Continuing the "Shiya Kaivadoyan" column

Dear Readers, 

This blog is a re-post of the column of Ms. Beaulah Tagle Pistola - Cayetano with the The Northern Tribune, https://thenortherntribune.blogspot.com/

After uploading all the articles, Ms. B will continue her stories. 

For those who were waiting for the continuation of the stories, thank you.                                                                                                            

Rei Ann, 

GM for the TNT

Tech Assist  to Author

    

The Onjon ni Ivadoy, cont,

|The president of the Onjon on it 3^rd year was Dr. Antero Ampaguey. 

I have not been able however to talk to him to know who he is, where he or his clan came from.

I just know that a certain Ampaguey told my grandfather Tagdi told my mother that a certain old man named Ampaguey was his relative.

Next time, I will write more about him.

The next president of the Onjon was and is Jackson Chiday of Loakan.  He was the fourth, and is the fifth president of the Association.

He is a greatgrandson of Mil-an, a.k.a known as Agmaliw, son of Batil who was one of the three men who made the swamp between the two mountains of Loakan as a ricefield, draining the swamp of the water that filled it from the mountainsides.

Mil-an used to work on the land where his forebears Saguid and Sa’bot used to live, at the place  called Bubon in Loakan.   Their farm included the area whereon the Loakan Elementary School, and later, the Mil-an High School have been built.  It also included the area where the San Lorenzon Ruiz Chapel has been constructed in the early fifties.

Saguid and Sa’bot were the parents of Dangeg, Batil’s wife.  Batil and Da’ngeg were the parents of Chacchacan, Mil-an, Bonga, Camid, and Dingan (not in that order). 

He was also a grandson of Chacchacan, brother of Mil-an who used to farm and raise cattle on the north-west end of Loakan where now exists the Loakan Community Cemetery, the north approach of the Loakan Airport, and the private residences of members of the chacchacan Clan and of those who bought lands from members of the family.

Another grandfather of Jackson was the late Mariano Pingi who was a son of Garoy who was a son of Molly, sister of Mariano of Shalshal.  Mariano and Molly were children of Batil by his first wife Bitnay of Bekakeng.

He is also a grandson of Chiday, son of Kivas and Comiw who hailed from Tublay and who, when they died, were buried on the spot where the City Hall building has been built.

Kivas and Comiw used to work for Mateo Carino.            

Urbano, son of Chiday by his wife of a second marriage (after his wife Topdja died), once said his father Chiday and Sioco, Mateo Carino’s son,  would embrance each other like brothers whenever they met.  To be contued.  btpistola

Repost authorized by author

Volume 1, No. 38
March 22, 2015

The Northern Tribune

Baguio City, Philippines

The Onjon Again

Because of a busy schedule, I am writing just a little for this issue of the Tribune.

Last week’s issue had me writing about the first president of the Onjon ni Ivadoy. It was during his term that the name Onjon ni Ivadoy was chosen as the name of the organization that hoped, and still hopes to have the descendants of the vanishing pure Ibalois in this mountain, and their relatives from the other municipalities to come together and to enjoy being together.

While they thought of what name they will call their organization, they had quite some  discussions as to what they will call their group: Ibalois, Ivadoys?  They decided on the term Ivadoy because that is how they think it should be. When they are asked as to what language or
dialect they speak, they say they are eman ivadoy. They do not say they are eman “Ibaloi”.
Basilio was re-elected president for the second year of the Onjon. To be continued. btpistola

The Ibaloi Day Celebration

It was a happy event for Ibalois from Baguio and its neigboring municipalities. There was dancing, there was singing, there was fun. Of course, there was also eating of the naowik tan nai khedot ta baboy ira. Egkhak et mango amta nu kaong ira, eno burias. Ngaran kari ni Ibaloi ni baboy? Ayo, singen edibkhan da. Say kaong met ket suta eman enak. Say burias ket suta egpay laeng bima’deg dja usto.

Aligwa met ta Ibaloi, eno Ivadoi ima esel la babaoy. Ayayay.

But that’s the aim of the Onjon ni Ivadoy. For the Ibalois today to meet together, not in courtrooms to argue olver rights, and other causes of conflicts. The aim is to give them a place or venue to come together just for camaraderie, and for the preservation of what is left of the Ibaloi culture. From the small number of Ibalois who signed up as membeers of the Onjon in 2009, there are now more than a thousand attending the celebration of Ibaloi day which was set on the day that the United States Supreme Court decided the land registration case filed by the Igorot Mateo Carino whose application for registration with the Philippine Courts have been denied by the Philippine Supreme Court.

It was not a small victory. And it should mean much to the Ibalois. However, due to whatever reasons they had, Filipinos do not like to respect the native title doctrine that the United States Supreme Court did. 

In Baguio, some people for whatever reasons they had, or have, have inserted in the draft of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act, and/or its  Implementing Rules and Guidelines that Section 78 which limits the Baguio Ibalois rights to claim their ancestral lands that have been taken over by the government just becausse they did not undeerstand the NEW LAW that the United States Government implemented in the Country as soon as it took over the helm of government from Spain.

