A tribal group asked the National Commission on Indigenous People to maintain the cease-and-desist order it issued against a tourism project of Ayala Group in El Nido, Palawan until the conglomerate recognized the group’s ancestral domain rights over the site of the project.
Tagbanua-Tandolanen IP community legal counsel Peter Paul Danao said the NCIP should not withdraw the CDO it issued against Ten Knots Philippines Inc., a subsidiary of Ayala Land Inc., which is developing the 325-hectare Lio Airport and Tourism Estate in Barangays Villa Libertad and Pasadena in El Nido.
Danao said the NCIP should maintain the order against TKPI despite the submission of documents under the Free and Prior Informed Consent guidelines to oblige the Ayala Group to seriously negotiate with and recognize the ancestral domain rights of the Tagbanua-Tandolanen IP community.
“The CDO will oblige them to do what is right. If the CDO will be lifted, they [TKPI] will only return to their usual ways of asking too many questions, resulting in the delay in the judicial process,” Danao said. Othel V
