Enactment of Republic Act No 8371 or IPRA of 1997 is in pursuance of the provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution being a social justice Fundamental Law.
IPRA was tagged as a landmark legislative action of the Philippine Congress to correct the historical injustices that we Indigenous Peoples have sustained for centuries when our Island was under the Regalian Doctrine of Spain,. This was the beginning of the era of dispossessing us of our lands. Regalian Doctrine was carried out by the Commonwealth Government, until this period of Philippine Republic, but corrected in 1997 when IPRA was enacted.
IPRA is a Peace Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the Indigenous Peoples for a long period of peaceful and armed struggles particularly in the Cordillera region, in fighting for their territories or Ancestral Domains.
Thus, taking out of the Ancestral Domain provision of IPRA and removing it from the power of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is reverting back to the history of long period of injustices for us.
ANCESTRAL DOMAIN is the central nervous system of IPRA. Taking this out will weaken so much IPRA and in effect, we will die because Ancestral Domain is our life.
With this, the Tëduray and Lambangian Indigenous Peoples are VEHEMENTLY OPPOSED to HOUSE BILL NO. 9806.
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