NCIP supports call to declare ancestral domain areas as zones of peace

DAVAO CITY, July 3 (PIA) A top official of the National Commission on Indigenous People expressed support to the plea of the indigenous peoples in Mindanao to make their respective havens as zones of peace.

Zenaida Frigida Hamada Pawid, chair of the NCIP said the plea can be done since it has been implemented in the Cordilleras.

She said zone of peace declares that the area is not a war zone.

“It can also be called the zone of life,” Pawid said.

Peace and security were the leading issues and concerns raised by a total of 112 holders of the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles from Regions IX, X, XI, XII, Caraga Region in Mindanao in a four-day-dialogue with the top leadership of the NCIP to provide information about their plight, several years after the documents were given to them.                  

She said under the zone of peace, government forces and the New People’s Army can pass on the ancestral domain areas of the indigenous peoples but they can no longer conduct their battles there.

“They must no longer fight in the domain, because we have customary law that if you spill blood on the domain, you can be penalized,” Pawid said.

She stressed that since it is impossible to impose penalty on the military and the rebels, they must need to understand that they both destroy the sanctity of the land if they bring their fight in the ancestral land.

Pawid said the IPs must be excluded in the conflict between the military and the communist rebels.

She lamented that often, the IPs are caught in the red-tagging of the military and the suspicion of the rebels.

Pawid expressed hope that the rebels and the military will respect the peace zones and allow the IPs to live in peace.

“We will pursue the peace zones and come up with a concrete recommendation about it,” she said. 

The NCIP gathers all CADT holders initially from Mindanao and eventually in Visayas and Luzon for IPs to discern and assert the spirit of the Indigenous People’s Rights Act or Republic Act 8371 and to understand their responsibilities in carrying out this law. (PIA XI-Joey Sem G. Dalumpines)