29 Years of IPRA: A Failure to Protect Indigenous Peoples, Facilitate Plunder of Ancestral Lands

On October 29, 1997, the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) was enacted into law, establishing the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP). Twenty-nine years later, Indigenous Peoples increasingly face land grabbing, displacement, militarization, and violations of our right to self-determination. Instead of protecting our ancestral lands and upholding our rights, IPRA and NCIP have proven to be instruments for legitimizing corporate plunder and facilitating the entry of destructive projects into our territories.

NCIP: Instrument of Corporate Plunder and State Repression

Indigenous Peoples' rights defenders have repeatedly exposed how the NCIP enables the very violations it is mandated to prevent. From mining and energy projects to infrastructure developments, the agency has failed to uphold Indigenous Peoples' collective decisions and has instead facilitated the interests of corporations and the state at the expense of our communities. We see this in the projects of Crescent Mining and Development Corporation (CMDC) in Mankayan, Benguet; North Luzon Mineral Resource Corporation (NLMRC) in Nueva Vizcaya; the Olongapo Solar Power Project in Zambales; and now, Pax Silica.

Beyond facilitating corporate plunder, the NCIP has also become complicit in state repression. Its involvement and leadership roles within the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) expose its alignment with the state's counterinsurgency agenda rather than its mandate to defend Indigenous Peoples. In April 2026, NCIP Chairperson Nancy Catamco became a member of the NTF-ELCAC Executive Committee and was subsequently designated to co-lead its grassroots development and empowerment cluster. We condemn the NCIP's participation in a task force widely criticized for red-tagging and vilifying Indigenous Peoples, community leaders, and rights defenders who assert their rights and resist land dispossession.

This is especially alarming given Catamco's own record. In July 2015, then-Congresswoman Catamco led efforts to forcibly remove around 700 Manobo evacuees from the UCCP Haran compound in Davao City, where they had sought refuge from militarization and alleged military and paramilitary abuses in their communities. The attempted dispersal, involving police and military personnel, resulted in injuries among evacuees. Complaints were subsequently filed against Catamco and other government officials. Her appointment to lead the agency mandated to protect Indigenous Peoples, while simultaneously holding a leadership position in the NTF-ELCAC, raises serious questions about whose interests the NCIP actually serves.

Weaponizing Identity, Undermining Indigenous Unity

The NCIP has also contributed to sowing disunity among Indigenous Peoples by questioning and discrediting collective Indigenous identities and terms of self-identification. In March 2021, the NCIP En Banc issued Resolution No. 08-009-2021, formally denouncing the use of the term "Lumad" to refer to Indigenous Peoples, particularly in Mindanao, and urging government offices and the public to use specific ethnolinguistic group names instead. The resolution went beyond recognizing the diversity of Indigenous communities. It associated the emergence and continued use of "Lumad" with the CPP-NPA-NDF, claiming that the term was used to advance their political agenda and was inconsistent with Indigenous cultures, practices, and beliefs.

This position disregards the history of the term "Lumad," which has been used as a collective identity by non-Moro Indigenous Peoples in Mindanao since the late 1970s and was formally adopted by Indigenous representatives during the 1986 Congress of the Lumad Mindanao Peoples Federation in Kidapawan. The resolution effectively casts suspicion on Indigenous Peoples who embrace this collective identity and the decades of organizing and solidarity built around it. It also disregards the fact that the choice to use or reject a collective identity belongs to the communities themselves, not the government.

The same attitude has surfaced in statements by NCIP Commissioner Gaspar Cayat, who questioned the use of the terms "Igorot," "Lumad," and "Tumandok," associating them with the CPP-NPA-NDF and disputing their legitimacy as collective Indigenous identities. Such pronouncements undermine the histories of Indigenous self-identification and collective assertion, and risk branding communities and organizations that use these identities as politically suspect.

We recognize that Indigenous Peoples have diverse ethnolinguistic identities and that not all communities choose to identify with broader collective terms. However, recognizing this diversity must never become an excuse to prohibit, discredit, or red-tag identities that communities have collectively embraced. Whether we identify through our respective ethnolinguistic groups or broader identities such as Lumad and Igorot, the right to self-identification belongs to us. The NCIP has no authority to dictate our identities, erase our histories, or sow divisions among our peoples.

IPRA and FPIC: False Safeguards for Ancestral Lands

The supposed safeguard of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) has likewise become a mechanism for coercion and manipulation. Rather than ensuring that communities exercise their right to decide freely, FPIC is reduced to a procedural requirement that corporations and government agencies seek to satisfy to push projects forward. The revised FPIC guidelines released by the NCIP in May 2026 further entrench this problem. Instead of strengthening Indigenous Peoples' control over their ancestral lands, the revisions make it easier for corporations to secure project approvals despite community opposition.

The experience of Indigenous Peoples over the past 29 years exposes the fundamental limitations of IPRA. The law's recognition of ancestral domain and self-determination has not stopped the plunder of our lands. Meanwhile, the NCIP has repeatedly failed to defend Indigenous Peoples against land grabbing and has enabled the advancement of projects despite violations of their rights. Its complicity in these violations, alongside its corruption and role in state repression, cannot be excused as mere institutional shortcomings.

Genuine representation cannot be appointed from above or dictated by the state. It must be rooted in the collective will of Indigenous communities, their customary institutions, and their right to exercise self-determination without coercion or interference.

We demand accountability for the NCIP's complicity in land grabbing, corporate plunder, state repression, and violations of Indigenous Peoples' rights. We condemn its participation in the NTF-ELCAC and its role in red-tagging, discrediting Indigenous identities, and sowing disunity among our communities. We reject FPIC processes that manufacture consent and disregard the decisions of affected communities.

REPEAL IPRA! ABOLISH NCIP!

Reference: Funa-ay Claver

Secretary-General, KATRIBU