DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 6 October) – It was a bright morning at the Bangsamoro Government Center when the Office for Settler Communities, led by MP Susana Anayatin, attended, as we learned through her Facebook post, the launch of the World Indigenous Peoples Month Celebration and IPRA Commemoration. Gracing the event was no less than the Interim Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua, whose presence signified that the message of this year’s theme, “Weaving Cultures, Enriching Futures: Empowering Indigenous Communities as Bedrock of Sustainable Development,” is not meant to be a mere ceremonial slogan.
And yet, as the speeches were delivered and the colorful fabrics were unfurled, one question quietly tugged at my conscience: How far have we truly gone as a nation in upholding the spirit of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA)?
It has been more than a quarter of a century since the IPRA was enacted; a landmark law that recognized indigenous peoples’ rights to ancestral domain, self-governance, cultural integrity, and social justice. Within the Bangsamoro, we have even taken a historic step forward with the passage of the Bangsamoro Indigenous Peoples’ Act (BIPA) in December 2024, a legislative fruit long awaited by our non-Moro indigenous brothers and sisters.
But as I was reminded during one of our BARMM Barangay Tri-Justice System trainings last April, a law without its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) is like a loom without thread: promising in form, but unable to weave. We were told then that the BIPA IRR was expected to come out by September. September has passed. The silence continues.
And then, as if to test our sincerity, came the chilling news:
On September 30, barely a day before the start of the IP Month Celebration, Timuay Ramon Lupos, a respected Teduray tribal leader, was found beheaded and bludgeoned inBarangay Limpongo, Datu Hoffer Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur.
Like other entities and personalities, the Bangsamoro Human Rights Commission (BHRC) has already condemned this heinous act and called for justice. But condemnation alone, no matter how strongly worded, can never stitch back the torn fabric of dignity.
We, who once cried for self-governance, must now confront a sobering question: How do we govern ourselves when others under our care are silenced with impunity?
It is easy to denounce injustices from afar when we were still at the receiving end. It is much harder, and far more revealing, to uphold justice when we are already the ones in power.
This is not merely a legal issue; it is a moral and spiritual test. The Qur’an warns us: “O you who believe, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives” (4:135).
Now that we have attained a measure of autonomy, this verse hits closer to home. It calls us to prove that self-rule is not self-serving, but self-purifying, and that it extends protection even to those who are not like us, much more to our kins and neighbors since time immemorial.
Centuries ago, when Caliph ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib received the news of an army of Mu‘awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan’s incursion into a city under his jurisdiction and robbed a Jewish woman of her anklet, he exclaimed, “Even if a man were to die of grief over this incident, it would not be an overreaction.” (Nahj al-Balaghah, Sermon 27)
If such grief was due to a single act of theft, what should our collective conscience feel when a fellow human being, an indigenous leader, is beheaded within our jurisdiction?
Shouldn’t our hearts tremble? Shouldn’t our governance mechanisms react not just with statements but with swift justice?
If the theme of this year’s celebration is “Weaving Cultures, Enriching Futures,” then we must remember that no weaving is complete if the thread of justice is missing.
Cultural empowerment without protection is mere decoration.
Legal recognition without implementation is bureaucratic poetry.
The killing of Timuay Lupos is not just an assault on one man or one tribe; it is a tear in the moral tapestry of our collective self-determination project.
As we celebrate, legislate, and commemorate, let us also mourn rightly, act justly, and lead courageously. For only then can we say that our woven cultures are not just colorful but also conscientious.
#WorldIPMonth2025 #JusticeforNMIPs #EndImpunity #UpholdHumanDignity #WeavingCulturesEnrichingFutures
[MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Mansoor L. Limba, PhD in International Relations and Shari‘ah Counselor-at-Law (SCL), is a publisher-writer, university professor, vlogger, chess trainer, and translator (from Persian into English and Filipino) with tens of written and translation works to his credit on such subjects as international politics, history, political philosophy, intra-faith and interfaith relations, cultural heritage, Islamic finance, jurisprudence (fiqh), theology (‘ilm al-kalam), Qur’anic sciences and exegesis (tafsir), hadith, ethics, and mysticism. He can be reached at mlimba@diplomats.com and www.youtube.com/@WayfaringWithMansoor, and his books can be purchased at www.elzistyle.com and www.amazon.com/author/mansoorlimba.]