Tribal leader laments gov’t absence from forum

AGTA members gather in Infanta, Quezon, during the First National Negrito Cultural Revival Festival and Development Forum. PHOTO COURTESY OF TRIBAL CENTER FOR DEVELOPMENT

LUCENA CITY—An Agta tribe leader in Sierra Madre and one of the organizers of the First National Negrito Cultural Revival Festival and Development Forum in General Nakar town in Quezon on Sunday appealed to their invited government officials to come to the event and help find solutions to the problems besetting the indigenous people.

Ramcy Astoveza, director of the Tribal Development Center (TCD) based in Infanta town in Quezon, said they sent invitations to officials of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Education, Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare and Development, National Anti-Poverty Commission, National Commission for Culture and the Arts and local and provincial officials.

As of Sunday morning, the first day of the four-day event, Astoveza said they had yet to receive replies from most of their invitees.

“The only reply that we received was from the DENR, who will be sending an undersecretary to the occasion to answer our concerns,” Astoveza lamented over the phone.

Deeply frustrated, the tribe leader noted that the indigenous people trekked down from their mountain abodes from different parts and traveled to General Nakar at the foot of Sierra Madre in northern Quezon to voice out their concerns to the government.

“They left their families and spent their own money just to make it to the event, knowing that government officials won’t come to them in the boondocks, only to be frustrated with the nonappearance of the invited,” Astoveza said in a voice shaking in frustration.

He reiterated their invitations to government offices to at least send a “knowledgeable” representative to the forum to answer queries from the participants.

The event is organized by the local peoples’ organization of Agta-Dumagat-Remontado, Samahan ng mga Katutubong Agta na Ipinagtatanggol at Binabaka ang Lupaing Ninuno, TCD and the provincial tribal council with support from the Non-Timber Forest Products-Task Force (NTFP-TF).

Abi Aguilar, NTFP-TF policy advocacy officer, said they were still conducting follow-up calls to their invitees. “We hope they can make it to the event for the sake of the indigenous people,” she said over the phone.

As of Saturday evening, over 700 tribesmen have registered for the conference, Astoveza said. “The delegates from Bicol and Aurora are still traveling,” he said.

The tribesmen are billeted at the public elementary school.

Negrito tribe leaders would discuss pressing matters that affect their lives, communities and natural habitat, particularly on the issue of ancestral domain.