Baguio urban poor-LGU demolition talks on

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BAGUIO CITY (Jan. 10) — More than a hundred residents who trooped to the city hall here and appealed that acting Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. recall the demolition notice he issued on January 2 for the demolition of some 16 houses in Cypress Point Subdivision resolved to return next week anticipating a resolution when the city sits with them and representatives of different government line agencies.

URBAN POOR PRESSURE. Baguio City’s acting Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. appeared pressured by a throng of urban poor community representatives who vowed not to allow a single structure to be torn down in te city’s blighted areas like Irisan. Bautista yielded to a meeting on January 16 where all stakeholders are enjoined to shed light on the land issues at Cypress Point. Photo by Lyn V. Ramo/NORDIS

The meeting to investigate the land issue was set on January 16 with City Administrator Peter Fianza assuring the residents that no demolition would take place until the issues are investigated and carefully studied by concerned agencies and officials. Bautista’s order set the demolition for January 30 to February 2.

Aside from affected Cypress residents, other informal settlers in the city chided Bautista for issuing the demolition advice despite an administrative order setting aside an earlier demolition order Bautista issued on October 13. Acting Vice-mayor Leandro Yangot Jr. ordered a 90-day no demolition for Cypress Point when he assumed the mayoralty seat in December.

Yangot, who appeared before the urban poor rally at the stairs in front of the city hall, said the city council would sit down with Bautista to thresh out where the orders did not meet. He added that the city council should ask the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to issue a clear position on the contested land titles in Cypress Point.

City intervention on the Irisan land problems could not be ascertained until the Task Force Irisan shall have met to study the issues, according to Councilor Faustino Olowan, council committee chair for urban planning, lands, and housing . Mayor Braulio D. Yaranon created TF Irisan through AO 76-2006 but Yangot reconstituted it in December to include more urban poor representatives. TF Irisan will meet on January 17.

Urban poor demands

Naty Elke, 65, a Cypress Point resident, said she could not allow another demolition of urban poor shanties. She witnessed the 2003 demolition in Cypress and said she could not help but pity little children left in the rain without food because their parents were busy attending to the demolition.

Elke said she was even outraged to see members of the demolition team laughing at the residents whose houses were torn down.

“Manangaasi kayo kadi?” she asks city officials.

Three other women held the trembling Elke to her post as she addressed city officials invoking for compassion to the urban poor. Elke hails from Bontoc, Mountain Province but her family settled in Irisan in 1983 in search for better livelihood sources in the city.

Urban poor community leader Salvador Armando Ramo, chairperson of the Irisan Peoples Action against Demolition and for Good Governance (IPADEGG) told Bautista that the urban poor want a status quo until the status of lands in Irisan have been determined and finalized and that demolition of houses be held back. He said the city’s urban poor want the lands to be awarded to actual occupants, owing to the outdated land classification in most of the city’s forest lands that are now occupied by settlers. Ramo sits with other urban poor leaders in the TF Irisan.

IPADEGG claims a membership of at least seven organizations with an estimated 3,000 member families, or about one half of total Irisan household population of 6,000 families, with around 30,000 people. One of the biggest barangays, Irisan boasts of a 10,000 voting population.

Discrediting land claimants

“Immay kami’dtoy a nangregregreg ti dagdaga a kabatbatuan,” (We came to dismantle rocky lands) a middle-aged male rallyist told city officials, adding that as poor farmers in the Cordillera interiors, they did not come to get the lands titled to other people. “Saan mi a tinakaw dagiti paggigyananmi kadagiti agtagtagikua ti titulo,” he said.

Another woman named Rosario, 75, questioned the identity of Peter Santos, the alleged claimant representing Asia Pine Hills Development Corporation, the company collecting equity from Irisan residents. This allegation confirms the position paper of Bangon Cypress, another group of residents, which claims that the signatures of one Peter S.L. Santos, who also responds to the name Peter Sy, are not consistent with the signatures of the Peter Santos representing Asia Pine.

Esther Kitongan, Bangon secretary said people appear ready to pay for the lands they occupy but they are apprehensive of the land claimants who come and go after collecting money from unsuspecting land occupants.

Bangon asked the city government through then acting mayor Yangot to look into the anomalies in the implementation of the community mortgage program (CMP) in Cypress Point. In a position paper, Bangon alleges that then mayor Cong. Mauricio Domogan was authorized by the city in 2000 to negotiate with Peter Santos for a socialized housing project in Irisan. The lots negotiated by Domogan with Santos, turned out occupied and developed by several urban poor families.

When the National Housing Authority dipped its hands on the land issue, it enticed the people into the CMP scheme, which eventually convinced the people into paying equity over the property.

The urban poor alliance Ornus (Organisasyon dagiti Nakurapay nga Umili ti Syudad) has consistently despised CMP as anti-poor. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS