The Lumad from Camiguin held a press conference in April in Cagayan de Oro to express their dismay over the denial by local governments in the province regarding the presence of indigenous peoples on the island and to assert their identity and the recognition of their tribe.

The Camiguin provincial council passed Resolution No. 48 as early as May 2023 declaring that there have been no indigenous peoples in the province since time immemorial. This included similar resolutions from the municipalities in the province. The indigenous peoples said this clearly suppresses their rights as the island’s original inhabitants.

Camiguin Representative Jurdin Jesus Romualdo stated that he will not allow the presence of indigenous peoples in the province. He said, “They will take our mountains even if you have the title to your land, those crazy IPs will claim it as theirs.” He called the indigenous peoples landgrabbers and extortionists.

The Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (Katribu), a national alliance of indigenous peoples’ organizations, expressed concern over the denial of the Kamigin tribe’s identity through local legislation despite the recognition certificate from the NCIP.

“Such actions impede the indigenous peoples’ right to self-governance, with serious implications for their rights, dignity, and safety,” Katribu added.

Romualdo is pushing for HB 9608 in Congress, which aims to disempower the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to grant land titles for ancestral lands, assigning this function solely to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). There are also plans to form an Ancestral Lands Administration and Adjudication Board that would supposedly resolve disputed lands.

The recognized indigenous leader in Camiguin said the NCIP, through its decision in Resolution No. 08-22-2019 dated December 19, 2019, recognized their identity and included their tribe among the 110 indigenous tribes in the Philippines. Currently, 15,000 indigenous people are living in Camiguin.

They said that even before the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) was enacted in 1997, the Kamigin tribe was already recognized in the 1990s by the Office for Southern Cultural Communities, a government agency established in 1987 under the Corazon Aquino regime. The tribe has a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim from the DENR for 1,006 hectares of ancestral land covering three barangays in the municipality of Sagay and one barangay in the municipality of Mambajao.