PARK ACTIVITY BurnhamPark in Baguio City is one of the country’s most popular destinations, with many visitors taking boat rides in the park’s man-made lake, like this family in this 2021 photo.
The Baguio government will soon turn over its title over sections of Burnham Park to a national tourism agency. —EV ESPIRITU
BAGUIO CITY — Hoping to smoothen its relationship with the national government, Baguio has begun the process of transferring the controversial land title it secured over a third of Burnham Park to a tourism agency, a city official said on Wednesday.
City Administrator Bonifacio dela Peña disclosed the outcome of a meeting in May between Mayor Benjamin Magalong and Mark Lapid, chief operating officer of the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza), following a backlash over Baguio’s decision to secure a title over the century-old park’s most visited spots like its man-made lake.
The historic park was named after Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, who designed Baguio City for the American colonial government.
The city government acquired ownership over 18.2 hectares of Burnham Park on March 3 to preserve parts of this popular destination, which were outside Original Certificate of Title (OCT) No. 1, the country’s first land title.
As the only remaining townsite in the country, all Baguio lands are alienable unless segregated by law, presidential decree, or through land patents such as OCT 1.
Baguio was granted OCT No. 2023000017 by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources over what is described as Burnham Lot 1, which is comprised of the 3-ha lake, the Baguio Orchidarium, the children’s playground, the Rose Garden, the Melvin Jones Grandstand and its football field.
Lot 1 also includes the picnic grove, the skating rink, the stretch of the park dedicated to children’s bicycles, the Igorot Park and the Ibaloy Heritage Garden, which are components of the 33-ha Burnham Park Reservation, which was set aside in 1925 “for park purposes” through Proclamation No. 64.
Burnham Lot 1 was among a growing list of townsite properties that have been identified for city needs and that require titles. Wright Park was almost acquired by a private claimant because of an ancestral land title that was nullified in 2019 by the Supreme Court.
Legality questioned
But Councilors Elmer Datuin and Mylen Yaranon questioned the legality of owning Burnham Park, which is under the supervision of the Department of Tourism like all parks in the country.
The city government has been granted full administrative control over Burnham Park through a series of executive orders issued by the late former President Fidel V. Ramos and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now a representative of Pampanga.
But according to Ramos’ Executive Order No. 224, which he signed in 1995, the Baguio government may not “encumber, mortgage or alienate (sell) any portion of the park.”
Dela Peña said the city government acknowledged that OCT No. 2023000017 should belong to Tieza, the successor to the Philippine Tourism Authority, which controlled the nation’s parks.
Magalong had expressed to Lapid that “titling Burnham Park was done in good faith and not out of malice,” Dela Peña said.
Tieza had pledged to finance the rehabilitation of Burnham Park in 2019, through a P400-million grant that was realigned to combat COVID-19 when the pandemic broke out in 2020.
When asked, Dela Peña stressed that Tieza’s Burnham Park commitment had not been a factor in Magalong’s decision to transfer the city’s new title to the agency.
“In fact, Tieza increased its pledge to P600 million,” he said, which could be available next year.