John Hay, ecozone ancestral lands being sold

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—Titled ancestral lands inside the reservations of Camp John Hay and the Baguio City Economic Zone (BCEZ) are being sold indiscriminately, a matter that now requires congressional oversight, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said in a position paper sent to Congress.

Paquito Moreno, DENR Cordillera director, said there is insufficient penal provisions in Republic Act No. 8371 (the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997) to stop the sale of Certificates of Ancestral Land Title (CALT) issued in Baguio City.

“Currently … the ancestral lands covering the BCEZ and the John Hay Special Economic Zone (JHSEZ) are being sold by families holding CALT, disrupting the nature of these government reservations,” Moreno said.

“We understand that Ipra was a curative law Congress shaped to [address] the fact that public lands were already inhabited by indigenous Filipinos.”

But the Ipra, he said, states that existing property rights must also be respected.

Moreno submitted the paper to support House Resolution No. 419, authored by Baguio Rep. Nicasio Aliping Jr., which seeks a congressional inquiry into the unregulated sale of CALT, which deviates from indigenous property concepts for which the titles were issued.

Moreno, however, did not identify the CALT inside BCEZ and JHSEZ that have been sold.

But he asked Congress to look into an Ipra loophole that allows the sale of CALT to a nontribal member.

Section 8(a) of Ipra states that transfer of property rights granted by the CALT holder is allowed only when the transaction involves family members or tribal members, Moreno said.

But he told Congress that Section 8(b) implies that CALT may also be transferred to nontribal members because it provides the original CALT holder up to 15 days to redeem the property if the sale is “tainted by the vitiated consent of the indigenous cultural community or the indigenous Filipino, or is transferred for an unconscionable consideration or price.”

Moreno also urged Congress to consider a measure or an amendment to Ipra, which would create a separate land registration system for CALT and Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), so titled ancestral lands would not be considered common private property.

DENR was tasked with documenting and validating Baguio ancestral land claims before Ipra was passed in 1997. The processed land claims were turned over to the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), the agency that enforces Ipra, and which issues CALT and CADT for communal lands that sometimes encompass a whole town.

But the agency recently called NCIP to task for what it described as anomalous CALT issuance, one of which encroached into a park and the presidential Mansion’s reservation.

DENR also assailed NCIP after its adjudication office granted a CALT holder a writ of possession over the Casa Vallejo, the city’s oldest hotel which is administered by the DENR’s Natural Resources Development Corp. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon