ILO calls for more positive IP reportage


Stories on indigenous peoples (IPs), who comprise 10 to 15 percent of the Philippine population, have always been about their being a marginalized sector or beneficiaries of development programs.

More than that, IPs should be portrayed by media as “partners in development,” according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

“We have to graduate from these kinds of stories and start looking for better angles and treatments that put them in a good light,” Lawrence Jeff Johnson, director of the ILO country office in the Philippines, said. “We need to see stories that show them as partners in economic growth.”

He said that journalists have an important role in reaching out to IPs to be able to write positive stories about them other than their being the most disadvantaged sector.

Johnson challenged writers to move from stories that “shock and awe, and to focus on what is going right rather than what is going wrong”.

The Philippines has over 110 ethno-linguistic indigenous groups scattered across the archipelago. They are generally found in ancestral territories that face challenges in land ownership. They are usually victims of discrimination, and have high rates of unemployment and illiteracy.

“Sadly, the situation of indigenous peoples is underreported or almost absent in Philippine media,” Domingo Nayahangan, project manager of the Indigenous Peoples Development Programme (IPDP) Caraga Region, said.

Masli Quilaman, a resource person on IP issues and director of the Office of Empowerment and Human Rights at the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), observed that stories about IPs are still confined to land disputes where they are always portrayed as victims of conflict or discrimination.

“We have IP leaders who need to be written about so that the public knows that we are doing our part in development,” Quilaman stressed.

He said that it is wrong to say that IPs depend on dole-outs just because they do not have the kind of livelihood that urban dwellers have.

The term "indigenous peoples" according to the NCIP, refers “to the more than 12 million descendants of the original inhabitants of the Philippines who have somehow managed to resist centuries of colonization and in the process have retained their own customs, traditions and life ways”.

“I am an IP myself and proud to be an IP journalist,” Kathleen Okubo, seasoned journalist based in Baguio City, said. “Ifugao, Ibaloi, Kankanaey, Kalinga, Isneg, Tingguian, Bugkalot, Dumagat, Aeta, Ati, Mangyan, Manobo, Tagbanua, Teduray, Subanen, T'boli, Bagobo, and Higaonon and about a hundred other tribes are such beautiful names whose cultures can offer very rich insights for storytelling.”

Okubo said that what is basic and missing in IP reportage is the recognition and respect for their rights. She vowed to continue writing about the Philippines’ unique and rich ethnic heritage such as the ones in the Cordillera and Mt. Province.

ILO, in partnership with Probe Media Foundation, has launched the Pagkilala sa mga Natatanging Kuwentong Katutubo program to recognize outstanding IP stories in print, photo essay, radio, television and online media.

According to the organizers, the recognition program focuses on success stories of indigenous peoples communities or individuals and “how they were able to empower themselves amidst adversities and challenges as citizens of this country who usually take a back seat in the scheme of things or are lost in the stream of public consciousness.”

The winning stories will be announced at the Media Recognition on Indigenous Peoples ceremony on  December 12, 2011.

(Photos also by Ariel C. Sebellino / Aytas of the Pastolan Village in Hermosa, Bataan)

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