Bukidnon Pushes for Code to Protect IP Communities

The Bukidnon Provincial Indigenous People’s Mandatory Representative (IPMR) convened IP leaders from various tribes in the province, as well as representatives from other sectors, for a public hearing on the proposed Bansalumad IP Code 2024. The event took place at Bukidnon State University on March 5, 2024.

The proposed ordinance, titled “An Ordinance Providing for the Comprehensive Bansalumad Indigenous Peoples Welfare and Development Code in the Province of Bukidnon,” aims to “provide basis for conscious and planned development for the Indigenous Peoples in the province and providing them substantial opportunity of access to government resources.”

Authored by IPMR Board Member Atty. Arbie Saway Llesis, the proposed code addresses five salient features: the roles and responsibilities of the Provincial Tribal Council of Elders, the creation of the Indigenous People’s Affairs Office, the Justice System, the establishment of the provincial IP complex, and the Funding Scheme.

“The lumad are the founders of Bukidnon. Therefore, the government of Bukidnon should take care of the lumad,” Llesis said, adding that the province is home to a population of over 500,000 IPs belonging to various tribes. “We need the Bansalumad IP Code so that [the lumad] will feel that the government of looking after their welfare.”

Llesis added that the code will address social injustices, land and ancestral domain disputes, poverty, and other societal problems that lumad communities are facing.

“Bansalumad” was coined from IP terms ‘bansa,’ which means honor or dignity, and ‘lumad’ which means indigenous people; hence, Bansalumad IP Code is the written law for honoring and dignifying the way of life of the IP in Bukidnon.

The public hearing was also attended by representatives from the education, religious, civil society, trade and industry, peace and security, and media sectors.

The open forum highlighted discussions on (a) the adaptability of the Code despite the regular changes of the NCIP en banc, the (b) implementing rules and regulations (IRR) for the public works and highways in the construction of roads and bridges affecting the ancestral domains, (c) additional provisions emphasizing sections for the privileges of the IP on education vis a vis hiring and deployment of IP teachers to areas with IP learners, and (d) a clear framework on governance and IP development.

This is the second public hearing organized for the proposed code. It has also undergone its first reading before the 27th Sangguniang Panlalawigan. If approved, Bukidnon will be the third province in the country to have its own IP Code, following Saranggani and North Cotabato.

(With information from Stepanne M. Bracero)