Gov’t sees flaw in IPRA to speed up sale of titled ancestral lands

BAGUIO CITY—Government agencies have expressed alarm that indigenous Filipinos would start selling their ancestral lands because of a flaw in the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA, Republic Act No. 8371), which covers the disposition of the country’s ancestral lands.

Members of the Regional Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee (RLECC) discussed the matter during its session on April 2 due to concerns raised by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) and the office of the Baguio prosecutor regarding certificates of ancestral land titles (CALT) issued to Ibaloi clans that were subsequently sold.

PEZA and other government agencies feared that families holding CALTs covering lands inside the Baguio City Economic Zone or the John Hay Special Economic Zone would sell their properties, disrupting the nature of these government reservations, RLECC records showed.

RA 8371 restricts indigenous Filipinos from selling titled ancestral lands except to clan members or members of the tribal community.

Section 8 (a) of RA 8371 states that an indigenous Filipino has the right to transfer land or property rights “to or among members of the same indigenous cultural community (ICC) or indigenous peoples (IP), subject to customary laws and traditions of the community concerned.”

But Baguio Prosecutor Elmer Sagsago said a former Abra official now owns a piece of ancestral land here despite safeguards set by the IPRA.

Sagsago said the former official is not a member of the Ibaloi clan and would not have been allowed to buy a portion of the Ikang Paus ancestral land at the government-run Dairy Farm, which was titled by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

Disputed property

RLECC members were informed that the disputed Dairy Farm property has been recorded by the Register of Deeds, although another Ibaloi clan, from the family line of leader Mateo Cariño, has challenged the Ikang Paus CALT before the NCIP.

Lawyer John Ray Libiran, the NCIP Cordillera legal officer, said ancestral lands are inherently private assets, which could be exploited or sold according to the whims of its owner, unlike certificates of ancestral domain titles (CADT), which cover vast community-owned lands that “belong to all generations and therefore cannot be sold, disposed or destroyed.”

Libiran, who attended the RLECC session, said IPRA was a curative law, which Congress shaped to accommodate the fact that public lands were already inhabited by indigenous Filipinos long before a national government was set up to control and regulate land use.

Restrictions

Restricting ancestral land sale to family or tribal members was supposed to honor the nature of these properties, Libiran said.

But Section 8 (b) of the law appeared to allow the sale of ancestral lands to a third party other than the indigenous Filipino inhabitants of the community, he told RLECC members.

This provision recognizes an indigenous Filipino’s “right to redemption” of sold properties.

It states: “In cases where it is shown that the transfer of land/property rights by virtue of any agreement or devise, to a nonmember of the concerned ICCs/IPs is tainted by the vitiated consent of the ICCs/IPs, or is transferred for an unconscionable consideration or price, the transferor ICC/IP shall have the right to redeem the same within a period not exceeding 15 years from the date of transfer.”

Libiran said what this provision implies is that if the retail price was proper and there was no reason to redeem the sale of ancestral lands, then the sale to a third party is allowed by RA 8371.

He said this flaw was discussed recently by the House committee on indigenous cultural communities because its chairman, Ifugao Representative Teodoro Baguilat Jr., was alarmed by a government report that a joint venture project between a real estate developer and a CALT owner in Barangay Irisan here was allowed to sell ancestral lands converted into subdivision lots by the National Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board.

Libiran said government agencies have asked the Office of the Solicitor General to pursue the nullification of six ancestral land titles issued in Baguio City.