ILOILO CITY, Philippines—The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is considering allocating a reservation area for the indigenous Ati community on Boracay Island.

Lawyer Noel Felongco, NCIP Commissioner for Regions 6 and 7, Mindoro and Romblon, said the stakeholders, including members of the Ati community, have agreed to push for the putting up of the reservation as a permanent solution to threats to the community of being eased out from their homes.

"Everyone is amenable to setting up the reservation on the island," Felongco told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in a telephone interview on Thursday after a three-day consultation with stakeholders on the situation of the Ati community.

Officials led by Presidential Assistant for Western Visayas Raul Banias, Undersecretary Virtus Gil of the Boracay Eminent Persons Group, representatives of the Department of Tourism, business owners and operators and the local government unit attended the consultation.

The nuns of the Holy Rosary Parish Ati Mission (HRPAM), who have been living with community for years, joined the representatives of the Ati community.

Felongco said the stakeholders affirmed the existence of the Ati community as the earliest settlers on the 1,032-hectare island resort and recognized their right to be given a place to stay on the island.

Anthropologists have backed up claims that the Atis were the earliest settlers on the island but were displaced and driven away especially starting in the 1970s when the island started attracting tourists.

Around 45 Ati families or around 200 persons have been living on a one-hectare lot in Sitio (sub-village) Bulabog in Barangay Balabag, one of the three villages of the island-resort.

But they have repeatedly faced threats of eviction from the community, which is situated in adjoining lots separately owned by the families of Aklan Representative Florencio Miraflores and Aniceto Yap.

The community earlier received several promises for a permanent relocation site, including those made by former president Joseph Estrada and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo but none has been fulfilled so far.

Felongco said the NCIP would ask the President to proclaim the area, which was classified as forestland, as a reservation for the Atis.

"The Commission will delineate and title the land in the name of the Ati community after a Presidential proclamation is issued," Felongco said.

He said the Atis have opposed the proposal to have them resettled to the mainland in Malay town where there is also a community of Atis residing.

"We will die where we were born, like our ancestors," Felongco quoted the members of the Ati community as having told the NCIP during the dialogue.

The House committee on national cultural communities will hold an inquiry on the island next month to investigate the alleged dispossession of the Ati of their lands.

The inquiry is a result of a resolution filed by Bayan Muna (Country First) Representatives Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casiño, Gabriela Representatives Liza Maza and Luzviminda Ilagan and Anakpawis (Grassroots) Representative Rafael Mariano.

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