SIPA News - Monday, May 25, 2009 3:32 - 0 Comments

Issue more CADTs! – Says the Philippine Indigenous Peoples

Today, we congratulate the 454 Aeta families in Floridablanca, Pampanga for receiving their Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT).  Finally, they now have a legal instrument that should effectively protect and safeguard their ancestral land.

The awarding of the CADT in Pampanga looks very nice in picture and sounds very good in the news.

Reality check

This has long been overdue and ironic at the same time.  Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) in her State of the Nation Address in 2001, promised to issue one hundred (100) ancestral domain titles by that year.  Nearing the end of her term, it is very disheartening for the indigenous peoples that there is a total of only 29 CADTs issued since then, and the last to be issued was the first one to be registered.    [MORE]