SENATOR Francis Escudero on Sunday criticized the officials of the National Commission on Indigenous People for their alleged inaction on the plight of the lumad and other indigenous people.
He said the NCIP officials should have been at the forefront of the fight for the rights of the indigenous peoples.
“But I have yet to hear their indignation over the crimes being done against the lumad in Mindanao,” said Escudero, the frontrunner in the vice presidential race.
He criticized the NCIP officials for not doing anything to respond to the problems of the lumad. He said the Education Department and the Department of Social Welfare and Development were much better because they were the ones helping the lumad whose rights were being trampled on.
He urged President Benigno Aquino III to appoint NCIP officials who would fight for the rights of the indigenous people in the country.
He made the call as the three-year term of the current batch of NCIP commissioners were set to expire on Feb. 20.
Escudero said the next crop of NCIP officials should see to it that R.A. 8371, The Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997, was fully implemented.
“We have a good law concerning the rights of our [indigenous people]. We just have to ensure the strict enforcement of Republic Act 8371,” he said.
A total of 68 indigenous people have been killed under the Aquino administration, and 53 of them were lumad in the Caraga region.
Members of the Army’s 36th Infantry Battalion and a paramilitary group have been accused of masterminding the harassment, killing and forced evacuation of the indigenous people in Mindanao.
Escudero, head of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, said he was also looking into the alleged involvement of some mining companies in the driving away of indigenous people from their ancestral land.