LAGAWE, Ifugao – Interior and local Government Assistant Secretary Marjorie Jalosjos will serve as the guest of honor and speaker during the celebration of the 31st founding anniversary of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) on Sunday, July 15, 2018 which will be held at the Don Bosco gymnasium here.
National Economic Development Authority – Cordillera regional director and Regional Development Council (RDC) vice chairperson Milagros Rimando explained supposedly former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III was the initial confirmed speaker for the region’s celebration of its founding anniversary but he later declined considering that he will be attending an equally important event in Metro Manila, thus, organizers were constrained to look for an alternative speaker.
The theme of this year’s celebration is CAR@31: Regional Autonomy for Good governance considering that the region’s policy-making body embraced autonomy as its overarching agenda for growth and development since 2006.
Aside from the celebration of the region’s 31st founding anniversary, Rimando added that the RDC-CAR is also busy finalizing the details of the Senate Autonomy forum on August 10, 2018 wherein Cordillera leaders will be in the Senate of the Philippines to lobby the approval of Senate Bill 1678 which is the counterpart bill of House Bill 5343 that seeks to establish an autonomous region in the Cordillera.
The jost for this year’s Cordillera founding anniversary celebration is the RDC-CAR development administration committee chaired by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and its counterpart local government which is the provincial government of Ifugao.
After the culmination activity in Ifugao, Gov. Pedro G. Mayam-o will be turning over the hosting of next year’s CAR founding anniversary celebration to Kalinga Gov. Jocel C. Baac considering that it will be Kalinga that will be the et host local government.
Earlier, the RDC-Car adopted as a policy that the celebration of the region’s founding anniversary will be distributed in the different parts of the region to establish a sense of belongingness of the other local governments to the region.
On July 15, 1987, former President Corazon C. Aquino signed Executive Order No. 220 which created the CAR composed of the provinces of Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, Mountain Province and Baguio City purposely to administer the affairs of government in the region, to accelerate the socio-economic growth of the region and to prepare the region for autonomy.
The issuance of EO 220 was a product of the signing of the historic Mount Data sipat or peace agreement on September 13, 1986 between the Philippine government and the Cordillera Bodong Administration – Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CBA-CPLA led by former rebel priest Conrado Balweg.
The CBA-CPLA was instrumental in vehemently opposing the logging concessions covering more than 200,000 hectares in the region and the put up of the famous Chico dam which could have resulted in the ravaging of the region’s state of the environment.
By Dexter A. See
