Module 1: Tawid Kordilyera 1

UNIVERSITY OF THE CORDILLERAS

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Political Science

MODULE 1 IN CORDILLERA 101

(CORDILLERA: HISTORY AND SOCIO-CULTURAL HERITAGE)
LESSON 2
HERITAGE AS A PROCESS

This module introduces you to the arguments for the two basic rights of the indigenous
people - self-determination and free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). To appreciate these
two rights, you are encouraged to watch the documentary film, "Making Monkey Business:"
Building Company/Community Dialogue in the Philippines.

OBJECTIVES:
At the end of the topic, students are expected to:
1) Use relevant scenes from the film to illustrate the meaning of “cultural
heritage as a process”.
2) Explain why land is the foundation for the tangible and intangible
cultural heritage of the IPs.

KEY CONCEPTS TO UNDERSTAND:

land as respect and recognition for culture land as opportunity

land as security

TEACHING-LEARNING ACTIVITY/LESSON PROPER:

HERITAGE AS A PROCESS
Excerpt: Young, S. (2020). Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Rights: Troubling Subjects. NY:
Routledge.

Self-determination in UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). As

Engle has argued, the 1993 Draft Declaration Article 3 recognized self-
determination as continuing the processes of formal decolonization, rather than a
liberalized, democratic human rights understanding. ... Article 4 declares that the
exercise of Indigenous Peoples’ (IPs) self-determination is a ‘right to autonomy or
self-government in matters relating to their internal or local affairs, as well as ways
and means for financing their autonomous functions’. It restricts self-determination
to internal self-governing and funding as they see fit. Article 46 contains a territorial
integrity clause, which has traditionally legitimated internal colonialism by
preventing secessionist movements or claims to ‘external’ sovereignty …
These additions to UNDRIP reframe self-determination as a democratizing
concept, a ‘continuing right of all peoples’, who may self-govern, internally
develop and decolonize themselves. It could mean that self-determination ‘is met
whenever the government is elected in free and fair elections by universal suffrage
and in a secret ballot’. …

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FPIC in UNDRIP. …, UNDRIP recognizes Free, Prior, and Informed Consent ( FPIC)
but the intention, according to Chávez, was not to recognize a veto. ... Articles 10,
11(2), 29(2) and 28(1) use the obligatory legal word ‘shall’, as in ‘Indigenous peoples
shall not be forcibly removed from their lands’ without their FPIC, or states ‘shall
provide redress’ for ‘property taken’ without their FPIC. More permissive language
is in articles 19 and 32(2). They declare that ‘[s]tates shall consult and cooperate in
good faith … in order to obtain their [ FPIC]’. Each article employs an obligatory legal
term, ‘shall’, but as an obligation to consult and cooperate in order to obtain FPIC,
rather than an obligation to obtain FPIC. …, … FPIC as part of a state’s ‘duty to
consult’, …
The foundations of Indigenous peoples’ FPIC. …, Francisco de Vitoria’s and
Bartolomé de las Casas’s acknowledgments of native sovereignty are the
international legal bases for Indigenous peoples’ FPIC. …, when European and
Indigenous peoples began interacting they exhibited ‘equal weight [and]
something akin to a genuine rights-based conception of consent emerges’. Those
early moments of equality existed only briefly, because non-equal interpretation,
enforcement, and implementation were imposed through what Doyle calls a ‘rights
constraining colonial legal doctrine’. In the rights-constraining colonial era,
Europeans took advantage of inequalities ‘in power, manifested through the use
of force, coercion, and legal subterfuge’, to unilaterally define ‘consent’. Because
the ‘consent’ requirement had been unilaterally determined by states, the
relationship between Indigenous peoples and states had been ‘one based on
power and dominance’ as opposed ‘to one premised on equality and consent’.
Doyle then contrasts the rights-constraining colonial era with the contemporary
human rights-granting era. It is crucial, under Doyle’s account, that ‘indigenous
peoples’ claims to ancestral territories [are] within a rights-based perspective’, as a
‘rights-based framework grounds indigenous peoples’ self-government and land
rights in a nondiscriminatory approach’ within their own systems. As such, proper
recognition of Indigenous rights ‘draws on indigenous perspectives on law and
justice and is premised on indigenous control over its realization’.
Doyle … argues that a proper understanding of FPIC as a natural right stems from
Indigenous peoples’ own rights to self-determination and sovereignty. Hence,
proper implementation of FPIC requires the content and processes of consent to
be determined by Indigenous peoples, so that they can define it and implement it
in ways that manifest their natural self-determination. Doyle argues that Indigenous
peoples are sovereign peoples with a right of self-determination, which is natural
law …
Indigenous peoples’ FPIC reaches a tipping point. Another issue with FPIC’s
status is that neither the laws of Indigenous peoples nor the multiple sources that
recognize FPIC are, under the international law traditional sources doctrine,
traditional and accepted sources of public international law. As described above,
the problem with UNDRIP and other international human rights instruments is that
they do not legally obligate states to obtain Indigenous peoples’ FPIC. Doyle solves
this problem by pointing to FPIC’s ‘tipping point’.
According to Doyle, ‘we appear to be witnessing the crystallization of the norm
of FPIC at the international level …, Doyle explains that Indigenous peoples
reasserted their natural rights in international law, the rights were dispersed
throughout that order, and states will be required to recognize those rights. Under
this theory, FPIC’s momentum began when it was adopted in ILO Convention No.

