TABUK CITY, Kalinga – In the wake of the passage of a resolution by the Naneng, Dallac and Malbong subtribes recognizing the Minanga as an independent sub-tribe and indorsing its recognition by the Tabuk City LGU and the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), an IEC on the formation of Indigenous People’s Structure (IPS) and Indigenous Peoples’ Organization was conducted by the NCIP and the Matagoan Bodong Consultation Council (MBCC) of the Tabuk City LGU at Bagumbayan, Tabuk City yesterday. The IPS and IPO are requisites to the recognition of an indigenous cultural community or sub-tribe by the NCIP.
In Resolution No. 01, series of 2016, issued in November of last year, the three neighboring sub-tribes said that recognized the “right of the Minanga ICC to stand as an independent sub-tribe of Kalinga because the people of Minanga ICC can better protect their own rights and interests with regard to their ancestral domain and their distinct cultural identity and practices” as an independent sub-tribe.
The sub-tribe which has been identified with the Naneng sub-tribe for several decades had tried to come out of the shadows of the Naneng sub-tribe on two occasions – in the 1980s and again in the late 2000s. It was able to gain the recognition of the Tabuk City LGU through the MBCC and later the NCIP but due to some infirmities of the process undertaken, the NCIP would later nullify the recognition. In today’s IEC, the sub-tribe had vowed to comply with the entire process of obtaining recognition from the NCIP and also from the Kalinga tribe through the renewal of its existing bodongs and the contracting of bodongs with more sub-tribes.
The Minangas are the people occupying the villages of Sadog, Sabangan, Minanga, Bullaguian, Patiking, Potao and Dupag Proper in barangay Dupag.
By Estanislao albano