Advocate's Overview: Ten years of IPRA

3 MIN READ

By ARTHUR L. ALLAD-IW

Ten years ago, on October 29, 1997, Republic Act 8371 also known as the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) was passed into law. It became effective the following month.

Through its ten years’ existence, the law’s weaknesses are now slowly being realized. Even the so-called strong points of the law are disregarded most of the time by the government itself.

One very interesting provision of IPRA is that on “free, prior and informed consent” or FPIC, which defines the need and process of getting the consensus of all members of any indigenous community affected by a certain project.

This IPRA provision, which can be located in Sections 35, 46, 59 and 44, makes the FPIC of the affected indigenous peoples as a pre-requisite before any project is conducted in their ancestral domains and resources.

While FPIC is considered by most to be the strongest feature of the law, it is also the most violated or disregarded by the government itself, which is supposed to protect indigenous peoples’ rights based on the spirit of the said law.

I can cite at least two case studies for the violation of the FPIC provision. Philex Mining’s new project in Tuba is a concrete example. The affected communities, who are of mixed Ibaloy-Kalanguya origins, have continuously opposed Philex’s mining activities and invoke the absence of FPIC for the project. Despite this lack of a key pre-requisite, the firm still undertakes mining activities in the area.

In an NCIP-initiated consultation, the affected communities had declared their non-consent over the project. The people’s position was to refuse the entry of Philex until the firm settles the damages that its past operations had brought to the community.

Based on this, the NCIP’s CAR office issued a certification of non-consent by the community. The certification was brought to the agency’s seven-member Commission, which in turn ordered NCIP-CAR to initiate another dialogue or consultation that would open another chance to acquire an FPIC for the project.

This is what I don’t understand. It reveals the weakness of the commission, as it now behaves like a mere “tool” for acquiring FPIC in favor of corporate interests.

Despite the Ibaloy-Kalanguya of Tuba denying their FPIC on the project, Philex still pushed for its mine activities and claimed that the special permit issued by MGB Director Horacio Ramos allowed them to undertake mine activities.

I believe that the grant of special permit to Philex by MGB’s Ramos is questionable. IPRA clearly stated that an FPIC of the affected community is a pre-requisite for any project on ancestral territories. In this case there is no FPIC, yet Ramos issued a special permit, and Philex invoked this permit to carry on with their mine activities.

The affected communities can raise this point to invoke legal remedies against the firm, and also to file a case against Ramos for issuing the special permit without an FPIC. These are legal options available to the community. But how can indigenous communities not used to the state system utilize such process? And why should we allow a government agency to use its authority against the interests of indigenous peoples?

In northern Benguet, another mining firm is pushing for exploration projects that indigenous communities also claim are being done without their FPIC. The Crescent Mining Development Corp. is doing exploration in barangays Bulalacao and Guinaoang, both in Mankayan, Benguet. The people in these areas said that the company is using various tactics to get their nod for the exploration stage.

Here again is another concrete example where a law – the IPRA – is enacted supposedly to protect IP rights but is disregarded by corporate interests with no corrective action from the appropriate government agencies.

With these experiences, I believe that even if a well-intentioned and well-crafted law is passed, it would be badly implemented under current social realities. I hope I am wrong. But even just these two concrete examples, in the province of Benguet alone, prove that I am not.#