TABUK CITY, Kalinga – The Cordillera Bodong Administration (CBA) wants no outside interventions from concerned stakeholders on how the group will reunify the fragmented Cordillera Peoples Liberation (CPLA) as the processes will involve indigenous ways of settling disputes among feuding individuals and organizations.
Engr. Andres Ngao-i, CBA chairman, said it is best to allow the contending CPLA factions to settle their differences and for them to agree among themselves on who will lead the unified group.
Initially, the CBA succeeded in working out the reorganization of the Conrado Dieza faction of the CPLA last week zone commanders from Mountain Province and Kalinga decided in consensus that Juanita Chulsi be their commander and Drew Wails the chief of staff.
Ngao-i revealed that he is now consulting with the officers and members of the different factions around the region to get their consensus on when and how the reunification process be undertaken to comply with their commitment to the Office of the Presidential Peace Adviser for the reunification of the fragment group.
Aside from the Dieza faction, other identified factions of the CPLA are those under Abra vice gov. Ronald Balaw-as, former Sadanga Mayor Gabino Ganggangan, former Bucloc Mayor Mailed Molina, and Punong Barangay Andrew Cos-agon, apart from those who are reportedly based in Apayao and some parts of Ifugao and Mountain Province.
The CBA official expressed confidence that the reunification process will be completed by the end of May or the middle part of June depending on the desire of the officials of all the factions when to meet to formulate the rules and regulations for the process that will be undertaken. ”If we were able to do it without the necessary resistance with the Dieza faction, we are confident that we can achieve a milestone in the history of the CBA-CPLA to help boost our chances of advancing the region’s renewed quest for regional autonomy with a clean slate,” Ngao-i stressed.
On April 24, 2017 in Mount Data, Bauko, Mountain Province, various officers and members of the contending CPLA factions agreed to undergo the required reunification process espoused by Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza to have a united cause for autonomy and for all stakeholders to be actively involved in the third attempt for the establishment of an autonomous region.
The CPLA is considered as the armed component of the CBA in the peace negotiations between the CBA-CPLA and the government that resulted in the signing of the historic Mount Data peace agreement between Fr. ConrdadoBalweg and then President Corazon C. Aquino on September 13, 1986 while the CBA is the so-called political arm of the armed movement.
Ngao-i appealed to concerned stakeholders in the region to be patient in awaiting the results of the reunification process because the CBA is doing its best to put together the fragmented organization so that people will be able to restore their trust and confidence to the CPLA as an organization.
By HENT