Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADT) every year. But records from the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) show that the latter has awarded 11 CADTs all over the country.  While in 2004, NCIP has only awarded 18 CADTs – six of which are in Mindanao.

But in her SONA on Monday , the President did not specify the actual number CADTs have been issued. Instead, she lumped the CADT issuance along with land distribution under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) citing 525,000 hectares of land have been distributed.

The Lumads also decry the entry of the mining companies into their ancestral domains.

The Subanons of Zamboanga Peninsula has long grieved over the destruction of their sacred Mount Canatuan in Zamboanga del Norte by the TVI Resource Development Incorporated, a subsidiary of a Canadian Mining company.

Timuay Jose Anoy decried that “How could this be possible when the law provides for only 1% of the mining proceeds for the community with the bulk going elsewhere; compared to 100% of the destruction left with the community while they all go back from where they came from with the bulk of the mining profits.”  (LRC-KsK)