CAMIGUIN — AT long last, residents of Camiguin finally found the strength to question what they have learned to call the “repressive regime” of the Romualdo dynasty for its continuing policy on the QR code and the discrimination against the natives in the island province, among others.
First, they have asked a local court to nullify an ordinance first imposed during the pandemic requiring residents and tourists to sign a QR code to enter and exit the islands first imposed for easy tracking of COVID-19-infected individuals.
The other one, though happening discreetly, was a regular house-to-house meeting of the indigenous people of Camiguin, all of them protesting the local governments’ discriminatory policies against them. House to house, because there was a standing prohibition to assemble in public places, not to mention criticisms from neighbors telling them they were getting suicidal if local officials would learn about the regular assembly.
QR code, post pandemic
The Camiguin provincial government has continued to reinforce the QR code ordinance, with some revisions last March, this time the Romualdo family, according to the residents, weaponizing it to control the people’s right to travel and mobility, especially those of their critics, political and business rivals–more than a year after President Marcos lifted all COVID-19 restrictions, including “all prior orders, memoranda, and issuances that are effective only during the State of Public Health Emergency” in July 2023.
The Smart Tourism Ordinance required that a person may proceed outside the premises of the seaport, airport, or other authorized entry point in Camiguin only after his or her QR code has been scanned.
Only the Romualdos
Violators may be either denied entry or exit or fined with P5,000. Only the governor can settle an appeal.
Monitoring the comings and goings of tourists does not warrant continuing the implementation of the QR Code System and should therefore be urgently nullified, the petition said.
Camiguin is a 5th-class province in Northern Mindanao. It has a population of 92,808 as of the 2020 Census, and a land area of 241.44 square kilometers.
The province is composed of 5 municipalities. Its capital is Mambajao. In the 2022 elections, the province had 64,090 registered voters.
The Romualdos have been in power since 1987, with the election of lawyer Pedro Romualdo as Camiguin’s lone representative at the House of Representatives. He was elected to five terms, until he died in April 2013.
A low-key lawyer and lawmaker, Romualdo was a respected elder in Camiguin, even in Congress.
The Romualdo dynasty
But his eldest son and his family have carved a reputation apart and away from the elder man.
IP leaders, for one, have cried that they have been fighting a lonely, hopeless battle over recognition and their right to the ancestral domain in the idyllic island province after the Romualdos declared that there were never indigenous people in Camiguin.
The IPs are afraid of the Romualdos, all of them, except for the orphans of Nordin, the second son of the late Rep. Pedro Romualdo.
None of the Romualdos accepted requests for an interview with this newsman. A trip to the Romualdo mansion by the sea in Mambajao yielded no positive response as the Romualdos “do not speak with strangers.”
“It was very difficult to get into the mansion,” said Nordin’s widow, Pacita, in an interview with this newsman. “Even us, are not allowed to get in.”
Surprisingly, Pacita is also afraid of her in-laws.
Why they fear the Romualdos
JJ Romualdo, now a congressman, and his wife have disowned Pacita and her children, even depriving them of their inheritance, according to Pacita.
The Romualdos have been in complete control of Camiguin for the past many years, especially after the 77-year-old Pedro died in April 2013.
In the May 2022 elections, Governor JJ Romualdo, or JJ, won as representative of Camiguin’s lone district, a post he previously held from 1998 to 2007. He was the governor from 2007 to 2016.
Before that, he was mayor of the capital town of Mambajao from 2016 to 2019 while his wife Maria Luisa was governor during the same period.
He was again elected governor in 2019 while a brother won as vice governor.
JJ’s son Xavier Jesus, or XJ, formerly a congressman, is now the governor. He first won as a congressman in 2013 as a substitute candidate for his grandfather Pedro who died a few weeks before the 2013 elections.
Ranked fourth in the 2012 bar, XJ defeated former assemblyman and Misamis Oriental Gov. Homobono Adaza, a seasoned politician.
The governor’s other son, Yñigo Jesus, won his reelection bid as mayor of Mambajao.
‘Despotic, repressive’
In their petition dated July 19, the residents said the revised ordinance was “despotic” and “unconstitutional” because it violates several provisions of the Bill of Rights, Due Process Clause.
Shipping businessman Paul Rodriguez, a friend and supporter of the late Romualdo, and 25 other residents, mostly leaders of non-government organizations, signed the petition.
Hundreds have trooped to the Bulwagan ng Katarungan at Mambajao town to support the petition filed against Governor Romualdo, the vice governor, the provincial board members, and QR code administrators.
Rodriguez declined this newsman’s request for an interview, except to say that the court would hear the petition on August 19. One of his friends interviewed by this newsman said the Romualdos have begun to rival Rodriguez’s business companies.
Why QR code is unconstitutional
Quoting a book on Constitutional Law by former Supreme Court Associate Justice Isagani Cruz on a similar matter, the petitioners said the QR code policy, endorsed by the provincial council’s “Smart Tourism Ordinance” was unconstitutional:
“Liberty under that clause includes the right to choose one’s residence, to leave it whenever he pleases, and to travel wherever he wills.”
“In repressive regimes, one may not change his residence at will. The citizen cannot move from one part of the country to another, much less out of the country, without the permission of the authorities.
“His departure from one locality must be previously cleared, his transfer to another registered, and, if the (repressive) government so says, he may be shifted from one place to another against his consent.
Only in repressive regime
“The idea is to keep tight rein on his movements and close track of his activities on the chance that he may be plotting against the State.
