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Indigenous land ownership, use among the i-Lamag

QUIRINO, Ilocos Sur (Feb. 10) — Land ownership among the indigenous peoples (IPs) of Lamag in this town is central to their lives. Their practice of indigenous systems of land ownership and resource use, still dominant despite the threat from state laws and policies, caters to the collective needs and interest of the village.

Land ownership here, based on customary laws, are either communal, clan, or family-owned.

Communally-owned land, or lands owned by the villagers (umili), includes those utilized by the whole village. It is collectively owned by the umili and thus cannot be declared and owned privately by individuals. It includes forests, rivers and other bodies of water; hunting grounds, pasture lands, sacred grounds where rituals are usually performed, and burial grounds.

The villagers utilize and protect these resources from over-utilization and destruction. Resource use is subjected to traditional norms administered by the elders (amam-a) through the dap-ay, an indigenous socio-political institution. Violation of community norms merits an equivalent sanction aimed at reforming.

Clan owned-lands includes pasture lands, lacub (clan forests), and uma (swidden farms). A group of family members from one common ancestor own these kinds of lands.

Lands developed through individual labor are those individually-owned. These include the pagbaeyan (residential lots), payew (ricefields), individual uma.

Lamag elders Lakay Bastian Silot, his brother Lakay Agustin, Lakay Damaso, and Lakay Degay said that the villagers as the owners of the communal land are bound by duty to defend it from encroachers. It is from this concept that the villagers defended their land against the exploitation of Marcos crony Herminio Disini who owned Cellophil Resources Company in the 1970s.

Clan-owned lands could be inherited by family members. Its disposal and utilization of the resources therein require the consent of the recognized clan elders.

Individually-owned lands can be disposed through inheritance, sale, and to some extent as payment to a victim of a crime committed by a family member. Sale takes place only in extraordinary cases, such as hospitalization payment, and is offered first to the nearest relatives before other people in the community. The sale is not absolute since the owner can reacquire it if his economic capacity improves, the elders said.

The indigenous concepts of utilization, claimed the elders, are adjusted with changing situations.

Traditionally, any member of the community can go fishing in the Balas-iyan River using fishnets or pinek (fish gun). Done during the lull in field labor, they catch eels (dalit), paltat (catfish), among others. Villagers build fish ponds (lapat) along the river. There are fishponds owned by families, organizations, and the whole village. Each lapat is at least 20 meters long with 10,000 to 20,000 thousand fingerlings of tilapia. Fines are imposed to persons who fish in other villager’s lapat.

The tilapia produced supply the needs of the community during the dry season. Visitors, like us, were invited to the river where we fished in the community pond. They claimed that this system has saved them from expenses when the community has visitors.

Elders however say that these resources are threatened since some individuals in the community tried to title some parts of the communally-owned lands. This was opposed by their village mates.
Presently, local and foreign mining corporations are eyeing the exploitation of the minerals located in their lands. In fact, mining applications, including the Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) are among those that threaten their area. The applications are traceable to the state policy under the Regalian Doctrine, backed up by the Revised Forestry Code and the Mining Act, stating that all the resources belonged to state. The state system denies IPs of their ancestral land rights. But IPs continue to assert their ancestral heritage as owners of the land and resources. Like their ancestors who defended their ancestral lands from encroachment, they are ready to continue this noble legacy for their children, ended the elders. # Elaine Batnag

[The author is a third year student taking up Bachelor of Arts in Legal and Indigenous Studies (ABLIS) at the Easter College, Baguio City]

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