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169. Between Convention No. 169 and UNDRIP, the UN treaty bodies, …, Special
Rapporteurs, and regional human rights bodies began articulating FPIC to protect
Indigenous peoples and their territories, livelihoods, and rights. When the General
Assembly endorsed UNDRIP, it affirmed that ‘indigenous peoples are vested with a
right to self-determination’ and connected it to FPIC through the Declaration’s
content and conceptual framing. Recognition of the requirement for FPIC also
extends beyond the human rights legal framework and is exhibited by its uptake by
multilateral development banks, international finance institutions, industry actors,
NGOs, voluntary initiatives, and Indigenous peoples’ organizations. Because UN
Member States have overwhelmingly approved UNDRIP and a diverse range of
institutions and actors have adopted FPIC, …, there is a ‘jurisprudential trend
towards affirming a requirement for FPIC in order to constrain state power to infringe
on indigenous peoples’ enjoyment of their rights in the context of resource
extraction projects impacting on their well-being or territories’. Thus, …, the
numerous recognitions of FPIC are intertwined and evolving to provide Indigenous
peoples with the ability to define for themselves what self-determination,
sovereignty, and development mean to them. ...
Doyle writes:
For indigenous peoples to be free to exercise their right to self-
determination a ‘philosophical space’ within which they can continue to
construct their own perspectives and worldviews is essential. The requirement
for FPIC can facilitate the preservation or creation of these philosophical
spaces … If this is realized, indigenous peoples will have the freedom to
imagine their own futures, secure in the knowledge that they will have the
physical spaces and the control over them necessary to translate these visions
into reality.

ENHANCEMENT ACTIVITY/OUTCOME:
Click the given site to watch the documentary film, "Making Monkey Business:"
Building Company/Community Dialogue in the Philippines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBhJ-FdrCu4
The following should guide you in appreciating the film:
1. identify the grievances of the communities affected by the Ambuklao and Binga
Dams
2. tangible cultural heritage that was lost and the impact of the loss on the
community’s food security and sovereignty
3. indigenous perception of land
4. initial challenges to the collaborative negotiation and how these were overcome
5. factors of successful collaborative negotiation
6. land as respect and recognition for culture, opportunity, and security
7. win-win resolution of the issues

REFLECTION:
Heritage as a process and democracy
Aspirations and concerns of indigenous people that are similar to the aspirations
and concerns of the Filipino people in general
Lessons learned that you can apply to your personal life and future career

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