Subanens want new guidelines for FPIC

LIGAN CITY (MindaNews/22 November)-- Traditional Subanen leaders and chieftains of Zamboanga Peninsula gathered November 21-22 in Pagadian City to draft their guidelines for Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC), an inherent right of indigenous peoples to be respected and for prospective corporations to comply with before they could start utilizing the Lumads' ancestral domains.

Ronald Gregorio, team leader of the Legal Rights and Natural Resource Center/Friends of the Earth, Philippines explained that the activity was in "response to the frustration of indigenous peoples (IP) communities in Zamboanga to the FPIC Guidelines of 2006 which only led to the increasing incidence of development aggression in Subanen territories brought about by extractive industries."

"As of press time, the Subanen renamed the guidelines into Subanen FPIC Guidelines for Corporations, whether transnational or multinational. They will also decide what they will do with the existing guidelines and what they will do with the new proposed and drafted guidelines," explained Cesar Rebuta, team leader of LRS.KsK of Cagayan de Oro City.

Gregorio said that while existing guidelines mandated the NCIP offices to facilitate the conduct of FPIC as a method of recognizing the indigenous customary rules and governance, some NCIP officials oddly became tools to facilitate the easy entry of mining companies and other extractive industries against the will of traditional leaders. [More at MindaNews]