Ancestral Lands

 “City Mayor Lauds Nullification by NCIP of Spurious CALTS”

That’s the title I gave the story about the nullification of the ‘spurious’ CALTs issued by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples by the NCIP itself.

It is a very sad news for people who are working on the recognition of their land claims by the body that was promised to help them with their land problems that began after the Americans started reserving lands in their territory for various purposes.  And earlier too when the Spaniards will not give certificates of title to lands possessed by the Igorots for the reason that they have not yet identified the areas they want to reserve for government purposes.

Once when I started working with some people who were struggling for the recognition of their ancestrals, I was told that the whole Benguet land was surveyed in the name of my great-grandfather.  And he identified portions thereof for his children, who, unfortunately were mostly women. 

Parts of the land that I was told was surveyed in my great-grandfather’s name, and which my informants said were my great-grandfather’s land have become lands for the public such as the Wright Park and its adjoining areas, the United States Military Reservation which included the Camp John Hay, the Export Processing Zone, the airport, and the Philippine Military Reservation.

Sad to say, I cannot find documents to support that story, and I was not able to have the informants document their story before they died.

 I did however see a sketch of land that identified the area claimed by the late Mateo Carino for his daughter Josefa and whose surrounding areas were marked as Tierras de los Igorottes de Loakan, Tierra del Igorotte Mateo Carantes, Tierra del Igorotte Pisla, Tierra del Igorotte Piraso.

The land identified as Tierra del Igorotte Mateo Carino is the land where the CAP Building and other buildings now stand, even I believe, the area now known as the Scout Barrio.  The place was known as Embanao

Which means wide

The land identified as Tierra del Igorotte Piraso is on the west side of the land where the CAP Building is.  There is no boundary marked on the west side of that land identified as the land of the Igorot Piraso, but from what my mother told me as to where her father and his wife by a second marriage once lived before the Americans came, I believe that the late Piraso and his clan, the Baticalang clan did own in the native parlance that land that included the land where the Vallejo Hotel now stands. 

My late grandfather and his wife Solicam Baticalang once lived on that land where the Baguio Cathedral now stands.  Solicam was the sister of Piraso and Pinaoan.  Piraso was an Igorotte leader at the end of the 19^th century and beginning of the 20^th century.

Pinaoan was the father of Molintas who was appointed a president of the township of Baguio in the first decade of the 20^th century. 

 The Baticalang Clan lived and some descendants still live in the areas surrounding the Jungletown where the Vallejo Hotel now is.

 Josephine Abanag who has been claiming the Wright Park area claimed it on the basis of her relationship with the Pirasos.  She once told me that she land she was claiming was the portion of Samay Piraso, the cousin of her grandfather Molintas.  Samay had no direct heirs.  She claimed to be the heir of Samay Piraso in lieu of the child she (Samay) never had.

The other area on the southeast side of the land that Mateo Carino fought for even up to the United States Supreme Court was the land of the Igorots Pisla which I believe should have been written as Pistola and I believe that that was what my late cousin Solomon Carantes believed too because he had it surveyed in the name of our cousin John Sho’dang.  And I think he did not just believe it.  He knew it was so.  My father once said he used to plant bananas there when he was very young.

The north and northeast side of the land the late Mateo Carino fought for were marked as the Tierra del Igorotte Mateo Carantes.

 Once, when the lands around the now Airport area were being surveyed for issuance of Free Patents, the late Mateo Carantes reportedly replaced the name of Ugasya which his brother in law placed as the owner of that parcel of land where the EPZA and MOOG buildings now stand.  He argued that the new law says it should be the name of the man to be placed as the owner of the land.

 His act made his brother-in-law comment thus “Dja gwara I inta’djun Bahag dja bu’day shi Doakan?  Is there a (parcel of) land that Bahag brought to Loakan?  Bahag was the name used by the late Mateo Carantes reportedly they were evading capture because of their joining the Aguinaldo group.

The John Hay area is still part of the old Doakan.  And I believe that that parcel of land marked as the land of the late Mateo Carantes is part of the land surveyed earlier in the name of Kalias, the father of Ugasya who became the wife of Mateo Carantes, Dingbey who became the wife of Molintas Pinaoan, Bayas who married Tekel and in whose name that part of Loakan where the late Kalias built his first house in Loakan was titled in 1910 for the reason that the late Bayas was no longer around because of death leaving her a widow before the Americans came, Mayshas who was a Mrs. Abodiles before her death sometime in the first decade of the 1900s, Bogan whom her husband Bangcoyao left a widow in the early 1900s, Pot-og who was bitten by a snake when he was a teen-ager, and Tagdi whose portion of Kalias’ land was taken by his ‘ex- father- in- law as penalty for his leaving his first wife Josefa Carino. 

That story about the late Tagdi or Tagley has not been a favorite topic of the Tagley family for quite some time.  It was only after I joined a group of ancestral land claimants that a blood relative on my father’s side and a relative by affinity on my mother’s side (if Baticalang was not a relative of Kalias) told me that the land which the late Carino fought for was the land of the man who left his wife who was a daughter of the late Mateo Carino.

I asked my mother about it.  She said yes, her father married Josefa because her mother Bayosa always let her attend to another person’s baby thus giving them no time to consummate their marriage.  He felt that Bayosa did not like him to marry Josefa.  So he left.

Before they got married, he tilled her land, that part which is now the Athletic Bowl.  He brought his carabao there to help him serve his ‘lady love.

When he could not make their marriage work, he left with his carabao, and married Solicam instead.  They lived where the Baguio Cathedral now stands.  Solicam had her first baby there.  She was also going to have her second baby there, but when the Americans arrived, she and her husband left for that portion of the family land where the Bell Church now stands.  The place was called Bisil because it was sandy.  Bisil is Ibaloi for sand.

When he learned from the Americans that it is not good for close relatives to marry, he was thankful because, as my old cousin on my mother’s side once said, ‘Kasinsin nen Tagdi si Bayosa. 

 When my mother’s sister got married to a son of the late Josefa, her brother-in-law reportedly told her “Ah, si’khayo I engitudoy ni eg etuloy”

Ah, you are the ones who continued what was not continued, or pursued. 

 Despite what happened, the late Tagdi did not harbor bad feelings against the girl/woman he was asked to marry at a young age.  He even reportedly helped her son go to law school.

These details made me believe that what the grand old man Caoi said about the area reserved for the United States Military Reservation was the land of the late Kalias, even the lands now known as Loakan Proper, Liwanag, Apugan, and its surrounding area.  The late Caoi Binay-an called Kalias as the founder of Loakan.

My late mother learned from her father that when Kalias found Loakan, he called his cousin Bay-osan, and a young man named Batil and together, they turned the swamp that is now the landing field for airplanes into a rice land. 

When the Americans, the descendants of the three men, Kalias, Bay-osan and Batil had the lands they planted to agricultural plans patented. 

The lands in Loakan were the first ancestral lands titled.  They were the free lands of the natives that the United States of America granted Certificates of Title to after the Benguet Igorots hounded the office of the late Governor William A. Pack “singly and by delegation” to ask for the return of their lands that the US government proclaimed as public lands as soon as they came to the Philippines.    To be continued.  B.T.Pistola

 

B.T. Pistola
 
(Authority to repost given by Author)
 
Published:
Volume 1, No 20
TNT, Baguio City, Philippines
November 30, 2014
https://thenortherntribune.blogspot.com/