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