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.
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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
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 started to read the decision of the United States Supreme Court on the case filed by Mateo Carino against the Insular Government for not recognizing his title over 146 hectares of land in the Province of Benguet.
I have not yet finished reading the same so I will not write much about it, except the following points that I have understood so far. One, the Spanish government refused to have the land registered during their time because they have not yet determined the areas they need for government purposes.
Two, the Solicitor General who argued against Carino’s application admitted that Benguet was a Province occupied by a savage tribe that was never brought under control by the civil or military government of the Spanish Crown.
I will tell you more about this next issue. Until then. btpistola
Why does the IPRA, and/or its IRR exclude the Ibalois of Baguio from the enjjoyment of their right as Indigenous Peoples as embodied in the Philippine Constitution?
It is February once again, and on the 23rd of it, Ibalois will be gathering at that portion of the Burnham Park that the City Government allowed them to use as a gathering place as they celebrate Ibaloi day the date of which is based on the day that the United States Supreme Court decided the land registration case filed by Mateo Carino against the Insular Government.
On the 23rd of February, 1909, the United States Supreme Court decided in favor of Mateo Carino, represented by Metcalfe A. Clark, whne he appealed the decision of the Court of First Instance of the Province of Benguet dismissing his petition for the registration of that land that was reserved for the United States Military which had an area of 146 hectares.
He first filed his petition for the registration of the land with the Court of Land Registration. The CLR decided in his favor, but the government opposed his petition. It appealed the case with the Court of First Instance of Benguet which dismissed Carino’s petition.
Carino then represented by Clarke appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court favored Carino.
From a Syllabus of the Decision written on the 23rd of February, 1909, one can read the following:
“The Organic Act of the Philippines made a bill of rights embodying safeguards of the Constitution, and, like the Constitution, extends all those safeguards to all.
Every presumption of ownership is in favor of one actually occupying land for many years, and against the government which seeks to deprive him of it, for failure to comply with provisions of a subsequently enacted registration act.”
The Philippine Constitution of 1997 provides for the recognition of ancestral lands of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines.
I wonder why the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) or its Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) includes a section which deprived a group of indigenous peoples who are also Filipinos from enjoying a right that is supposed to be enjoyed by all indigenous peoples of the Philippines.
What have the Ibalois of Baguio done to deserve the punishment from their fellow Filipinos?
Or are they supposed to be not “indigenous”?
Or, are they just ‘sloths’ hanging from the branches of pine trees with no rights to live on their land? Ae they not also Filipinos who have rights guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution? btpistola
On the Ibaloi’s right to claim parts of reservations, cont
In
the January 18 issue of this paper, I mentioned about that Section of the
Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of
1997. And which, in my mind, as a
citizen of the Republic of the Philippines I thought was the rule also for the
Ibalois of Baguio.
However,
as the people who moved for the inclusion of that Section 78 of the IPRA LAW
keep reminding applicants for the recognition of ancestral land claims, Ibalois
in Baguio can no longer apply for ancestral in Baguio, they having lost that
right when the IPRA was made into a law.
I
have been wondering why those people deprived the Ibalois of Baguio the right
that other indigenous peoples in the Philippines enjoy. I wonder why they thought, and still think,
that the Ibalois are no longer entitled to that right when they were and are the most deprived of the Indigenous
Peoples in the Philippines.
As
soon as the Americans came to the Philippines, they started declaring the
Ibaloi lands as reservations, without just compensation to the owners.
When
the Ibalois who heard the promise of the then President of the United States
William McKinley that they will return their lands followed up that promise
with the American governors assigned with the Philippine Commission, one
governor, i.e. William A. Pack
recommended the survey of the Ibaloi lands in 1905, and which was done
the next year with the survey of the lands of some Ibalois which were devoted
to agricultural crops, meaning those that were planted with rice, camote, gabi,
and fruit trees, but they did not survey
the pasturelands because there were no ‘visible’ improvements thereon.
They
applied the Public Land Law of the United States without taking into
consideration the fact (which they saw when they arrived here) that the main
occupation of the people here was cattle raising.
Comparing
the length of time given to other Filipinos to have their lands registered, the
year 1906 was certainly a very short time given to th Ibalois to have the lands
they have inherited from their predecessors registered in accordance with a law
that they could not understand yet, especially since they did not speak and
understand English, nor were they educated in Spanish because during the time
of the Spaniards, only those who were baptized as Catholics were allowed to
enrol in the Catholic operated public schools.
The
law may have been translated in Iloko, but it was not translated in a manner in
which the Ibaloi who was used to another system of land ownership or
landholding can understand.
When
some of them were able to understand a bit of the new law, they tried to
register, but were given a difficult time by the newly-appointed Director of
Lands who, however, after some time, relented, and allowed the hapless people a
day in the Court for the registration of their lands.
But
the time allowed was only for about 2 or 3 years? Then the Court decided on November 13, 1922
that the Igorot is banned forever from having his land registered.
Unfortunately
again for the Ibalois. They did not have
a lawyer to appeal that decision in a Court of Appeals, and in a Supreme Court.
