BONTOC, Mountain Province – Rep. Maximo Y. Dalog urged the Regional Development Council (RDC) in the Cordillera and autonomy advocates to conduct the information and education campaign (IEC) on the region’s renewed quest for autonomy in the ‘dap-ay’ or ‘ato’ to ensure that the salient points of self-governance could be cascaded to the grassroots level.
The neophyte lawmaker pointed out that in Mountain Province, the effective way of reaching out to the grassroots level is by conducting activities in the ‘dap-ay’ or ‘ ‘ato,’ the convergence areas of people in the different communities and where various issues of concern to the people within the jurisdiction of each dap-ay or ato are discussed by the elders and community members, thus, the need for the RDC-CAR and autonomy advocates to take advantage of the same to share information on the region’s renewed quest for autonomy.
He added each of the local governments comprising the Cordillera has its own indigenous way of doing things and the RDC-CAR and autonomy advocates should maximize the use of the said best practices in sharing information to the grassroots level on the true essence of autonomy for people to be well informed and eventually vote for the ratification of the autonomy law once subjected to a plebiscite in the coming years.
Dalog is one of the Cordillera congressmen who authored House Bill (HB) 5687, the bill that seeks to establish the autonomous region in the Cordillera (ARC) which was filed in the House of Representatives last December 2, 2019 while Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri authored the Senate version of the aforesaid bill through Senate Bill (SB) 1232 which is now pending in the upper chamber of Congress.
He underscored it is important for Cordillerans to take advantage of the enabling environment provided by President Rodrigo Duterte to achieve autonomy because no one could ascertain what will be the stand of the succeeding administrations on the clamor of the Cordillerans for self-governance pursuant to the mandate of the 1987 Philippine constitution.
According to him, one of the scenarios that must be taken advantage by the Cordillerans is the overwhelming support of lawmakers from Mindanao for the passage of the autonomy bill which is to reciprocate the support Cordillera lawmakers gave for the passage of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) that resulted to the creation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
He assured the RDC-CAR and autonomy advocates that all the authors of the autonomy bill will work for the immediate passage of the same in the House so that the long overdue quest for self-governance is achieved to bring in the enormous benefits that autonomy provides once the autonomous regional government will be established.
Dalog called on autonomy advocates to sustain the ongoing IEC on autonomy to reach more people in the communities and make them understand the benefits of autonomy to the growth and development of the region as an autonomous regional government will have greater control of the region’s resources with lesser restraint from outside forces unlike in the present situation.
By HENT
