How Can The Indigenous People Organizations (IPOs) Help Themselves? The Department Of Agriculture (DA) Has To Be There Also To Assist!

I am glad to note that the Department of Agriculture (DA) is actively helping the indigenous peoples such as those in the Cordilleras. With the 4K Program in Benguet.

I am reading this Facebook sharing of Aida Page of 26 April 2022; the introduction of Katutubo ProgCordillera says (edited):

Tightening the Indigenous Peoples Organization (IPO) of the Domolpos-Ansipsip Ancestral Domain [DAAD] in the sustainability of the given interventions, the Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran ng Kababayang Katutubo (4K) Program [strengthened the resolve] of the organization [at] the inauguration, turn-over, and acceptance ceremony of the Spring Development Projects (SDPs) and Multi-Purpose Drying Pavement (MPDP).

All that in further support of coffee production. Last year, the DA Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR) had distributed 3,000 Arabica coffee seedlings to the DAAD IPO on 18 June 2021.

Through the 4K Program (“Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran ng Kababayang Katutubo” – Livelihood & Advancement of Fellow Native Citizens Program), the equivalent amount of P1.8 million was handed over by the DA-CAR through the Regional Field Office (RFO) Cordillera, consisting of SDPs and an MPDP on 21 April 2022. The “spring development project” I understand to mean the tapping of water from mountain springs for irrigating vegetable farms, watering gardens, and home use.

ANN says the turn-overs of the SDPs and MPDP to the DAAD IPO were done at the Domolpos Community School on 21 April 2022.

This was a follow-up of the 4K. ANN says the previous year, the above folks had received Arabica coffee seedlings (Author Not Named, 23 June 2021, “Domolpos, Itogon, Benguet Folks Receive 3,000 Arabica Coffee Seedlings From DA-4K Program,” car.da.gov.ph).

As an Ilocano and an agriculturist, I am glad the DA is actively supporting the people we not-so-simply refer to as the Igorots. In Asingan, my native town, when I was young we had this unkind joke: “Utang ti Igorot, bayadan no makabirok.” (Free translation: “If an Igorot owes you, you might as well forget it.”) I laughed with the Asinganians, because I did not think about how rare were opportunities for earning in the mountains. Now I do see that the 4K Program is “heaven-sent.”

I see the 4K Program as the DA’s way to help the Cordillera people help themselves by growing their farm produce with government assistances: financial, technological, and physical.

ANN says:

The SDPs and MPDP will serve the different [sites] of the ancestral domain for [their] coffee and rice production. As such, even when the assistance of the program ends, the community will still be [much involved] in the usage and preservation of these projects with the help of the LGU and DA.

Yes, the local government unit (LGU) must assist its own people. And 4K Coordinator Jennilyn M Dawayan tells them: “The Council of Elders has a big responsibility to make the project work, especially since your culture has been your entry point for this project.”

Ms Dawayan is bold enough to exhort the group “to become a leader to other IPOs.” I hope so!@517