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Are we celebrating Baguio Day?

During the American colonial period, Kafagway, the Ibaloi term for Baguio City then, was a rest and recreation area for the American soldiers. On September 1, 1909, the American colonialists adopted a charter which created Baguio City , which then an area of only 49 square kilometers. The Americans under the said charter instituted their interest in the area. In fact, even the development plan for the city was based on the American interests.

Among the introductions the Americans did in the city was the introduction of a perfectly new concept of land ownership which was proven only through a piece of paper called the Torrens Title.

Introduced too was the town site reservations for government, military and institutional reservations. For the alienable and disposable lands, meaning lands that are capable for private ownership, they had the town site sales applications (TSA).

Under the TSA, the alienable lands can be sold to any private person through the process of public bidding. Any interested party may bid for such land and the land can be awarded to him or her provided he/she was the highest bidder.

The TSA then was considered an institutionalized denial of the indigenous Ibalois’ right over their ancestral land. Since land ownership could be achieved through the TSA, only the moneyed individuals could acquire lands. Ancestral lands had been slowly sold under this system. In short, TSA institutionalized land grabbing by the government against the Ibalois, whose ancestors nurtured it long before the Americans came.

In 1997, the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act or RA 8371 was passed by Philippine congress. With its title alone, one might believed that it recognizes indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral lands. In the City of Baguio, one might believe that it will correct the historical injustice of denying the Ibalois over their ancestral lands.

Scrutinizing the ancestral land provisions of the IPRA on ancestral land, the law provides that it will recognize ancestral land claims done under any governmental processes, particularly the DENR, prior to the effectivity of the law in November 1997. What happened to the ancestral land claims where the claimants failed to undergo the governmental processes? Can they still claim it as ancestral land? After the effectivity of the law, they can claim it but no longer under the ancestral land concept. It will be under the TSA. However, it was an ancestral land? Yes, but the IPRA law says so. Nevertheless, they can process their rights under the TSA but no longer under the ancestral land concept. In short, they must buy their lands from the government. Why do those who originally owned the land still have to buy it to own it now?

Even the IPRA has a weakness in correcting the institutionalized historical injustice against the Ibalois over their ancestral lands. Unless and until the TSA concept should have been overhauled, the alienable lands of Baguio are for sale in favor of the moneyed few.

We elected congressional representative to congress but they come and go without introducing substantial recognition of the lands rights in Baguio.

The land problem will also remain scarce of injustices for the Ibaloi people who until now are clamoring for their ancestral lands. The urban poor dream of owning lands in the city that they actually occupied will remain a dream. What is there then to celebrate on Baguio’s Charter Day? #

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