BALAI CHAIRMAN LEADER DECRIES FAILURE OF CAR TO ACHIEVE AUTONOMY AFTER 35 YEARS

HUNGDUAN, Ifugao – The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) celebrates its 35th Cordillera Day this Friday, July 15, former student leader and official Timmy Apilis Mondiguing are lamenting the fact that the region and its proud people have not yet achieved full and genuine autonomy after all these years.
“While my family and I join in celebrating our great region’s 35th-year celebration, we are still dreaming of genuine autonomy for our beloved and great region. I’m sure that this sentiment is shared by my fellow proud Cordillerans,” he stressed.
Mondiguing cited Sec. 2 of Republic Act No. 8438 or an Act to Establish the Cordillera Autonomous Region which states that, “Autonomy ensures for the people of the Cordillera the right to secure for themselves their ancestral domain, develop their economy, promote their cultural heritage, and establish a system of self-governance within the framework of the Philippine Constitution and national sovereignty, as well as the territorial integrity of the Philippines.”
The 1986 Constitution allows for the establishment of two autonomous regions in the country; Muslim Mindanao and the Cordilleras. Two
plebiscites (1990 and 1998) were conducted in the Cordillera to legalize the autonomous status of the area where the majority of the voters rejected autonomy.
He said that after so many years, it is high time for the Cordillera region and its people to achieve its collective dream of autonomy and enjoy territorial integrity, security of ancestral domain, and much more. “If not now, when? If not us, who?” Mondiguing challenged.
A native of Ifugao, Mondiguing said he is proud of his province which has only three indigenous tribes and has remained peaceful even during the political season because of such. He hinted, however, that a ‘new’ tribe seems to be forming which is that of “money and outsiders” which Mondiguing hopes his fellow Ifugaos will not allow to fester and thrive in their beloved province.
“Allowing this ‘tribe’ of money politics being fostered by outsiders will be an insult to the intelligence of the Ifugao people to which I am blessed to belong to,” he pointed out. Ifugao is home to the world-famous Banaue Rice Terraces which is considered to be the Eighth Wonder of the World and one of the country’s top destinations for domestic and international tourists.
Thom F. Picaña/AB

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