Teodoro “Teddy” Brawner Baguilat Jr. is a politician, journalist, activist, and advocate of indigenous people’s rights. He served as a representative of the lone district of Ifugao from 2010 to 2019.
Prior to his stint in Congress, he was Ifugao governor from 2001 to 2004, and from 2007 to 2010 in his second term. He was mayor of Kiangan town from 1995 until 2001.
Teddy Baguilat was elected as president of the Global Consortium for Indigenous Conserved Communities Areas (ICCA Consortium), an advisory body to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in 2018.
“It’s about time naman kung meron talaga tayong gustong ipaglaban na maging batas para mapagtanggol ang ating ninunong-lupa, then let an indigenous person be that candidate. Malaki ang maiambag natin sa lawmaking, batay na rin sa ating karanasan, hindi naman ako baguhan sa pulitika.”
TEDDY BAGUILAT PROFILE
Full Name: Teodoro Brawner Baguilat Jr.
Nickname: Teddy
Birthdate: July 30 1966 (Age 58)
Birthplace: Metro Manila
Residence: Kiangan, Ifugao
Religion: Christian
Parents:
- Teodoro Banhi-Bulayungan Baguilat Sr., father, retired official of the Department of Agriculture
- Felisa Aliac Brawner-Baguilat, mother, lawyer
Profession / Occupation: Community Organizer
EDUCATION:
- BA Mass Communication, Major in Journalism, University of the Philippines-Diliman
WORK EXPERIENCE:
- President, Global Consortium for Indigenous Conserved Communities Area (ICCA Consortium), President, 2020 to present
- Executive Director, ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, 2019-2021
- Chairperson, Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development
- Vice Chairman, Asian Forum of Parliamentarians for Population and Development
- Representative of the Lone District of Ifugao, House of Representatives, 2010-2019
- President, Save the Ifugao RIce Terraces Movement, 2004-2007
- Governor, Ifugao Province, 2001-2004, 2007-2010
- Mayor, Kiangan, Ifugao, 1995-2000
- Municipal Councilor of Kiangan, Ifugao, 1992-1995
- Executive Assistant to the Undersecretary, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, 1987-1991
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Public Office
In his capacity as legislator in the House of Representatives, Baguilat principally authored more than 150 bills, 34 of which were passed into law. Baguilat also filed numerous bills seeking the protection of ancestral domains and natural resources located in IP communities.
In 2014 and 2017, Baguilat and other Cordillera lawmakers sought to pass an organic act granting autonomy to the Cordillera Autonomous Region, which they claimed was the most effective way to achieve sustainable development and enjoy the use and management of local natural resources. In 2020, yet another bill was filed in support of Cordillera autonomy. Two organic acts were previously passed by Congress in 1990 and 1998 but neither was ratified in a plebiscite.
With fellow representatives in the lower chamber, Baguilat filed a number of complaints for impeachments against justices of the Supreme Court. Such complaints were dismissed by the House committee on justice.
In the lower chamber, Baguilat was part of the “Magnificent Seven”, a group of opposition lawmakers in the House, and a vocal critic of President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration’s campaign against illegal drugs. During the 17th Congress, he filed House Bill No. 61 calling for an investigation of the extrajudicial killings committed over the course of the war on illegal drugs.
In August 2016, he and other minority lawmakers filed a petition seeking a temporary restraining order with the Supreme Court to stop the burial of deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
This was a reversal for Baguilat, who previously joined 213 representatives in signing a resolution filed by the late Sorsogon Rep. Salvador Escudero III urging President Benigno Aquino III to allow a hero’s burial for Marcos. Baguilat said that he changed his mind since his neophyte times in the lower chamber, realizing that a hero’s burial would be akin to burying the Martial Law atrocities during the Marcos regime. The SC dismissed the petitions in November 18 and the burial at the LNMB proceeded on Nov. 18, 2016.
Private Sector
In between breaks in public office, Baguilat continued his advocacies in his stints as consultant to various non-governmental organizations. He sat as the president of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement from 2004 to 2007 and executive director of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights from 2019 to 2021.
Baguilat has also been the president of the Global Consortium for Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas and Territories since 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he organized Cordillera Landing on You, which facilitated the transport of farm goods and products from the Cordilleras to urban area-consumers.
