No reason to delay relocation of victims

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet—Government agencies tasked with relocating a Benguet community from a disaster zone four years ago said there were no records of ancestral land claims over a resettlement site designated by Malacañang.

Agencies like the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) believed the La Trinidad government had no reason to suspend the relocation of residents of Little Kibungan in Barangay (village) Puguis, who continue to live near a landslide area that killed 77 people in 2009.

Clarence Baguilat, DENR Cordillera executive director, said the local government should proceed with the resettlement of the survivors, who have rebuilt their homes on unstable lands.

Many of the fatalities were sleeping when rain from Typhoon “Pepeng” weakened a section of a nearby mountain that crashed into their homes.

Benguet State University (BSU) donated about 3 hectares of the campus’ reservation in Barangay Tawang here as a resettlement site.

The La Trinidad municipal social welfare and development office reserved 184 home lots for the victims, among them 115 families who live in the danger zone.

But town officials said their predecessors were forced to suspend the relocation because the Tawang lot, proclaimed a relocation site by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was being claimed by local clans.

The same officials, however, could not provide the identities of these claimants.

Lawyer Severino Lumiqued, Benguet legal officer of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, said his office had no record of any ancestral land title issued over the Tawang relocation site.

“We completed the staff work for the presidential proclamation. If there were valid land claims at the time, we would have delineated and excluded them from the proclamation,” Baguilat said.

He said the Mines and Geosciences Bureau recommended the area, as it was the most stable among the suggested areas at that time.

Feliciano de los Santos, director of the BSU land reservation division, said the university segregated the reservation’s Phase 1 and Phase 2, which were transferred to the La Trinidad government immediately after Arroyo issued the Tawang proclamation in 2010.

Baguilat said then mayor Artemio Galwan formed a committee to oversee the proclamation and development of the relocation site.

The resettlement also entitled the victims to government subsidies that were never handed out.

Irene Tagtag, municipal social work officer, said her office requested for funds to help the Little Kibungan survivors build houses in Tawang.

Tagtag said the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) immediately released the funds for a hundred families.

But the La Trinidad government was unable to release the money because of  relocation delays, she said. “We can only give the housing assistance if the beneficiaries are ready to build their houses,” she said.

Janet Armas, DSWD Cordillera assistant director, said they used the money  for Pepeng victims in  Kalinga  province.  Kimberlie Quitasol, Inquirer Northern Luzon