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- EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 |Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News
PASIG CITY (SDN) — A University for the Indigenous People (Unibersidad para sa mga Katutubo) may soon be a reality.
That’s if things, hopefully, fall into their proper places.
Tribes in the Philippines, or the Indigenous People (IP), are the most marginalized communities — they lack most things in life, such as access to health, access to education, and access to many other government services. Not to say being exploited by politicians and businessmen alike.
But if Pinoy Ako Party-list gets its three nominees — even just one — to Congress, things may change for the better, even if just a bit by bit by bit.
One of the group’s nominees, Atty. Gil Valera, of the Itneg tribal community, revealed this on October 15 at the Kapihan sa Metro East Media Forum. The media event is being held weekly in Pasig City, Metro Manila.
Valera is a lawyer and a CPA. He has been a strong advocate of the rights of the country’s IP communities. He has done legal work gratis for the law-challenged members of the IP communities, including the 13 Moro tribes, or the Muslims in the Philippines.
He told reporters he was able to free many Muslims accused of drugs-related cases, but we’re found to be subjects of frame-up incidents by some scalawag elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
“Our priority,” the third nominee of Pinoy Ako Party-list emphasizes, “is the Indigenous People.”
He is from the Cordillera Autonomous Region (CAR) provinces of Abra, Benguet, Kalinga, Apayao, Mountain Province, Ifugao, and Baguio City.
He related that Pinoy Ako was formerly “Ako IP” which focused on “mga obrero” or workers, especially construction workers in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, who are also exploited as they lack benefits that regular employees normally receive from employers.
Now, he said, Pinoy Ako focuses on the IP and the workers (laborers) and will take the cudgel for them in Congress.
Valera has done and continues to perform legal work in Mindanao, in Region XII or SOCCSKSARGEN, Davao provinces, and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), earning the moniker “Datu Tagapagtanggol” (Prince Defender).
The Pinoy Ako nominee said their party-list aims for the Top 10 in the May 2025 national and local elections, where the congressional sectoral representation has garnered 190 aspirant organizations seeking seats at the House of Representatives.
A survey, he related, has placed Pinoy Ako at the 77th place, where only the Top 55 are given seats in Congress. “Kaunting pukpok na lang (para mapunta sa Top 40),” he hopes. “Maraming pukpok pa para sa Top 10.” (Just a little more push to get to the Top 40. And just more and more push to the Top 10.)
He said their party-list is aiming to be the Top 5 in the entire country.
Like the local Muslims, he pointed out, their party-list also wants to establish a bank for the IP to look after and take care of their needs. He said Muslims in the country have the Al-Amanah Islamic Investment Bank (AAIIB) which is supposed to focus on Islamic banking.
“We are trying to unite the 10 million IP in the Philippines to have a representation through the party-list system,” Valera Says even as he points out that lands of the tribal communities contained minerals and other natural resources but they are not gaining from the riches of their lands because of outsiders’ exploitation and their lack of clout and financial resources.
Pinoy Ako to advocate and lead bamboo planting
Thus, they are not able to extract minerals from their lands, he notes. “We have the right to harvest the minerals (in our lands), he says.
For the Pinoy Ako’s plan for a university, Valera said he has lands in Mindanao of which 20O hectares he is ready to donate to Pinoy Ako for the University of Indigenous People in SOCCSKSARGEN.
Valera also took a swipe at the University of the Philippines (UP) where many students have Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) parked on the campus grounds. He said that because of their stations in life, not able to go to Top schools, IP and Moro students should be given a quota with their entry not based on their grade ratings.
“The Indigenous People are kind but they are not being given attention,” says the Itneg lawyer.
Also part of their group’s advocacy if they get to Congress is Tourism, which no party-list has included in their platforms. There are many nice beaches in Mindanao and the Visayas that are even better than the country’s popular beaches like Boracay Beach on Boracay Island in the Visayas region.
Valera pointed out that the Constitution means only eight marginalized sectors and one of them is the IP.
“That’s unlike the many party-list groups formed but are not in the (Constitution’s eight marginalized sectors),” he laments. “Kunwa-kunwar lang sila na marginalized sectors (they are only pretending to be marginalized sectors.)”
He said that’s the reason the most marginalized sectors in the country are not represented in Congress, because of the presence of what maybe dubbed “pseudo marginalized sectors.
Another obstacle preventing access to the IP is the lack of money as the ethnic people still live in the mountains and it’s really difficult to get there.
“Very soon we will be going to Kalinga province,” Valera says, to conduct a medical mission for the IP communities there.
He said they will visit famous tattoo artist Whang-od Oggay (Maria Oggay), who lives in Buscalan, Tinglayan, Kalinga. The Pinoy Ako nominee said he and Whang-od are friends.
Valera said the tribes in the Philippines have the potentials to get rich because of the rich resources like minerals from their lands, given the financial capital to conduct the extraction.
He said the IP are being exploited because they were not able to reach higher education, only high school graduates at most.
Another target of Pinoy Ako, he said, is the planting of bamboo like China which has two million hectares focused on bamboo plantations.
Here in the country, perhaps not even 100,000 hectares planted to bamboo.
Bamboos, he said, is prized very high because it counters carbon monoxide and supplies oxygen, as well as its roots prevents erosion. The Philippines even imports toothpick from China manufactured from bamboo, he noted.
Valera said he is very sure if Pinoy Ako wins seats in Congress they will lead a bamboo revolution. (✓)