LA TRINIDAD, Benguet — Government officials, local leaders and residents gathered at the Benguet Sports Complex on Wednesday to open the 39th Cordillera Month celebration, focusing on economic digitalization and the region’s renewed push for self-governance.
The Regional Development Council-Cordillera (RDC), through its Sectoral Committee on Economic Development, is leading this year’s observance alongside the Benguet provincial government.
This year’s theme, “Smart Cordillera: Enabling Local Enterprises through Digital Transformation and Accelerated Regional Autonomy,” focuses on increasing public participation in the autonomy movement while using digital technology to boost local businesses.
Regional leaders emphasized that a fragmented approach has previously stalled progress in the legislature.
“We want to achieve regional autonomy here in the Cordillera through peace and unity,” said Mauricio Domogan, a long-time advocate and former chairperson of the RDC.
Domogan together with all Cordillera lawmakers, including party – list representatives filed House Bill 6981 in the 20th Congress which seeks to establish the Cordillera Autonomous Region, as mandated by the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
The 18-article bill aims to give the region full control over its ancestral domains, natural resources, and socio-economic development, transitioning the current administrative region into an autonomous region.
Apollo Edwin Pagano, regional director of the Department of Development, said public unity is vital to securing approval for autonomy from national lawmakers noting that divisions within the region in the past, allowed opponents in Congress to question the viability of the proposed law.
“So it’s really very important that we as the people, not just we in the government service, but even yung mga nasa private sector and everyone, to be involved and be united, to have one voice,” Pagano said.
Officials said a unified stance from local governments, the private sector and the public will better position the region to secure the attention of Congress and the president. Jerome Jacy Cruz | UC Intern