HOUSE BILLS AND RESOLUTIONS:
Author:
- RA 10689: Declaring August 9 as National Indigenous Peoples Day
- RA 10929: Free Internet Access in Public Places Act
- RA 11036: National Mental Health Act
- RA 11166: Philippine HIV and AIDS Policy Act
- RA 11148: Kalusugan at Nutrisyon ng Mag-Nanay Act
- RA 11210: Expanded Maternity Leave Law
- RA 11215: Institutionalizing a National Integrated Cancer Control Act
- RA 11285: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act
- RA 11321: Sagip Saka Act
- RA 11332: Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases Act
- RA 11350: National Commission of Senior Citizens Act
Co-author:
- RA 10931: Universal access to quality tertiary education
- RA 10354: Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act
- RA 10361: Domestic Workers Act
- RA 10531: National Electrification Administration Reform Act
- RA 10536: Stiffer Penalties for Violations of Meat Inspection Code
- RA 10643: Graphic Health Warnings Act
- RA 10679: Young Entrepreneurship Act
- RA 11364: Reorganizing the Cooperative Development Authority
PLATFORM AND ADVOCACY:
- Programs to reduce maternal deaths
- Tertiary Education Assistance Program
- One Town, One Product Program
- Providing employment with the assistance of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority
- Caring for Banaue Rice Terraces
- Eco-cultural tourism programs in Ifugao
- Standing up for the rights, culture, and education of indigenous peoples
- Protecting nature
- Advancing agrarian reform
- National Land Use Planning and Management
- Agri-aqua development and organic agriculture
- Gender equality
- Treating the drug problem in a holistic way
- Dissolution of the political dynasty
- Publication of statement of assets, liabilities and net worth
Teddy Baguilat is an advocate for Ifugao, Indigenous Peoples rights, the environment and human rights and has served various elective seats in Ifugao. Hailing from the Tuwali and Gaddang tribes, Baguilat served as a municipal councilor and mayor of Kiangan, Ifugao, before becoming a two-term provincial governor and representative of the lone district of Ifugao from 2010 to 2019.
As district representative, he principally authored at least 34 laws, including the Sagip Saka Law, the 105-Day Expanded Maternity Leave Law and the Free Internet Access in Public Spaces Act.
In 2014 and 2017, Baguilat and other Cordillera lawmakers unsuccessfully sought to pass an organic act granting autonomy to the Cordillera Autonomous Region which they pushed as the most effective way to achieve sustainable development and enjoy the use and management of local natural resources.
After serving his third consecutive term as Ifugao representative, he made another gubernatorial bid in 2019 but narrowly lost.
If elected, Baguilat would be the first Indigenous Person elected to the Senate. He vows to defend the rights and ancestral domains of IPs which he said would play a key role in national development. Baguilat is also campaigning on expanded environmental protection, community-based management and preservation of natural resources, promoting the use of renewable energy sources and further protection for Filipino culture, arts and music.
He supports the legalization of divorce, shifting to a federal system and the passage of the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Expression Equality Bill. He opposes the reinstatement of the death penalty and the current administration’s bloody campaign against illegal drugs.
Baguilat has been included in the Senate slates of presidential aspirants Leody de Guzman, a labor leader, and Vice President Leni Robredo. He is also endorsed by the 1Sambayan opposition coalition.
Sino si Teddy?
A leap of faith
Teodoro “Teddy’ Brawner Baguilat Jr. is a native of Ifugao, son of a Tuwali father from Ifugao and a Gaddang mother from Nueva Vizcaya.
Although born in Manila, at the age of 13 and with encouragement from his parents, he decided to rediscover his ethnic roots and continue his studies in Ifugao. It was a leap of faith as he had no idea how different life would be in his home province. There he was exposed not only to the vast gap between urban and rural dwellers, but also to the disparity between the well off and the abjectly poor.
“I was the only one with rubber shoes in my class, and I had a notebook for each subject. My classmates had just one notebook for all their subjects,” Teddy recalls.
This realization awakened an urgency in Teddy to be of greater service to his townmates.
While in college at the University of the Philippines (UP), he actively participated in campus politics and in protest actions that urged social and political reforms.
He decided to support himself through college with several part-time work. Shortly after the EDSA Revolution, he held his first full-time job in 1987 as an executive assistant to an Undersecretary at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. This was his first foray into public service, and it reinforced an early yearning to work for the people’s welfare.
Motivated by his studies in journalism at the UP College of Mass Communication, he worked as a production assistant at GMA-Channel 7 and as a reporter and, later, editor at the Philippine News Service. These experiences instilled in Teddy the discipline to meet deadlines in the face of the news rush, and his encounters with people from all walks of life broadened his views on various issues confronting society. He likewise pursued his advocacy for the environment as an Executive Assistant for the Philippine Ecological Network.
The Call to Serve
In 1991, he again surrendered to the call of his native Ifugao as he returned to the province to put up a foundation to help students and protect the environment.