That previous government earlier did not allow the people of the Province of Benguet to have their lands registered or titled in their names. When the Americans took over, they also did not like to let the Ibalois have their lands registered in their names. Then, for a little while, they allowed the people of Benguet to have their lands surveyed and registered in their names.

But they had the surveyors survey only those that were devoted to agricultural crops at the time they acceded to the request of Ibaloi leadeers in the first five years of the American rule for the return of their lands as promised by the US President. They did not let them have those lands devoted to animal grazing be surveyed for the Ibalois. Later, laws for the registration of lands were made that allowed other Filipinos to have their lands registered. But not the people of Benguet. And those laws were made, not by Americans and Spaniards but by Filipinos who took over the helm of government from the Americans. 

At this point in time, many of the Ibalois who took over the struggled for  the recoginition of their land rights from their predecessors are no longer around, leaving the unfinished business of having their land rights recognized to their children who are also now being given the run-around in their quest for the titling of their lands.

Ah, cruel world!, 

Do be kind to the Ibalois who are also your brother Filipinos. Let them rest from their quest for the recognition of their land rights which, when they have taken their titles, can have the confidence to negotiate with government for those areas that are needed for the public’s welfare, if public welfare is truly it, but not to the point where they are deprived of their livelihood.

At this point, I would just like to correct some impressions made by some people who reported the events during the Ibaloi day. Mateo Carino was not the first chieftain appointed by the Spaniards because he got baptized as a Christian, or as a Catholic. He was the Capitan of Benguet when the Americans arrived to drive out Gen. Aguinaldo. 

He was not given the land he fought for by the Spaniards. The story he told the Court was that the land, i.e. the 146 hectares reserved for the Camp John Hay was the land of the grandfather of his wife Bayosa. And he fought for it for his daaughter Josefa. btpistola

I'ts Ibaloi Day Again

As requested by the late Cecille Carino Okubo – Afable, February 23, the day the United States Supreme Court decided in favor of Mateo Carino in the case he fbrought to that Court against the Insular Government regarding the land that the United States Government made a U.S. Military Reservation, be marked as Ibaloi day in Baguio.

And so, by virtue of a City Council Resolution, the day has been celebrated by the Ibalois of Baguio, and friom other parts of Benguet celebrated, and continue to celebrate the same.

This year, they started their celebrations Saturday, February 21 with a parade from the Baguio Convention Center, led by their re-elected president, Jackson P. Chiday, and other officers.

With the women wearing their divit, the men their chalicos, and others wearing Igorotak printed shirts, they converged at the Ibaloi Heritage Garden on the east side of the City
Auditorium for their Adivay shi Avong.

This is the eighth time that the Ibalois in Baguio and Benguet are celebrating Ibaloi day in Baguio, and showing the world that they are still existing in the land of their birth. They have been deprived of most of their lands, but they are still existing although they may not be as brave as the “savage tribe that never was brought under the civil or military government of the Spanish Crown” as characterized by the Solicitor General of the Philippines who argued against Carino’s claim of ownership.

The Ibalois now are of mixed bloods wth some bearing a lter, more or less of Ibaloi, Ivontoc, Isagada, imainit, ispanyol, americano, hapon, ibisaya, imindanao, I-pugao, I-pangasinan,
Idoho, and other bloods from other lands. But they are still Ibalois and proud to be so. Except of course some who see only bad in the ibaloi.

There are also bad sides of other people, but sometimes, they see only the bad side of the Ibaloi and are blind to the bad sides of their tribes. The quotation re the people of Benguet who were mostly Ibalois at the time the statement quoted was made proves that Benguet was never really a part of the Spanish lands that the Spaniards ceded to the United States. Although they included it in their map, the fact is that they have never really colonized it.

That follows that it should not have been a part of the land that the United States took over, and which the Filipinos also took over from the Americans. The much disliked statement of the late Carlos P. Romulo about the Igorots not being Filipinos was because the Igorots have not been subjugated by Spain, even as the statement of the Solicitor General of the early 1900s supports.

The Ibalois are also Igorots, and the ones referred to as Igorots in the Charter of Baguio that George Malcolm wrote in the early 1900s, and the ones referred to as the people of the Province of Benguet as the Solicitor General stated.

There should be no arguments about who are the Igorots to be considered when choosing an Igorot to be put in the Council of Igorots as provided in the Old City Charter of Baguio; or a representative of the Indigenous peoples in the City Council as provided in the local government Code. The Igorots of Baguio City are the Ibalois. The indigenous peoples in the City of Baguio are the ibaloi Igorots.

The Igortos from the Mountain Province, Ifugao, and Kalinga-Apayao, even though members of their younger generations were born here are not indigenous here, and they are not the Igorots referred to by Mr. Malcolm.

There should be no arguments about this truth. And there should be no arguments about the Ibalois owning the lands that are now part of what has been chartered as the City of Baguio. It has been chartered as a City. The lands have been reserved for various purposes. But that does not mean that the lands were not Ibaloi lands. They have just been deprived of them, and mostly without just compensation.

The Ibalois of Baguio have been refered to by some as squatters. They have been made so by the unjust proclamation of their lands for various purposes without just compensation. btpistola