“Always chary of the motives of its subjects, the despotic government keeps an eagle eye on their comings and goings and places them under its close and constant surveillance, the better to control their actions.”
The petitioners said there was no proper publication in compliance with the Local Government Code. Ordinances with penal clauses should be published in a newspaper of general circulation or in public conspicuous places for three consecutive weeks, a copy of the petition said.
The natives of Camiguins
JJ Romualdo and XJ Romualdo have long declared that there were no IPs in Camiguin.
Congressman JJ Romualdo has even asked Congress to slice the budget of the National Commission for Indigenous People to P1,000 in September 2023.
Is it greed?
Several leaders of the Indigenous people in Camiguin asked this question why the provincial government would deny they ever existed in the island province.
Nothing more and nothing less than personal gains, the only possible reason why the ruling family on Camiguin Islands—the Romualdos, the heirs of the late Rep. Pedro Romualdo—wanted to get rid of the indigenous people in the province ahead of their extinction.
They said the government only wanted to control and take over the estate the Ips have occupied over the years.
Humans in limbo
Leaders of various IP tribes asked why and could not think of anything else, accusing the Romualdo family of blatant discrimination, lack of respect for the natives, and lack of restraint to make them fade away.
Roughly, there are at least 10,000 certified Ips in Camiguin, according to the NCIP, which is now facing a tug-of-war with the Romualdo family over the fate and welfare of the natives.
IP leaders have cried that they have been fighting a lonely, hopeless battle over recognition and their right to the ancestral domain in the idyllic island province.
‘NCIP should have P1K budget’
Last year, JJ asked House colleagues to reduce the NCIP budget to P1,000, complaining that the agency has always claimed that areas up for development were ancestral domains.
He said the IPs in Camiguin and the NCIP have always got in the way of infrastructure development in the province.
On April 7, 1998, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources issued a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim no. R10-CADC-172 to Kamigin Indigenous Cultural Community spread in the Municipalities of Sitio Itom, Barangay Baylao, Mambajao and Barangay Cuña, Bacnit and Bonbon of Sagay, Province of Camiguin with an area of 1,006.6041 hectares more or less represented by the tribal Leaders.
What does NCIP do?
“(And) it’s not only me complaining about what NCIP is doing right now all over the country, but even mining investors are really complaining. Every time there is a development, no less than the secretary of DPWH complained to me that we have this project, a water project and investors coming in, and all of a sudden NCIP came,” he told a budget committee hearing.
The conversion of Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC) to CADT is provided in Republic Act No. 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997.
Still, JJ Romualdo wanted the NCIP investigated, standing firm that he wanted only a P1,000 budget for the NCIP.
Gatherings prohibited
In 2023, the NCIP got P1.4 billion in funding, but the then NCIP chair Allen Capuyan said it was not enough.
“The universe of the IPs is 1,500 ancestral domains and with that 11 building blocks, we evaluated it and we found out that for the last 25 years, NCIP will only be able to accomplish 25 percent of its mandate or an average of 1 percent a year,” he said.
The natives interviewed by this newsman were so afraid of the Romualdos that they agreed to meet at a very specific time and in clandestine places. They all refused to be named for this report.
“We are prohibited from gathering together,” said an IP woman inside an ancestral house built at the turn of the 19th century in one of Camiguin’s towns.
“They always presume that we are gathered to plot something against them. But we are family and as such we have family affairs.’’ The old house was built by her ancestors, she said, one of the most visible proofs that their families have long been around.
‘No IPs since time immemorial’
On June 16, 2023, NCIP officials received a letter informing them of a provincial board resolution, Sangguniang Panlalawigan Province of Camiguin Resolution No. 48 “A Resolution declaring the Non-Existence of Indigenous Communities/Indigenous Peoples in the Province of Camiguin since time immemorial”.
The letter cited another resolution from the five municipalities of Camiguin declaring that there were indeed no indigenous communities/indigenous peoples in their respective jurisdictions.
“We are afraid of ourselves,” she said. “But why would we hide and disown our identity?”
The IPs have been deprived of cash assistance, or ayudas, educational support, and employment, unless they disown their IP identity and pledge loyalty to the Romualdos.
Some NCIP officials based in Northern Mindanao led by lawyer Jerie Ragsac, OIC Regional director, tried to reach out to the Romualdos—the congressman, the governor, and other local official to explain the issue, but no one attended to them, except for one mayor whom they caught unawares.
NCIP: Respect the IPs
Mayor Kiterio Antonio Palarca of Catarman was caught off guard by the team who paid him a courtesy call despite being “shilly-shally” in accommodating us, Ragsak said in a report to the NCIP chair in Manila.
“While in the office of the honorable governor, his staff was hesitant to accept our two letter requests for a courtesy call as she mentioned that she would wait for the instruction of our good Governor,” he added.
“But the existence of the Kamigin Indigenous Peoples,” Ragsac told this newsman, “has been proved in a decade and it should be recognized, respected, and promoted by all forms of individuals regardless of your beliefs, customs, traditions, and institutions.”
KIP is one of the major IP groups in Camiguin.
Their letter requests and subsequent follow-up fell on deaf ears, effectively placing the Ips of Camiguin “neither here nor there.” Some of them told tales that the government had taken over the property owned by their relatives.
The natives feel betrayed and forsaken. “They are getting closer,” an IP leader said. “We are in limbo.”
