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- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 |Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN – SciTech & Digital News
BARAS, Rizal, October 6, 2024 (SDN) — An advocacy organization dubbed Pinoy Ako reached out Saturday, October 5, a tribal community in this municipality in hinterland Sitio San Roque, Barangay Pinugay, surprising over 200 residents with a medical mission and distribution of grocery bags.
Led by Boss Toyo (real name: Jayson Luzadas), popular social media guy and successful businessman, the group traveled all the way from Pasig City, Metro Manila, as it lives up to its advocacy of being an organization for all Filipinos, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous People (IP).
When a group of select reporters from Metro Manila arrived around mid-morning, the mostly Dumagat-Remontado residents were already seated under two tents awaiting the start of the program, medical checkups, grocery bags distribution, not to mention games for the kids who came with their parents, mostly mothers. You know how mothers are, they can’t be separated from their kids!
The residents’ faces flashed their widest smiles, including the children, there are infants on mother’s laps, some busy on their milk bottle, most of them unmindful of the activities going in full swing around them.
Watch Boss Toyo explains Pinoy Ako Org’s mission and objectives: https://fb.watch/v2S7CCNgL-/
Pinoy Ako’s wide membership included doctors, lawyers, workers, and other sectors of society, and it is sworn to help IPs all over the Philippines. And to prove this point, the advocacy organization that boasts among its members popular social media personality Boss Toyo, has already visited and hobnobbed with some of the country’s ethnic communities.
The group will be going to General Santos, SOCCSKSARGEN this week to bring the same brand of enthusiasm and carry its message wider and wider across the Philippines.
Its heart is with and for the people and is sworn to help and lift the less fortunate members of society, many of them from the country’s ethnic communities.
Boss Toyo, in an interview with the reporters who covered Pinoy Ako Org’s humanitarian activities in mountainous Sitio San Roque, assured the Dumagat-Remontado the organization will strive and fight for the rights of all IPs through and under the Indigenous People’s Rights Act or IPRA). He is a Pinoy Ako member and is endorsing the group as well to all Filipinos.
Many of the residents of Barangay San Roque are into construction work, SDN – SciTech and Digital News learned. Members of the Dumagat-Remontado ethnic community are also into mountain work, tribal work, and planting coconut, corn, and rice, among other crops. Like other Filipinos, many of the tribe members are also into driving tricycles as a form of livelihood.
Pinoy Ako seeks to advance and strengthen the IPRA law to protect even more the IP’s rights and help them access decent livelihood, health, and employment.
One of the tribal chieftains of Barangay Pinugay, in an interview, 42 years old Ricky Dela Cruz, said there are 75 Dumagat-Remontado families in the barangay or village, and 10 ethnic communities in Antipolo City, Rizal. He was appointed chieftain by their “Rapu”, the ethnic community’s highest governing and policy making body.
He hastened to add the provincial government of Rizal that during the times of calamities is extending assistance in the form of food packs and other relief goods.
Pinoy Ako Org to continue reaching out to IPs across the country
The tribe, he said, has 13,000 hectares of land in Antipolo City and Baras obtained through the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titlements (CADTs), the large portion of it for the tribes in Antipolo City.
Dela Cruz told the reporters they were informed of Pinoy Ako’s medical mission that brought in medicines and vitamins, three-kilo rice bags, canned goods, noodles, T-shirts, biscuits (Skyflakes) for the parents and their children.
The Dumagat-Remontado chief said they are happy and thankful of Pinoy Ako’s reaching out because they seldom receive such kind of free services.
Replying to a question, Dela Cruz said the land row between Baras and Tanay municipality also in Rizal province affects mostly non-IPs.
Incidentally, October is celebrated annually as Indigenous People’s Month.
Pinoy Ako aims to reach IP communities even in the country’s far-flung areas to extend assistance such as medical missions and livelihood, areas which villagers sometimes feel government presence is non-existence.
Pinoy Ako has already visited ethnic communities in San Gabriel, La Union, in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan, where the organization witnessed the hardship being experienced by the villagers, the Dumagat-Remontados, the Aetas, and others.
Boss Toyo assured that they will continue to visit remote ethnic communities, including those hardly reached by people from the urban communities to help them and inform them of their rights under the IPRA law. Aside from bringing joy and smiles.
Meanwhile, Team Buo (Baras United Opposition) led by Perla Geronimo Tesoro expressed full support for Pinoy Ako’s humanitarian activities in Baras, saying this shows the heart of the organization for marginalized people.
Tesoro, a niece of former Baras Mayor Latigo, is running for mayor of Baras in the May 2025 political exercise.
Her slate is comprised of Jay Sambilay, vice mayoralty bet, and for councilors, Renato “Nato” Llagas, incumbent Councilor Carlos Llagas, Bastian Vallestero, Jojo Elago, Jun “Pango” Robles, Erwin Santos, and Dadies Matamis.
Team Buo vows to continue the work of Pinoy Ako and the strengthening of the IPRA law’s implementation.
Baras is under Mayor Willie Robles; Jofre Seclot is chairman Barangay Pinugay with some 27,000 registered voters. (/)