Vice Governor Odiem stresses drafting IPMR selection guidelines befitting Kalinga culture

Tabuk City, Kalinga - Vice Governor Dave Odiem in a message through his Consultant Mary Odiem, pointed out during the General Assembly of the Indigenous People’s Mandatory Representatives (IPMR), that the selection of IPMRs is of paramount importance since they are great contributors to the development of communities in the province.

In the General Assembly, the formulation of local guidelines for the mandatory selection of Indigenous people’s representatives in the legislative council of the province was deliberated.

The IPs in the Philippines are given the opportunity to create their own legal bases, which befit their practices and tradition in choosing their representative.

In his message, Odiem explained the necessity of drafting guidelines that fit the unique culture of the province and the Cordilleras.

“Representatives are chosen to give aspirations, interests, and welfare of the indigenous people that light and associate the community towards the protection of the motions and rights in the sustainable development of their ancestral domains,” Odiem said.

With the formulation of the guidelines, Odiem hoped that the IPMRs and the elders from the different barangays of the province will be aware of their responsibility, duties, power, and functions to capacitate and empower them. “Be active, initiate, be responsive, and participative in promoting your rights, especially in decision making, which may affect traditions, socio-cultural systems, and justice systems,” he added.

Said guidelines is vital to ensure that selected IP representatives preserve, protect and promote the rights, lives, and destinies of the cultural communities through procedures that they determined to maintain and develop their own indigenous political structures in relation to the Republic Act 8371 Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) and the NCIP administrative order no. 3 series of 2018.

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