Baguio as Reservations

 In this issue, I would like to take a break from my storytelling about La Trinidad.  Instead I would like to write about how the Igorottes, especially the people of Baguio, and even the other Ibalois of Benguet are being deprived of their lands which their predecessors have guarded for a long, long time.

In an earlier write-up, I mentioned about how the Igorottes of Benguet, specifically, the Ibalois guarded their territory from invaders.  They  had mountain passes which they guarded so that travelers cannot just get in to their territory and bring their diseases to it. 

Unfortunately, from the time that the Lt. Col. Guillermo Galvey got into the place, braving the rocks and other items used by the Ibalois to prevent their entrance into their territory, life has not been the same for the Ibalois.

They have prevented the conquistador Quirante from staying long here, although someone said he has left somebody as a reminder that he once came here.  

However, due to lack of firepower to keep the Spaniards out, they have not prevented the whole of them Spaniards from getting in, and making their lives miserable.

When Emilio Aguinaldo ran to the Benguet mountains after proclaiming the Independence of the country from the Spaniards, he did not do anything good that the people would remember him by.  Some of those who were interviewed said the Filipinos led by him were more cruel than the Spaniards.  But of course, he did not last long in Benguet.

The Americans followed, and with candies and corned beef,, and chocolates and seeming kindheartedness won the hearts of the Ibalois, who, if they realized it, or not, have taken away their lands successfully with no hard feelings.

But of course, I have not talked with them personally to make such a sweeping statement.

But after allowing the Ibalois (who, individually, and by delegation followed up the promise of the U.S. President that he will return their lands) to have their lands surveyed within a certain period of time, the Americans started proclaiming all the lands not titled in the names of the Igorottes in Baguio as reservations.  With just a stroke of the pen, many of the Ibalois lost their lands.

It was good that they allowed the Ibalois to have their lands surveyed.  Hence the non-inclusion of some lands of the Ibalois in the Baguio City Townsite Reservation to be disposed by the then Municipal Government of Baguio, later City of Baguio in order to raise funds for the government to use for its infrastructure and other needs.

What was bad was that the people they sent to survey the lands applied the Public Land Law of the United States where a person claiming a piece of land should show some improvements thereon in order for him to have that land patented in his name.  They did not consider the fact that the Ibalois were mostly cattle raisers whose fences as that time consisted only of ditches and rocks, and who allowed portions of their lands to rest for a while after their cattle ate up all the grass on it, and others.  

Also, the Ibalois were not accustomed to their law.  They were not used to having their lands surveyed and titled.  

At last, when they were able to understand the new law requiring them to have their lands titled, they were told that time has run out for them who were ‘sloths who slept on their rights ‘.

And that song that has been sung first in the early 20s is the song that the Filipinos keep on singing to them despite the fact that there is now an Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) law which was instituted to protect the rights of the people who were deprived of their rights earlier.  

Very sad is the fact that even fellow Igorottes or people of the mountains, and fellow Filipinos keep on singing that song in the City of Baguio to the Ibalois who unfortunately were born with a lot of timidity genes in their make-up.

There are of course Filipinos and non-Ibalois who sympathize with the Ibalois of Baguio and Benguet.  Not all of them are bad.

However, there are some of them who laugh at the Ibalois, taunting them with the statement that “they may have the papers, but they (the non-Ibalois) have the land.  

May our good Congressman and Mayor take a stand also for the Ibalois some of whom have intermarried with their tribe, and fight also for them because it is not only their tribesmen who put them in office.  May they not insist on fighting for Section 78 of the IPRA Law which is making the Revised Charter of Baguio as a law against the Ibalois of Baguio who have not taken advantage of the time before the passage of the IPRA law to have their applications processes.

The Ibalois are also citizens of the Philippines and have rights equal to the rest of the Filipinos, Ibontocs. Ifugaos, etc.  They should not be deprived of their rights for the benefit of other Filipinos. The land of the Ibalois have been proclaimed for public purposes “without just compensation” for them:  the Busol Watershed, the Wright Park, the Manasion House, the Forbes Reservation, the Dairy Farm, and others.  If the government wants to continue using them for the purposes that they have been earlier reserved for by the Americanos, let them be used for the same if the reasons for their reservation still exist.  However, let the original owners thereof, the Ibalois, be compensated for them in accordance with Constitution of the Philippines which is the Country where the Ibalois also belong.  And because the law says the government can only pay for ‘titled lands”, let the Ibaloi get his title so that he can be compensated for his land in accordance with the law.  

And considering that the titling of the lands for the original settlers thereof is by the operation of the IPRA Law, let the Ibaloi get his title thru the process specified in such law.  Do not let the reservation for public purposes of the Ibaloi’s land be a reason for not granting him his title if that land truly belonged to his predecessors because the proclamation of that land as a reservation happened at a time when the country was just acquired by the United States, and the Igorottes including the peoples of the Mountain Province, the Kalingas, the Apayaos, the Ifugaos, and other Igorottes were not yet fully conversant in the English language, and on the laws of the United States  so that they were not able to question such proclamations, such as the Cordillera Forest Reserve which included even a portion of the Mountain Province, if not the whole of it.  Beaulah T. Pistola