SITUATIONER

    The Cordillera indigenous youth and students comprise the majority of the Cordillera population (generally called "Igorots"). They are most concentrated in the region's lone city, Baguio City, and in the town centers of the region's 5 provinces. But majority are still in the vast countryside of the region and most city-based students still maintain their ethnic linkages with their provincial roots.

    A considerable number in the city are non-indigenous students who are attending formal education. In this section, there are those (20%) who already have taken roots in the region.

    Metro Baguio (Baguio City & La Trinidad Valley in particular) is known as the "Education Center" north of Manila due the presence of thirty (30) public elementary and high schools in the city; nine (9) colleges and universities; three (3) private schools with elementary and high school departments and one (1) private school having only the elementary department. The Metro Baguio has only two (2) state colleges, several vocational and technical schools and numerous pre-schools. As such, the city is host to 60,000 college students, and approximately 15,000 high school students and 30,000 elementary school students.

    There are public and private colleges in the town centers of the provinces of the region. However, these accommodate only a fraction of the student population in the region, ranging from 400-3,000 students per college, or even per town center.

    As part of the student sector in general, Cordillera students suffer from the irrelevance of the educational system. Instead of providing the students skills and knowledge appropriate for the particularity of their indigenous communities whose economy is largely agricultural (cash-crop or subsistence agricultural production), the educational system institutionalises discrimination, passivity, and blind obedience to "authorities."

    And, as shown by the data, the very high cost of education is taking its toll. For the city alone, there are roughly 30,000 primary schoolers and 15,000 high school students. Tertiary level Metro Baguio-based students are about 8400. So, for every 10 students who enter the elementary school, only 5 will proceed to high school, and only 2 will reach college. The scenario is even worse at the regional level because tertiary-level educational institutions are situated in Metro Baguio, beyond the reach of families relying on their community's marginalised agricultural economy. This situation is further aggravated by the severe effects of inflation and the continuos decrease of the actual value of the people's income, and by the severe effects of large-scale military operations on traditional agricultural production.

    As indigenous youth and students, they suffer from the historically-generated discrimination and oppression due to their ethnic origin. Because of this, their reactions are either of the following: deny their ethnic origin and suffer cultural dislocation and face persecution from their Igorot peers; or develop stronger ties with their cultural roots.

    As part of the larger Cordillera indigenous community, they suffer from the damage inflicted by indigenous people-insensitive "development projects" such as dams mining projects and by extensive and extended military operations in the region. Traditional cultural practices have been disrupted; traditional socio-political institutions are continuously under attack and disregarded by "development projects" and military offensives.

    As sons and daughters of farmers and workers, they bear hardships caused by semi-feudal exploitation and oppression. The continuing process of subsumption of the indigenous agricultural economy into the overall cash-crop and market economy has great negative effects on the livelihood of the families of the youth and students. And even while a mere 2% of the workforce in the region are employed in industries, the process of "modernisation" ( the use of high-technology and upgrading of production processes which means more environmental destruction and fewer workforce, as in the mining areas, for example) of the industries results to massive lay-offs and cheaper labor, and violation of the basic rights of the workers.

    And for more than half of the youth and student population in the region, women-related problems are taking its toll. Cases of sexual harassment, incest, illegal abortions, rape, etc., were found to be a significant occurrence among women youth and students.

    But historically, the Cordillera youth and students played significant roles in the overall development work and peoples' struggles in the region and in the assertion of the rights of indigenous peoples. Today, the basis for a region-wide youth and student movement is getting clearer with the modest advances made these past several years.
 

FORMATION OF THE YOUTH COMMISSION OF THE CORDILLERA PEOPLE'S ALLIANCE (CPA Youth Commission)

The Cordillera Peoples' Alliance (CPA) is an alliance of indigenous peoples organisations, advocate groups and organisations, as well as sectoral organisations in the central mountain region of Northern Luzon, Philippines. It was formally constituted by 27 peoples' organisations during a Congress in Bontoc, Mountain Province in June 1984.

The CPA's founding is a crucial step towards uniting the Cordillera indigenous peoples in defence of their ancestral land, in their struggle for self-determination, and in uniting with the rest of the Filipino people in the struggle for national freedom and genuine democracy.

The CPA's membership today includes human rights and church organisations, sectoral organisations of women, farmers, youth, students, workers, and other urban poor; rural community organisations and peace pact holders representing several villages, clan and tribal groups. Today, it stands as the biggest people's organisation in the entire Cordillera region.

In seeking to arouse, organise and mobilise the largest number of people for the defence of the Cordillera peoples' ancestral lands, for self-determination and for national democracy, the CPA established various Commissions. In 1991, the CPA Youth Commission was established. Its aim was to provide services to youth and student organisations by training youth leaders, publication of education materials, coordination of the various activities of CPA-affiliated youth organisations, etc. Overcoming limitations in financial and material resources, the Youth Commission modestly contributed to the overall advance of CPA at a crucial period when people's organisations were under heavy attack from the military and from other government agencies and pseudo-non government organisations.

In its Congress in 1994, the CPA adopted a resolution creating the Commission on organising, to give emphasis on the overall need to strengthen and rebuild peoples organisations devastated by attacks from the military and from internal weaknesses. Thus, the Youth Commission was dissolved, as the Commission on organising was to be directly responsible in ensuring coordination of the various efforts to strengthen the peoples organisations, including those of the youth and students. In its place, the CPA Youth Center was formed which is directly under the supervision of the Commission on Organising.

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