Reservation to be set up for Aetas in Boracay

MANILA, Philippines — The Aeta community in Boracay Island may soon get its own reservation there if a plan of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) does not miscarry, an online news site reported Friday. The News Today (www.thenewstoday.info) reported that the Aetas have agreed to push for the reservation as a permanent solution to threats to the community of being eased out from their homes. "Everyone is amenable for setting up the reservation on the island," said lawyer Noel Felongco, NCIP Commissioner for Regions 6 and 7, Mindoro and Romblon. Felongco said they conducted an inspection on the proposed relocation site, which was proposed by members of the Ati community themselves. The lot is located on an area classified as forest land. He said the NCIP will ask President Arroyo to proclaim the area 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," said Felongco. The NCIP held a three-day consultation with stakeholders on the situation of the Ati community. Present at the consultation were officials led by Raul Banias, presidential assistant for Western Visayas; Virtus Gil, undersecretary for the Boracay Eminent Persons Group; representatives of the Department of Tourism, business owners and operators and the local government unit. Joining representatives of the Ati community were nuns of the Holy Rosary Parish Ati Mission (HRPAM) who had been living in the community for years. 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 starting in the 1970s when the island attracted tourists. Some 45 Ati families or around 200 persons have been living in a one-hectare lot in sitio Bulabog in barangay Balabag, one of the three villages of the island-resort. They have repeatedly faced threats of eviction from the community, which is situated in adjoining lots separately owned by the families of Aklan Rep. Florencio Miraflores and Aniceto Yap. They have also received several promises for a permanent relocation site, including one from former President Joseph Estrada and another from President Arroyo. Felongco said the Atis are opposed to 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," he recalled members of the Ati community telling 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 Atis of their lands. The inquiry was sought by party-list Representatives Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casiño, Liza Maza, Luzviminda Ilagan and Rafael Mariano. - GMANews.TV