BAGUIO CITY – President Rodrigo Duterte appointed a true-bloodied Cordilleran as the new Director of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) Legal Affairs Office.
Lawyer Marlon P. Bosantog, who traces his roots from Bagnen, Bauko, Mountain Province and Sinipsip, Buguias, Benguet, formally assumed his post as Director of the NCIP Legal Affairs Office last December 26, 2019 shortly after taking his oath.
Prior to being appointed to his current post, Bosantog was an Associate Solicitor-General III under the Office of the Solicitor-General since 2011 and served as a member of the NCIP Task Force for cases involving indigenous peoples right in the Office of the Solicitor-General.
Further, he was a member of the Task Force KALASAG which is a joint task force of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) to fight insurgency in Metro Manila aside from being a member of the Anti-Money Laundering Council Task Force under the Office of the Solicitor-General.
He was also a member of the inter-agency Ombudsman Task Force that was in charge of the prosecution of graft cases apart from being a Task Force member of the National Archives of the Philippines.
Bosantog also owns the distinction of being a Secretariat member and researcher of the Criminal Code Committee from 2011-2013 under the Committee to Amend the Revised Penal Code of the Justice Department aside from serving as a research and support staff of the OSG Principal Committee to Amend Rules on Civil Procedure under the Supreme Court and the OSG Principal Justice Sector Coordinating Council.
He also served as an instructor at the Data Center of the Philippines and Pines City Colleges before serving as a legal assistant of the Office of the Regional Director of the Cordillera office of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH-CAR).
He holds a degree on Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy before graduating his course on Bachelor of Laws at the Saint Louis University.
Cordillera leaders lauded the appointment of Bosantog as the new head of the NCIP Legal Affairs Office because he will better appreciate the local issues and concerns of the indigenous peoples who continue to fight for their rights over their ancestral domain which is now being threatened by concerned government agencies and even multinational companies.
According to him, with the assumption into office of Atty. Bosantog, issues on the circumvention of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) by enterprising IPs will be minimized and that IPs will be able to get the required fair treatment from the agency on the advancement of their rights over their ancestral domain.
Moreover, Cordillera leaders remain optimistic that the issue on the brewing conflict between IPs and their fellow IPs will be effectively and efficiently addressed through the intervention of a true-bloodied Cordillera who is familiar with the issues and concerns that had been plaguing the IPs in the region over the past several decades.
By HENT
