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2020 Annual Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines
and dislocation. Regarding business-induced displacement, the National Commission on
Indigenous People must ensure that the conduct of securing Free, Prior and Informed
Consent is transparent and inclusive, done with leaders chosen by the indigenous peoples
themselves. Compelling and overriding public interest must be established before business
projects that will cause displacement is allowed.
323
The CHR urges the National Commission on Indigenous People, and other agencies
relating to indigenous peoples’ rights, as well as civil society organizations, to closely
monitor and intervene in the areas of Talaingod and Kapalong, Compostela Valley, Surigao,
Bukidnon, and Upi, Maguindanao, including other areas of armed conflict, in ensuring
the protection of indigenous peoples in their ancestral lands.
324
The CHR calls for the review of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, with the view
of strengthening and capacitating the National Commission on Indigenous People and,
perhaps, elevating it to the status of an independent commission, so it can fully perform
its mandate.
325
The CHR calls for the creation of an Inter-Agency Monitoring Group on the Human
Rights Situation of Indigenous Peoples, including those of the Lumad, to facilitate
immediate responses to issues concerning indigenous peoples’ rights, including causes
of conflict related to indigenous people ancestral domains, such as mineral extraction,
logging and agro-industrial businesses. The participation of civil society organizations in
this mechanism is highly encouraged.
326
Even as it recognizes the nobility in fighting for the rights of indigenous peoples, the CHR
urges the organizers behind the Haran encampment to seriously examine their policies
and methods, especially those that have led to transgressions of Lumad rights. The CHR
views with serious concern the case of Lito Lundia and other members of his tribe, lured
under false pretenses to Haran, and prevented from returning to their ancestral homes,
despite already having expressed their strong desire or demand to be allowed to leave. Also,
the humanitarian conditions that the indigenous peoples were made to endure inside the
compound by the managers thereof, when help and facilities were offered to alleviate their
situation, must give pause to the handlers of Haran to review their policies, system, and
procedures, among others.
327
The CHR calls on the government to be mindful of the Constitutional guarantee of
recognition and promotion of the rights of indigenous cultural communities within the
framework of national unity and development by creating genuine programs toward
preserving their culture, traditions, and institutions. It should endeavor to protect not
only the indigenous peoples’ civil and political rights, but also their economic, social, and
cultural rights.
328
The CHR especially calls on the government to be more proactive in protecting the
rights of indigenous peoples to their ancestral lands. In this regard, the CHR calls on the
government to facilitate the speedy issuance of Certificates of Ancestral Domain Titles
and genuine implementation of the Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and
Protection Plan, in recognition of the struggle of the indigenous peoples for social justice,
and to review issuances and orders related to ancestral lands to ensure that indigenous
peoples’ rights over them are protected.
329
Although some individual members of indigenous cultural communities may have
committed themselves to partisan causes, the Lumad must be encouraged to dialogue
and resolve conflict among themselves, using their own indigenous cultural mechanisms