US embassy cable - 05MANILA4488

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 MANILA 004488 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/PMBS, DRL, INR/EAP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM, SOCI, PGOV, ECON, EAID, PINR, PINS, PREF, RP 
SUBJECT: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE PHILIPPINES: A SNAPSHOT 
 
 
1.  (U) This message is Sensitive but Unclassified -- Please 
handle accordingly. 
 
2.  (SBU) Summary:  The approximately six million plus 
indigenous persons in the Philippines are marginalized and 
lag far behind the general population in most social and 
economic indicators.  They also suffer disproportionately 
from armed conflicts, including displacement from their 
homes.  The Philippine government has been slow to implement 
landmark laws like the Indigenous Peoples Rights' Act, 
primarily because of resource constraints as well as 
opposition from some commercial interests, but some limited 
progress has been made.  Grants of certificates of title for 
ancestral lands to IPs have the potential to ensure land 
tenure rights and improve economic security as long as other 
supporting programs are in place.  Further engagement of IPs 
in the political process -- negligible at this point -- 
could also help improve their status.  End Summary. 
 
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Background 
---------- 
 
3.  (U) Known primarily for their colorful clothes and 
unique customs, Indigenous Peoples (IPs) live throughout the 
Philippines but mostly in the mountainous areas of northern 
and central Luzon and in Mindanao.  They are divided into 
approximately 110 ethnolinguistic groups.  The largest IP 
tribes include the Ifugaos, Ibalois and Aetas in Luzon; and 
the Manobos, Matigsalogs and Higaonons in Mindanao.  There 
are few statistics on IPs, and estimates of their population 
vary significantly.  The 2000 National Census estimated that 
there were 6.3 million IPs in the Philippines, or more than 
8 percent of the country's total population.  However, the 
National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP), using 
statistics from 1998, estimates that IPs now account for 
approximately 12-13 million or 14-15 percent of the 
population, with over 60 percent of the total in Mindanao 
and 38 percent in Luzon.  Most observers agree that these 
latter figures are probably on the high side. 
 
4.  (U) Internal migration, intermarriage, and national 
population growth have greatly reduced the proportion and 
influence of IPs.  For example, a study published by 
University of the Philippines found that whereas IPs (or 
"lumads", as they are popularly known) comprised 28 percent 
of the Mindanao population in 1918, this had fallen to 5 
percent in 1995.  Social and cultural discrimination, 
combined with a lack of access to basic health services as 
well as vulnerability to internal conflicts, have taken a 
severe toll on IPs.  Some tribes now number in the hundreds 
or less. 
 
5.  (U) Although no specific laws discriminate against IPs, 
they have poor access to basic services because of the 
mainly remote locations that they inhabit.  Because of their 
low educational status and unique social and cultural norms, 
they have been subjected to historical discrimination and 
exploitation, which prevents their full integration into 
society.  Indigenous children suffer from lack of basic 
services, health, and education.  Some NGOs estimate that up 
to 70 percent of indigenous youth drop out of or never 
attend school because of the prejudice they encounter. 
 
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Legal Framework 
--------------- 
 
6.  (U) Until 1986, there was no express legal recognition 
of indigenous peoples' rights in the Philippines.  It was 
only the 1987 Constitution which declared that the GRP 
"recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural 
communities within the framework of national unity and 
development."  The Constitution also states that the GRP is 
obliged to "protect the rights of indigenous cultural 
communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their 
economic, social, and cultural well-being". 
 
7.  (U) The landmark 1997 Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act 
(Republic Act 8371, or IPRA) established the National 
Commission on Indigenous People to implement the 
Constitutional provisions to protect IPs.  The Office of the 
Northern Cultural Communities and the Office of the Southern 
Cultural Communities, established in 1987, were merged to 
form the NCIP.  In 2004, President Arroyo made the NCIP an 
attached agency of the Department of Land Reform. 
 
8.  (U) The IPRA recognizes, protects, and promotes IPs' 
rights to:  (a) ancestral lands; (b) self-governance; (c) 
social justice and human rights; (d) protection and 
preservation of their culture, traditions and institutions; 
and (e) basic services.  The law supports the right of IPs 
to use their own judicial systems, conflict resolution 
mechanisms and other customary laws and practices within 
their respective tribes or communities. 
 
