Ibaloy clans seek help to protest ancestral lands

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Ibaloy clans here have asked fellow indigenous peoples (IP) to help protect their ancestral landholdings following a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the city’s exemption from ancestral land titling.

During an assembly at the Ibaloy Gardens in Burnham Park here on Dec. 20, the clans asked the IP communities to rally behind them against the decision which, they said, “expressly excludes the city of Baguio from the application of the general provisions of the Ipra (Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997, or Republic Act No. 8371).

The decision, issued by the court’s Second Division on Sept. 25, nullified 28 certificates of ancestral land title (CALT) and their derivative titles benefiting three Ibaloy clans by citing Section 78 of the law that protects and enforces indigenous peoples’ rights.

This section says that the Baguio ancestral lands are to be honored by the government provided these were landholdings recognized by the American colonial government, which designed and built the summer capital at the start of the 20th century.

‘Native title’ doctrine

Otherwise, proprietary land rights are to be governed by the city’s 1909 charter, it says.

The Ibaloy clans have slammed the decision because Baguio is the subject of the “native title” doctrine, which is the foundation for Ipra and the indigenous rights provisions of the 1987 Constitution.

Also called the “Cariño doctrine,” it was the 1909 landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court, which legitimized the rights of Ibaloy herdsman Mateo Cariño over Baguio lands that became Camp John Hay.

Judith Maranes, one of the clan elders representing the Molintas family, said the court ruling affects all IP tribes because it “denies the rights of IP communities whose dwellings and existence are in reservations.”

This is because some of the CALT voided by the court included land claims inside Wright Park, a forest reserve and a wooded property within the compound of the presidential Mansion.

Disenfranchise

A statement released by the clans shortly after the meeting described the decision as evidence that the government “continued to disenfranchise [IPs] of our claims,” and had violated their right to equal protection by the state.

“We feel that the tribunal’s decision … has denied our very existence and has entirely undermined the significant provisions of Ipra,” they said.—Reports from Vincent Cabreza and Valerie Damian