Claimants won’t allow Atis to settle in Boracay

BORACAY ISLAND—Members of the Ati community who were awarded land by the government five months ago on Boracay Island, the country’s top tourist destination, could still not occupy the property due to the resistance of claimants.

The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is still hearing a petition for injunction filed by the Ati people in May to acquire possession of a 2.1-hectare lot in Barangay Manoc-Manoc at the northern end of the 1,032-hectare island.

“We hope to resolve the petition soon so that the Ati community will have peace of mind and transfer to their permanent home,” Dionesia Banua, NCIP commissioner for Island Group and the Visayas, told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Monday.

The NCIP had awarded a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) in the name of the Boracay Ati Tribal Organization (Bato) on Jan. 21 for the property. The beachfront land will be the new home to 40 Ati families, or around 200 tribe members.

On Aug. 3 last year, the agency issued CADT RO6-MAL-0610-157 for the Ati community. The title was registered with the Land Registration Agency in November last year.

But Banua said property claimants Gregorio Sanson, Ulysses Vanico and heirs of Lucas Gelito had been resisting the awarding of the CADT.

The claimants have erected houses and fences around the disputed lot and even displayed a billboard prohibiting entry to the lot.

The NCIP and anthropological studies have backed up claims that the Atis were the earliest settlers on the island, but were displaced and driven away, especially starting in the 1970s when the beauty of the island became known and attracted tourists.

The Ati families have been living in a one-hectare lot in Sitio Bulabog in Barangay Balabag.

Despite being the earliest inhabitants of Boracay, the Atis have been continuously threatened with eviction from Balabag, one of the three villages of the island-resort.

The tribe had received several promises for a permanent relocation site, including those given by then Presidents Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but none materialized.

On Feb. 23, 2000, the tribe applied for a CADT before the NCIP to prevent their ejection. They reiterated their application in a petition filed in 2003.

Banua said there was a clear basis for the CADT awarding by the NCIP, but the commission must observe due process in the turnover of possession of the property.

Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat, chair of the House committee on national cultural communities, said he would ask concerned national agencies to ensure that the CADT was implemented, including assurance of the safety and security of the Ati tribe.