In 1978, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) declared that every second Sunday of October will be observed as Indigenous Peoples Sunday. Now on its 30th year, Indigenous Peoples Sunday continues to serve as a venue for championing the cause of our indigenous brothers and sisters. The theme of this year’s celebration is “The Church and the Indigenous Peoples Reflecting on Faith.”The 2009 report of the National Commission on the Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) estimates that indigenous Filipinos today number around 14 million, about 15.76 percent of our country’s total population.International agreements and conventions, including those of the United Nations, recognize the inherent rights of indigenous peoples. Among these rights are their claim to their ancestral lands and their right to self-determination. Our indigenous brothers and sisters constantly struggle to protect their ancestral domain, which they hold sacred, from being transformed into sites for mining and tourism, military reservation camps, and dams. …