Teddy still remembered his talks with his Ifugao classmates. They observed that in Ifugao, most if not all decisions for the community were made by elders. While they respected the wisdom of their seniors, there was a yearning among the youth to participate in processes that would affect their lives.
And so it was that in 1992, Teddy ran and won as Councilor of Kiangan. At the time, Teddy, aged 25, was the youngest Councilor in the Philippines. He was next elected Mayor of Kiangan for two terms from 1995 to 2001.
In 1996 he was awarded the Dangal ng Bayan Award as one of the Civil Service Commission’s Ten Most Outstanding Civil Servants in the Philippines.
He served twice as Governor of Ifugao, first in 2001 then again in 2007. In those years, Teddy worked tirelessly and removed Ifugao from the list of poorest provinces in the country. Among his many programs, he consistently promoted education and secured scholarships for deserving Ifugao youth, instituted employment assistance for fresh graduates and skilled workers, accessed support for cooperatives to help them with enterprise development, expedited rural electrification programs and supported renewable energy projects, rehabilitated roads, and reduced maternal and infant deaths with a community-based maternal health program.
Although he lost a re-election bid in 2003, he did not rest on his laurels, choosing instead to serve in various ways, mostly as consultant to non-government organizations with advocacies on the environment, child rights, disaster resiliency, and many others. He also found time to lead the Save the Ifugao Rice Terraces Movement, an organization that aimed to preserve the rice terraces as a UNESCO World Heritage site through sustainable eco-tourism projects and education of Ifugao youth.
In 2010, Teddy won a seat in Congress as Representative of the lone district of Ifugao. This not only increased the weight of his duty to serve but also elevated his advocacies for Ifugao and other causes to a national platform.
In his three terms in Congress, he filed over 150 bills (over 40 of which passed into law) and around 50 resolutions. He actively chaired the House Committees on Agrarian Reform and on Indigenous Cultural Communities (ICC). As chairman of the ICC Committee, he not only presided over deliberations on bills affecting indigenous peoples, but he was also asked to mediate over tribal disputes. The latter was due to the respect that Teddy earned from the indigenous communities.
He consistently championed the causes of indigenous peoples, the environment, and human rights. Not only did he speak against extrajudicial killings and the death penalty, he also proposed laws in support of responsible mining, forest management, health rights, education, equality, and even free wi-fi access. He also advanced laws promoting Philippine culture such as the OPM Development bill.
After his third term in Congress, he ran for the position of Ifugao governor but lost by the slimmest of margins. Rather than take a break, the call to service proved too compelling for Teddy as he even took his advocacies to the global arena. Until 2021 he was Executive Director of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, and since 2018 he has been President of the Global Consortium for Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas and Territories.
Back in the Philippines, after learning about the plight of Cordilleran farmers and craftspeople who were unable to bring their products to market due to the COVID pandemic, Teddy organized Cordillera Landing on You (CLOY), a service which transports produce and products from the Cordilleras to consumers in urban areas. Soon, indigenous communities and farmers from other areas reached out to Teddy for help to get their products to consumers. Teddy, in his guise as “Captain Ri”, was only too eager to assist by looking for buyers in the cities.
When community pantries started spreading, Teddy saw an opportunity to help both ends of the supply chain. He employed CLOY to source produce from struggling farmers and deliver them to people in need. Indeed, most of everything that Teddy does is intended to help others.
As Teddy gets ready for his next challenge of service, he still makes sure that he does not neglect his present endeavors. He reaches out to indigenous communities every chance he gets and keeps abreast of changes in the situation of remote farmers and craftspeople. Meanwhile, the preparations are becoming increasingly grueling, but the call to serve is overwhelming.
A Lighter Side
When Teddy is not busy trying to advance his advocacies, he is still promoting those advocacies in some way.
Teddy loves to hike, trek and mountain-climb. As a native of a mountainous province, this passion is second nature. It also brings him closer to the elements he seeks to protect. “Up in the mountains, detached from technology and civilization, one can’t help but be awed by nature. Then you realize that we are destroying nature, and that has to stop,” Teddy muses.
Sure, he likes to be a couch potato sometimes and binge-watch the latest K-drama. But given the opportunity, he would much rather jog or bike outdoors. He’s also into badminton and basketball.
When he wants to detoxify, he’ll belt out karaoke tunes with friends. On these rare occasions, OPM would be at the top of his playlist. That can probably partly explain why he has filed an OPM Development Bill which not only requires more airtime for original Filipino music on radio but also charges fees against the performances of foreigners, which fees would then go to a fund for the benefit of Filipino musicians.
Although single, he is a doting fur-daddy to his two yorkies and two shih-tzus.
