Former CPLA men securing Ibaloy land claimants–PNP

BAGUIO CITY—Members of the defunct militia of slain rebel priest Conrado Balweg have been serving as security aides for some Ibaloy families who hold titles to their ancestral lands in Baguio City, a top Philippine National Police official said on Monday.

Chief Superintendent Benjamin Magalong, national director of the PNP Criminal Detection and Investigation Group (CIDG), said supposed members of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA) were protecting ancestral land claims at Baguio Dairy Farm and Suello Village along Marcos Highway and a property along Kennon Road.

The CIDG report was sent to the city government on Feb. 5, following a discussion between Magalong, Vice Mayor Daniel Fariñas and Councilor Elmer Datuin about certificates of ancestral land title (CALTs) that encroached into government reservations in the city.

The CALT controversy in Baguio has drawn national attention because the titles make some Ibaloy families the owners of a portion of the presidential Mansion compound, sections of Wright Park and the century-old Casa Vallejo, the city’s oldest hotel.

The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is tasked by Republic Act No. 8371, or the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997, with issuing CALTs as well as certificates of ancestral domain title.

Prominent Ibaloy families had acknowledged in past forums that some of the ancestral land claims, which the NCIP had legitimized with titles, were spurious.

In a text message, Magalong said no charges had been considered against the former CPLA members because police had yet to establish whether the militiamen were armed as security personnel for the claimants.

A former mayor in Abra province who once led the militia was implicated in the CIDG report but Magalong said the former official denied taking part in any wrongdoing.

The CPLA had ceased to exist when the militia submitted itself to a June 4, 2011, closure agreement to complete the peace negotiations that began with the 1987 “sipat” (cessation of hostilities) between Balweg and the late President Corazon Aquino.

The agreement allowed eligible members of the militia to become soldiers or forest guards, and obliged the government to pour livelihood projects into Cordillera communities where former CPLA members live.

In exchange, the CPLA took part in a process of disarmament. The group was transformed into the Cordillera Forum for Peace and Development, a nongovernment organization seeking to facilitate socioeconomic programs in the Cordillera region.

“So, no CPLA member is now authorized to roam around with weapons and if police catch them, they suffer the consequences,” said Mayor Gabino Ganggangan of Sadanga town in Mt. Province, one of Balweg’s former aides and secretary-general of the CPLA’s political arm, Cordillera Bodong Administration.

Ganggangan helped negotiate the last stage of the peace talks that culminated in the 2011 closure agreement.

He said the agreement did not shield CPLA members from criminal prosecution.

Shortly after the document was signed, Ganggangan told the Inquirer that he pursued the negotiations to clean up the group’s image because it had been associated with squatting in Baguio.

Amador Batay-an, NCIP Cordillera director, said rumors that former CPLA members had offered themselves as bodyguards to ancestral land claimants had been circulating for years but the agency had not received any formal complaint until the CIDG report this month.

However, Batay-an said the issue was a law enforcement matter.