Hold Your Horses DOT, The Cordillera Region Ain't Autonomous Yet

First of all, a shoutout to fellow Redditor kenroubii for bringing this to our attention. The official website of the Department of Tourism's It's More Fun in the Philippines campaign is referring to CAR as the Cordillera Autonomous Region instead of the Cordillera Administrative Region. Below is a screenshot.

It's most likely that this is an honest mistake. After all, we are in the "autocorrect generation". However, since the website has been up for quite some time, we have the feeling that the error has been around for just as long and the administrators of the website never bothered to fix it. Or maybe, they just have the impression that "autonomous" is the correct term. Or maybe, they think that the two terms mean the same thing.

Anyway, there's a huge difference between the two terms. And it should've been corrected by now. This region hasn't attained autonomy yet and by the looks of it, it might never do. Well, here's to hoping that somebody who works in the DOT or knows of someone who does sees this and do something about it.

There Were 169 Reported Rape Cases In The Cordillera Region Last Year

Data of rape cases in the country last year by the Philippine National Police: Women and Children Protection Center (PNP: WCPC) indicate that there were 169 reported rape cases in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). Take note that this number refers only to reported cases. It doesn't include cases that the agency weren't aware off.

A special report by journalist Agatha Guidaben for GMA 7 plotted national data from the WCPC in a simplified table and infographic which you can see below. As the infographic shows, the Cordillera region is among those with the least reported cases with 169 cases. Region IV has the largest tally with 833 cases.

It can be very misleading if you are to only look at the numbers. It doesn't matter how accurate the numbers and tallies are. I'm trying to make this point because someone on Facebook came up with a comment which basically celebrates his viewpoint that based on the data, Cordillerans have moral ascendancy over other people in the country. 

For one, the Cordillera region is among the least populated regions in the country. It would be unfair to compare the data, say of the Cordillera region against the data for NCR basing on the two region's populations alone. The numbers should be analyzed on a regional basis or provincial basis. In fact, rape cases in Benguet has been on the rise on the first half of this year. So there.

Infographic by GMA News.