Cotabato’s first ‘Lumad’ gov sworn in as NCIP chair

GENERAL SANTOS CITY—Former Cotabato Gov. and Rep. Nancy Catamco, a proud daughter of the Bagobo-Manobo ethnic group, has officially assumed the position of chair of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

Catamco took her oath of office on Monday before Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza at the provincial capitol in Kidapawan City.

Purpose

She is the 12th NCIP chair since the agency’s establishment in 1997 to implement the mandate of Republic Act No. 8371, also known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act.

Catamco previously served as three-term representative of Cotabato’s second congressional district from 2010 to 2019 and became the province’s first “lumad” governor from 2019 to 2022.

“This is a new challenge and journey, but this is my purpose—to help and strengthen the NCIP,” she said in a speech to Capitol employees shortly before taking her oath.

Catamco succeeds Marie Grace Pascua as NCIP chair.

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Before her appointment, she served as the NCIP ethnographic commissioner for Central Mindanao.

Catamco had earlier expressed strong opposition to a House measure seeking to transfer the functions of the NCIP’s Ancestral Domains Office to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, arguing that it would lead to the institutional fragmentation of the agency.