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Baguio Dairy Farm demolition illustrates Baguio land scam

BAGUIO CITY (July 22) — The recently concluded demolition of some 30 houses and shanties at the Baguio Dairy Farm here should be a warning to those wanting to buy lands from land speculators, an Ibaloy who requested anonymity told NORDIS in an interview.

The City demolition team carried out Demolition orders 16 and 17 issued in 2003 by then Mayor Bernardo Vergara based on the complaints filed by the Baguio Dairy Farm. The three-day dismantling operations on July 19, 20, and 21 affected the heirs of Ikang Paus, who are Ibaloys from Tuba town in Benguet, and some other families who reportedly bought from the Paus heirs parcels of land on which they built their dwellings. Still a few have their own claims to boost.

Regional Director Atty. Cipriano Santiago of the Department of Agriculture (DA), which manages the dairy farm, said that except for four structures which are now the subject of court cases, all structures have been demolished. The four structures left are covered by a writ of injunction issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) in 2003 and upheld by the Court of Appeals in the same year.

The NORDIS source said the people who represented the Ikang Paus heirs sold the lots, showing a photocopy of Original Certificate of Title (OCT) # 13 reportedly issued by the US government in the name of Ikang Paus.

“But these turned out to be fake and as a result, the structures had to be dismantled. They got millions from unsuspecting lot buyers,” the NORDIS source said.

Baguio Mayor Braulio D. Yaranon, meanwhile hailed the demolition saying, this has been long overdue and this is in line with the city’s resolve to protect its watersheds and reservations from incursions.

The NCIP issued in 2003 a temporary restraining order and injunction to two Ibaloy clans, one of which is the Paus clan, which delayed the dismantling of structures. This encouraged more land speculators to sell more lots to the public.

The DA ruled that NCIP has no jurisdiction over the case because it said, the case did not involve the implementation of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act.

Institutionalized land scam

An organization of the urban poor in Baguio, Ornus dagiti Nakurapay nga Umili ti Syudad (ORNUS-KADAMAY) said in a statement sent to city hall that those who make business and profit from public lands exploit laws and government issuances such as the Town site Sales Application (TSA). This concept of land ownership, it said, turns the land into a commodity.

“On the basis of such land laws, wealthy and powerful people arrogantly claim ownership of the land by showing a piece of paper known as land titles,” the ORNUS-KADAMAY statement said.

Ignacio Pangket, ORNUS-KADAMAY spokesperson said that “the government itself is the biggest land speculator. Through privatization of large tracts of land in the public domain, parcels of lands that originally belonged to the original inhabitants are being sold to moneyed individuals and corporations.”

In Baguio City, Pangket said, the land scam even involves high ranking government officials, who have made the land privatization scheme a milking cow.

Worse, government financial institutions are even providing funds for the housing projects that are in fact, commercialized. The low-cost housing project of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, for instance, is commercialized that various urban poor groups call it “negosyong pabahay”, Pangket added.

ORNUS-KADAMAY revealed “these are but a part of the Community Mortgage Program, a divisive scheme that undermines the right of residents who have developed and are in actual possession of the land to own the land. In fact, it reduces them as mere buyers or lessees of the lands they have occupied and developed. The CMP further pushes the urban poor to the state of indebtedness due to the inability to pay the monthly amortization. Under this scheme, the community of urban poor is divided between those who are capable of paying and those who cannot pay for the land.”

Several other communities in the city are in fear of being demolished.

Irisan Lime Kiln: a case of overlapping claims

Meanwhile, on Monday, a resident of the Irisan Lime Kiln area in Lower Irisan appeared before the Citizens’ Forum of the city council and asked for city hall’s intervention to what he called a land occupation by an armed group led by a certain Col. Alejandro Layagan.

It turned out that Irisan Brgy. Capt Bernardo Calatan granted a permit to fence a property at Lot 3 to Teresita Luna representing Elsie Pucay Kiwas. The NCIP reportedly issued a Certificate to Introduce Improvements for the said property, which reportedly overlapped with an approved relocation also at Lot 3.

According to a city hall insider, Irisan Kiln is intended for a housing complex, which includes a satellite market on Lot 1, a city employees’ housing project on Lot 2, housing needs for Baguio residents on Lot 3 and a high school compound for Lot 4.

At present, the area is already home to several families who have improved the area as housing, farm lot for camote and sayote, and for other domestic purposes.

Irisan People’s Action against Demolition and Good Governance (IPADeGG) who led the lobby at the city council said in a position paper that there are yet two groups of claimants at the same area. One is the Irisan Lime Kiln Retirees, Descendants’ Association, which is composed of former employees of the lime mine, and the other is the Chinacop Hill Neighborhood Association, made up of its former supervisors. Both have applied for lots in the relocation site and now question the processes by which these are handled by the DENR.

ORNUS-KADAMAY asked the city to declare all lands occupied by informal settlers as residential lands and award these to actual occupants. It also demanded the stop demolition of urban poor houses, among others. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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