9.  (U) The IPRA grants certificates of title for ancestral 
domains to IPs who can prove their historical claim to the 
lands in question, but falls short of granting IPs full 
ownership over the natural resources.  However, the IPRA 
recognizes the preferential right of IPs to manage and 
benefit from the resources within their lands, and requires 
any institution, company, or individual that would extract 
resources from ancestral domains to acquire the Free and 
Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) of the concerned IP community. 
 
------------------------------- 
Government Actions and Programs 
------------------------------- 
 
10.  (U) By the end of 2004, the NCIP had awarded 
Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title (CADTs) covering over 
604,000 hectares of land and benefiting over 198,000 
indigenous persons.  It awarded these certificates on the 
basis of communal ownership, impeding sale of the lands by 
tribal leaders.  The law assigns indigenous groups the 
responsibility to preserve their domains from 
environmentally and socially inappropriate development, and 
the NCIP assists them to develop Ancestral Domain 
Sustainable Development and Protection Plans (ADSDPP). 
 
11.  (U) The NCIP drafted the 2004-2008 Medium-Term 
Philippine Development Plan for IPs (MTPDP-IP) to complement 
the national 2001-2004 MTPDP, on which it is based.  The 
plan identifies the particular disadvantages and needs of 
IPs in order to promote and protect IPs' rights while 
formulating social and economic development programs. 
 
12.  (SBU) The IP Sectoral Council, comprised of the NCIP 
and secretaries from different government departments, is 
supposed to meet once every two months with the President to 
discuss issues facing IPs and to recommend appropriate 
government interventions.  The NCIP's Executive Director 
Rosalina Bistoyong told poloff, however, that there have 
been no meetings in recent months due to the political 
turmoil. 
 
13.  (U) According to the NCIP, it has now established, in 
cooperation with the Assisi Development Foundation (ADF) and 
with European Union funding, 59 regional consultative bodies 
of IP leaders, in order to achieve the IPRA goal of improved 
IP representation.  The President has formally recognized 
these representative bodies, and the NCIP's next step will 
be to set up a similar national consultative body to advise 
-- and represent IPs to -- the NCIP and other government 
departments at the national level. 
 
14.  (U) The NCIP also manages an educational assistance 
program in order to improve IPs' access to education (see 
Para 15).  During the 2003-2004 school year, the program had 
11,222 grantees, 83 percent of whom were college students. 
 
----------------------- 
Problems and Challenges 
----------------------- 
 
15.  (U) Displacement and Loss of Livelihood:  Indigenous 
people suffer disproportionately from armed conflict, 
including displacement from their homes, because they often 
inhabit mountainous areas also favored by guerrillas.  Their 
lands are often the sites of armed encounters, and various 
parties to the fighting have recruited many indigenous 
people, including children.  According to the Department of 
Social Welfare and Development, 110,635 persons were 
displaced in Central Mindanao and the Autonomous Region of 
Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) as of August 2005, mostly due to 
armed conflict.  A sizable number of those orphaned are IPs. 
In the absence of formal property ownership rights and 
titling of ancestral lands in the past, large-scale 
agribusiness, mining, logging (legal and illegal), dams, 
special economic zones, and migrant settlers have also 
generally contributed to displacement and loss of 
livelihoods among IPs. 
 
16.  (U) Socioeconomic marginalization:  An Asian 
Development Bank study in 2002 concluded that there was no 
substantial improvement in the economic condition of IPs in 
the Philippines between l988 and l997.  According to the 
2000 National Census, IPs had a literacy rate of 70 percent, 
but only 46 percent finished their elementary education, 
while 7 percent finished college.  Benjamin Abadiano, IP 
Program Coordinator at ADF, told poloff that because IPs 
experience cultural bias and social discrimination from 
birth they suffer from extremely low self-esteem and self- 
confidence, which set them up for underperformance and 
failure in any setting -- whether the classroom or the 
boardroom.  In 2003, the Department of Education pledged at 
an IP Sectoral Council meeting that it would establish 60 
new schools (5 each in 12 different regions) staffed by 20 
teachers each specifically targeting underserved IP 
communities.  However, it has so far only set up about 10 of 
these schools, with 40 teachers. 
 
17.  (U) IPs lack basic health services primarily because 
of: (a) the inaccessibility of many areas they inhabit; (b) 
the lack of peace and security due to internal conflict; (c) 
government financial resource constraints; and (d) the lack 
of a targeted Department of Health program for IPs.  One NGO 
source estimates that in some areas infant mortality in 
indigenous communities is as high as 50 percent.  The UNDP 
reports that malaria prevention and treatment is also 
sporadic in IP communities. 
 
18.  (U) Titling and FPIC Implementation:  NGOs have also 
criticized the slow pace of titling of ancestral domains, as 
well as the inconsistent application of FPIC (approvals for 
extractive industries) in cases involving titled lands. 
Some NGOs assert that the process for proving ancestral land 
claims is overly burdensome and lengthy.  The Tebtebba 
Foundation, an advocacy NGO for IPs, claims the NCIP is 
under pressure to revise FPIC guidelines to make it easier 
for mining firms to extract minerals from IPs' lands. 
According to Tebtebba, it has conducted six cases studies 
that all show poor FPIC implementation.  Tebtebba has 
accused the NCIP of at times facilitating the creation of 
illegitimate or non-representative tribal councils to grant 
FPIC to contentious projects. 
 
19.  (SBU) Executive Director Bistoyong admitted to poloff 
that the NCIP has been slow in processing claims for 
certificates of title, but says that the NCIP is resolving 
the problem.  She told poloff that she expects that the NCIP 
will award many additional CADTs (certificates for land) 
before the end of the year, including perhaps 11 during the 
next month.  There are currently 212 pending CADT 
applications covering over 2.7 million hectares, mostly in 
Mindanao. 
 
20.  (U) Financial Constraints and Political Pressures:  The 
NCIP has a budget of $7.37 million (P405 million) for 2005, 
a decrease of over 20 percent from P536 million in 2004. 
Due to budget limitations, the NCIP attempts to leverage NGO 
and international donor assistance wherever possible.  NGOs 
have also expressed concern that making the NCIP an agency 
attached to the Department of Land Reform shows that the GRP 
is only committed to IPs' rights to the extent these do not 
conflict with its interest in attracting foreign investment 
and promoting economic growth.  NGOs also allege that there 
is political pressure on the NCIP to compromise its 
regulatory procedures in order to allow extractive 
industries to more easily enter and operate in IPs' 
ancestral lands. 
 
21.  (SBU) IPs and the Mindanao Peace Process:  NGO 
advocates complain that IPs have been overlooked in the 
peace process.  These NGOs say that recognition and 
implementation of the IPRA by ARMM officials and the MILF 
lacks governmental support in that region, and that the GRP 
and MILF may be reluctant -- for political reasons -- to 
allow IPs in Mindanao rights and veto power over lands where 
there could be significant mineral deposits.  According to 
the NCIP, there are over 300,000 indigenous persons in the 
ARMM (roughly 12 percent of the total population).  The NCIP 
says that it has been unsuccessfully trying to set up IP 
liaison officer desks in military units operating in 
Mindanao in order to mitigate the displacement and other 
problems encountered by IPs during military operations. 
 
22.  (SBU) As noted previously, warring parties in the 
country's internal conflicts have recruited many IPs. 
Indeed, a small minority of IPs have traditionally been 
sympathetic toward the Communist Party of the 
Philippines/New People's Army (CPP/NPA).  To the extent that 
land titling ensures land security and contributes to 
economic security, recent developments have the potential to 
increase support among IPs for the GRP.  NCIP's Rosalina 
Bistoyong believes that granting CADTs is helping to erode 
IP support for the Communists.  However, there is no 
consensus on this.  The ADF's Benjamin Abadiano, for 
example, told poloff that he does not think that titling is 
improving support for the GRP, and suggests that future 
potential conflicts over mining and land utilization (as the 
area covered by ancestral land titles grows) might increase 
IP support for the CPP/NPA. 
 
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Comment 
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23.  (SBU) So far, the NCIP has focused on land titling - an 
important step in ensuring IPs' rights to their ancestral 
lands and resources -- but neglected economic and social 
development.  This neglect seems to be primarily due to the 
NCIP's limited resources.  In order to ensure long-term 
success and avoid further disenchantment of IPs with the 
GRP, progress in obtaining land tenure rights needs to be 
translated into real economic and social gains through the 
continued implementation of the ADSDPPs and MTPDP-IP 
development goals, which will require increased program 
spending by the GRP.  Model laws like the IPRA and the GRP's 
development plans, if implemented fully and consistently, 
hold promise for improving the condition of IPs.  The 
recently established consultative bodies could also play a 
significant "pressure valve" role in representing and 
advocating the concerns of IPs at the local and national 
levels.  Further engagement of IPs in the local and national 
political processes -- negligible at this point -- could 
also help raise their status. 
 
JOHNSON