Indigenous rituals waged to deter new FPIC Guidelines

(Quezon City, 05 August 2026) – Indigenous leaders and advocates hailing from 19 different tribes across the Philippines came together in a day of rituals and other culture-based actions to register their opposition to the new Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) Guidelines announced by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), warning that undermining the FPIC process clears the path for big, exploitative businesses to encroach on ancestral lands, forests, biodiversity-rich territories without undergoing proper scrutiny, effectively stripping Indigenous Peoples of their procedural rights and their authority over their territories and risking environmental damage for corporate convenience.

“This is not merely a cultural issue; it is a fundamental breach of our constitutionally and internationally recognized right to self-determination,” said Jeffrey Dinyan, a young Taboli Manobo leader.

The Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC), which has tracked multiple iterations of the Guidelines since 2024, identified specific substantive infirmities including truncated procedural windows, diminished roles and powers of Elders and indigenous political structures, and weakened mechanisms on regulations. 

“We are opposing a process that excludes us from decisions that affect our lives, our lands, and our futures,” Timuay Ronaldo Ambangan stated, leader of the Gempa te Kelindaan ne Kamal, indigenous political structure of the Erumanen ne Menuvu Tribe, and national council member of the State of Indigenous Peoples Address 2026 (SIPA 2026) National Gathering. “Our political structures have governed these territories for centuries. The NCIP cannot simply erase that right with a bureaucratic memo.”

“Through rituals, song and dance, and prayer, we call on our Ancestors and the Unseen to intervene in the anomalous passage of the new Revised FPIC Guidelines. We demonstrate our unity against the new FPIC Guidelines as an existential threat to Indigenous Peoples’ communities, lands, and cultures,” Ambangan continued. 

Alongside the legal and political statements, participants also conducted cultural actions that reflected the diversity of their traditions. Members of the Kirinteken-Ilentungen Menuvu tribe held a Pe Genat ritual, a prayer for blessings and guidance from the Ancestors and the Navansuri or the Unseen. While members of Igorot tribes also led a community dance symbolizing collective resistance. Similar expressions of cultural actions were offered by members of the Ayta, Dulangan Menubo, and other tribes that demonstrated unity among the participating tribes and support groups. 

“What the new FPIC guidelines herald is a future in which mining projects, monocrop plantations, and other natural resources exploitative projects can more easily bypass and undermine the very safeguards that communities have relied upon to protect their ancestral domains, along with our last forests and biodiversity,” Atty. Mai Taqueban, executive director of LRC, said.

“The Guidelines must be blocked. Not only does it undermine the Indigenous Peoples’ rights, but its passage is also marked by a railroaded and inaccessible consultation process,” she concluded. 

The ritual-action served as the closing action of the SIPA 2026 National Gathering, a national counterpoint of Indigenous Peoples to the State of the Nation Address of the Philippine Government. It was also held in anticipation of the commemoration of the United Nations International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.#