BAGUIO CITY – President Rodrigo R. Duterte expressed support for the common aspiration for an autonomous region in the Cordillera in the light of the region’s renewed pursuit for autonomy which will be embodied in a proposed bill that will be filed in the House of Representatives by Cordillera congressmen before Congress goes on recess by the middle of March this year.
However, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza said President Duterte called on the Cordillera people to unite as one in making a final try in achieving the establishment of an autonomous region which the Cordillerans had been clamoring over the past three decades.
“We met with President Duterte and discussed the directions and possible next steps in our peace engagements with the communist rebels, the Bangsamoro, the Cordillerans and other concerned stakeholders,” Dureza stressed.
The President made the pronouncement during a recent meeting with a number of left-leaning Cabinet members to craft the single road map of the administration towards achieving lasting peace in the country before he steps down from power in June 2022.
The Palace official said the President believes on the wisdom of the framers of the 1987 Constitution that included the provision on the establishment of autonomous regions in Muslim Mindanao that is why he wants the Cordillera to achive the coveted autonomous status which is also aligned with his administration’s bid of shifting from presidential to federal form of government.
In his visit to Tabuk City, Kalinga for the 22nd founding anniversary of Kalinga and for the first qaurter meeting of the Regional Development Council (RDC-CAR) two weeks ago, Secretary Dureza under scored the importance of the region achieving autonomy before the realization of the government’s shift to federal form to allow the region to have a greater leverage in joining a federal state which would be to recognize its autonomous status as an autonomous region can exist within a federal state.
He rallied autonomy advocates to sustain the gains of previous information and education campaign efforts to make sure that Cordillerans will be ready to ratify the autonomy law once submitted to them during a plebiscite which is being eyed by the middle of next year.
He claimed he will try to make the necessary representations with the President in future meetings for him to certify the proposed autonomy law as an urgent administration measure and for him to include the renewed quest for Cordillera autonomy as part of his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) which he will deliver before the joining session of Congress in July.
Mayor Mauricio G. Domogan welcomed the recent pronouncement of President Duterte supporting the region’s renewed quest for autonomy, saying that there is light at the end of the tunnel now that the President has come out in the open and expressed his support to the long overdue clamor of Cordillerans for self-governance which was not prioritized by The previous administration.
By HENT