Land Grabbing remains no.1 issue of Indigenous Communities in Palawan

Land grabbing remains the major problem of nine indigenous communities in the province of Palawan.  The provincial office of the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) aims to resolve these kinds of issues that violates indigenous rights from the start.

With no exact data provided, newly appointed NCIP Palawan Administrative Officer Mary Ann Delos Santos wishes that there would be no additional complaints concerning land ownership cases, especially from those people who are not legal residents in the province who take ownership and develop areas inside many ancestral domain places.

“Land grabbing, ‘yung rampant na bilihan ng lupa sa loob ng Ancestral domain, intrusion kumbaga may mga IP na pasok lang nang pasok na mga hindi IP o mga hindi na taga Palawan ang nagmamay-ari doon, sila na yung nagde-develop na walang pahintulot sa indigenous political structure,” Delos Santos said during an interview with Palawan Daily.

The said dream of Delos Santos is in line with National Celebration of Indigenous month this October, to which a month-long activity is being lined up to recognize the value of all the IPs in our community. Among the events they will conduct are poster making, cultural presentation contest, video making contest such as Tiktok and Music video creations.

At present there are 115 on process Certificate Ancestral Domain Title from Palawan, 14 from that are approved and three were registered, most of these are in the mountains, islands and seas.

“Isa lang pala ‘yung pangarap ko, matigil na ‘yung bilihan ng mga ancestral domain, at mabawasan ‘yung problema ng IP sa boung Palawan, siyam ang IP community ng Palawan at census mas marami ang katutubo dito, maraming problema marami akong problema di ba,  yun lang pangarap ko mabawasan ang problema nila ‘wag ng madagdagan,”

Delos Santos also said that they are waiting for the arrival of more than 1,500 hygiene kit from the national office of NCIP, and some seed farm assistance from Department of Agriculture that they will distribute to all the IPs of Palawan.