Philippine Multiculturalism: IPRA & Equal Representation in the Philippines

Abstract. Republic Act 8371 known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 is a law that promotes the rights of indigenous peoples and cultural indigenous communities. This law also created the government agency that protects and promotes the rights if our IPs which is the National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP). The law is noble in its very nature. However, there are many challenges that this law is facing in its implementation. Moreover, this law is also considered as one of the multicultural policies of the country. In creation of this law, the cultural minorities were given a voice to be heard their redress and needs. This became the reason why the Philippines is one of the champions of multiculturalism. Through Ethnology and Document Analysis, one could understand the law by investigating the following themes (1) the connection between multiculturalism and IPRA, (2) the different rights of the cultural minorities under this law, and (3) the mandate of NCIP and the challenges in implementing the law. It was found out that there was lack of representation on matters of equal representation in local governance as required in RA 8371 and there was no equal representation in the Partylist Systems Act as required by the law. Moreover, the rights of the indigenous people were not directly protected most especially the right to ancestral domain. With all the results gathered, studies read and examined, principles interpreted according to the political and cultural realities we have right now that, indeed our multicultural policies like IPRA and the Party-list systems Act are just some of the laws that protect the rights of the IPs/ICCs and promote direct and proportional representation. However, no matter how noble they are as laws, there are still gaps in the implementation because there are provisions that overlap other laws which hinders the full and proper implementation of the law. Because of this, the legal mandates that are vested in the concerned agencies were not lived. Keywords: Indigenous People, IPRA, Multiculturalism, , Right to Representation, Policy