Baguio case highlights row on ancestral land claims

THE CENTURY-OLD Mansion House in Baguio City has been the summer home for many presidents. But a section of its reservation was recently titled to an Ibaloi family by a government agency, portions of which were sold to Baguio families who are now unable to develop the disputed lots. EV ESPIRITU/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

BAGUIO CITY—A court here has dismissed a case filed by a businesswoman who wants to develop a newly purchased lot that the government insists is inside the reservation of the presidential Mansion.

Imelda Tan Lao had asked for a mandamus (a judicial remedy) to compel the Baguio City government to release zoning and building permits for a piece of titled ancestral land that she said was bought “in good faith” from an Ibaloi family.

The Lao family had gone to court to acquire locational clearance, certificate of zoning compliance and building permit for a proposed single-story structure which the city’s various agencies refused to process.

But in a Dec. 10 decision, Baguio Regional Trial Court Judge Emmanuel Rasing ruled that the city government had legitimate reasons to deny Lao’s family these permits because of legal questions over the sale of the Mansion lot.

The Abanag family acquired Certificates of Ancestral Land Title (CALTs) in 2010 over lands, some of which are inside the Mansion reservation.

The Abanag CALTs were counted among the titled ancestral lands which a National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) en banc resolution described as fraught with “procedural and substantive defects, [which] constitute fraud that warrants [their] cancellation.”

Unclear legal right

The Aug. 24 resolution, signed by NCIP Chair Leonor Oralde-Quintayo and Commissioners Zenaida Brigida Pawid, Bayani Sumaoang, Cosme Lambayon and Dionesia Banua, was included in the city government’s response to Lao’s petition, said Baguio legal officer Melchor Rabanes.

“Before mandamus is issued, it is essential that the petitioner (Lao) should have a clear legal right to the thing demanded… This is where the petitioner fails,” Rasing said in his four-page decision.

The decision said offices at City Hall followed Administrative Order No. 52, series of 2014, which imposed guidelines governing the issuance of permits over areas covered by CALTs.

3 disputed CALTs

The order said permits may be given if the CALT “does not include or overlap forest reservations, watershed reservations or other government reservations” or is not part of “any pending case before the court or any tribunals.”

Since 2010, various government agencies have challenged three sets of Baguio CALTs in the courts because these encroached on the Mansion lot; the Wright Park, where houses have sprouted; the Baguio Dairy Farm, half of which had been settled and illegally excavated; and the site of Casa Vallejo hotel, which was almost claimed by a Baguio Ibaloi family. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon