From Under This Hat: No mining inside Baguio City

3 MIN READ

By KATHLEEN T. OKUBO
www.nordis.net

Karyas, One name, Igorote was said to have been a survivor of the Tonglo massacre in Southern Benguet during the war of the native people here to defend their territories against the Spanish colonizers. It is said that he lost six brothers in that punitive raid by the soldiers of the Spanish Crown reinforced by ‘indios’ conscripted from the Spanish conquered lowland areas.

Researches say that the once-upon-a-time Ibaloy community was a gathering area of the Benguet natives’ trading trains on their way to the lowlands to barter their farm produce, cattle and gold for salt, iron tools, trinkets, cloth, etc. William Henry Scott’s documentation described it was a village of some three hundred huts that was burned down to the ground by the invading colonizer.

The story says Karyas escaped with a number of the survivors and took with him the children of his brothers who were killed fighting in the defense of the community, and brought them to his “estancias” which spanned areas in Tuba, in Itogon and north eastern Pangasinan.

Karyas’ ancestral lands identified by old Spanish documents included parts of the present day Loakan, Happy hallow, Demonstration mines and Gumatdang. By way of traditional inheritance practices most of the properties were passed on or charged to Tagley Soley, his oldest son.

In his lifetime, Tagley has tried to keep the ancestral domain of his honored father and chieftain under the transition of the Spanish colonial rule to the American colonial rule. It is history that almost all of these lands were taken away from him by the colonial government to privatize and to build their colonial centers and occupation.

Aside from his children, he also supported the schooling of many of his nieces and nephews, especially one who worked by his side to read and write and document his legal fight to defend the ancestral lands until he passed away.

One of the documents kept was a petition submitted to the local American government that Tagley and this nephew authored. It carried signatures and thumbmarks of his fellow Ibaloy elders in his community and neighboring districts. It was against mining in Loakan which then included the vicinities of Happy Hallow, Kias, upper Kennon road, etc. I imagine he could have declared, No to mining! Before Mayor Halsema and the American chief of Police at that time whose respect he has gained.

Both nephew and the oldman with other elders from neighboring communities in Tuba and Baguio put their mark on this petition and lobbied until Malacanang that no mining activities be allowed in the ancestral domain because it will destroy their farms, mines, pasturelands and community life. He was said to have been so strongly passionate about this fight to defend their ancestral lands and the ancestral domains of his people against the take over of that new government then.

The stories, the legacy and fervor of his hard struggle still remain in the memories and hearts of some of his descendants today – grand and great children. They are so few of them now, as few as what remains of the ancestral lands still in the hands of the descendants of the original settlers of Baguio.

Baguio used to have an ordinance against mining inside the City boundaries, this was pushed by Tagley’s right hand man and nephew in his old age. At one time this ordinance was part of preventing a mine company named Chico mining from digging in Loakan in the ‘60s. I wonder what happened to that local law today in the light of all the unregulated diggings and dog-tunnels in the areas of both ends of the Loakan airport that is inside the city boundary.

With Loakan almost parched and dried from the loss of its river and sweet water springs of old, I believe a stop and prevention of all mining activities now, especially in this mountain district until down to Itogon, is long over due.

Instead, the revitalization, preservation and maintenance of the watersheds here must be instensified. The conversion of areas into housing subdivisons must be strictly regulated as well as the expansion of the economic zone that is sitting on a large natural water reserve (besides pulling a large volume of Baguio’s piped water).

There ought to be a forever law against mining in the City’s ancestral domain. # nordis.net