Lumad datu says BBL must uphold IP rights

MINDANAO Indigenous Peoples Conference for Peace and Development (MIPCPD) said rights of indigenous peoples should be recognized and enforced once the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) will be implemented in Mindanao.

The BBL draft that the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) submitted to President Rodrigo Duterte on July 17 was finally transmitted to Congress last August 17.

MIPCPD Chairman Datu Joel Unad, during a media conference held at Habi At Kape Abreeza Mall yesterday, August 23, said non-Moro Indigenous people (IP) in Mindanao is supportive to the proposed Bangsamoro government except that they want BBL to be nonregressive in the recognition of their rights, in the protection of their interests, and in the promotion of their welfare.

Unad said IP tribes want to assert the observance of the four bundles of Lumad rights under the BBL - rights on ancestral domain, governance, economy, and justice system.

MIPCPD, Unad said, even created the Mindanao Indigenous People Legislative Assembly (MiplaBBL), which is composed of 400 representatives of non-Moro IP tribes from Mindanao, to surface the non-Moro IP-related issues and concerns relative to the BBL.

“Even though the draft is now passed to the Congress, Mipla-BBL will have to find ways to address certain provisions in the

draft that may affect the nonMoro IPs,” he said.

Unad said MIPCPD and Mipla-BBL are hoping that politicians sympathetic to the call of IPs will help them in the legislative provisions of the BBL to assure that the rights of the IPs will be protected under the proposed law. BSC (For full story visit www.sunstar.com. ph/davao/)