For
whatever reason, the hapless Ibalois were punished with just a little time to
have their lands registered.
Now
that there is that IPRA which was passed after their long struggle for the
recognition of their land rights, they are told that they no longer can apply
for the same becuseof the moves of some people who benefited from transactions
with them. btpistola.
B.T. Pistola
I planned to get a copy first of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act before discussing this subject about ancestral lands and the reservations.
Because of the mention again of the issue in a news story where the registration of transactions concerning titled ancestral land claims which have been reserved for public purposes, I would like to quote here Section 7 of Part II of Rule III of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of Republic Act 8371 otherwise known as “The Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997”. This Section reads thus: Right to Claim Parts of Reservations. – The dispossession of indigenous peoples from their domains/lands by operation of law, executive fiat or legislative action constitute a violation of the constitutional right to be free from the arbitrary deprivation of property. As such, ICCs/IPshave the right to claim ancestral domains, or parts thereof, which have been reserved for various purposes.
Whenever I hear people questioning the act of the Ibalois of claiming parts of reservations in the City of Baguio, I ask myself if they know the IPRa law which a man who was not an Ibaloi helped to make a law. I believe the good senator Juan Flavier was not a nincompoop who just helped pass into law something he did not think very well of.
May be, just may be, some Ibalois are not the real descendants of the older Ibalois who owned certain tracts of lands in what is now the City of Baguio. May be the procedure followed in the issuance of titles for some lands claimed by certain Ibalois were not regular.
May be.
But I believe the Ibalois who were then the people referred to by the Americans who came here in the early 1900s as Igorottes were the owners of the lands that have been proclaimed for various purposes. Just because they, the Ibalois then did not have the money to pay for the registration of their lands, or did not grasp the meaning of the patenting of their lands before the same were reserved, or they did not have their llands patented during the early titling days for some other reasons, their lands have been included in the area reserved for the Baguio Townsite, the watersheds, the US Military Reservation, and other purposes..
And there descendants have the right to claim the lands which were reserved for various purposes as the law provides. They, like other Filipinos have that right. It is unfair to deprive them of that right just because the land being claimed has been reserved for a certain public purpose.
If they can prove their claim, why deprive them of it?
B.T. Pistola
Published:
Volume 1, No 22
TNT, Baguio City, Philippines
December 14 2014
https://thenortherntribune.blogspot.com/
Due to the lack of time to edit my column for the November 30 issue, I was not able to correct what I wrote about the late Tagdi marrying the late Josefa Carino.
The story should have read thus: “her father married Josefa Carino because it was the price his father had to pay for winning in a wrestling match that the late Mateo Carino challenged him (Kalias) to do with him (Mateo Carino).
But every night when it is time for them to be together, the late Bayosa, Josefa’s mother, would let her (Josefa) take care of a baby so she had no time to be alone with her husband.
Because that happened every night of their short married life, Mising decided to leave. He married Solicam Baticalang instead, and they lived in a house built on a spot where the Baguio Cathedral now stands. They had their first baby there, and almost had the second there also. But when the Americans came, they left the place for Bisil which was another part of the Baticalang and/or Baticalang’s wife’s land.
Solicam was a sister of the late Piraso, father of the late Cosen.
“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.
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
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 19th century and beginning of the 20th century.
Pinaoan was the father of Molintas who was appointed a president of the township of Baguio in the first decade of the 20th century.
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.
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.
Ah, you are the ones who
continued what was not continued, or pursued.
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
For lack of time, I am not able to write much about the place where Ibalois are at the moment.
I am just happy to see that the Ibalois are not very much the ‘shiyayak mango’ type that has been misread “Shyak mango’ for quite a time due to the shyness or timidity of the Ibalois.
Of course, the shiyayak mango phrase is often uttered by the Ibalois who, due to some inferiority complexes, opt to stay in the sidelines when issues are being discussed because they feel inconsequential. So they say “shiyayak mango” meaning “I will just stay here”. This is not the exact meaning of the phrase. I have not yet found the correct English term for it. But it is akin to the statement of a lowly man who says “I am but a lowly man so I will stay here where I will not be in the way of the gods”.
Many Ibalois do not like to be in the fore front, that is why there are not so many Ibalois running for political positions in the City of Baguio. There were some who tried, and most of them were descendants of Kumicho who was a descendant of Milo and his son (Am)Kidit. And they were and/or no longer FBI’s or full blooded Ibalois. One who aspired for mayorship had a lot of Japanese blood in his veins; some who aspired for councillorship had Spanish and Iloko blood in them.
A lot of the old Ibalois also do not like arguing so much as politicians do. They preferred to work without talking much. Hence their distaste of politics. Some of course are very shy. The cats seem to ‘get’ their tongues when they try to talk. So they remain silent. And they would later say “Piyan ko’n ikuwan ni saman pesing, ngem bimaingak”. “I wanted to tell how it should be done but I got shy”.
Ayo. Saman ira i Ibaloi. Mavabaing. That’s how Ibalois are. They are shy.
The latter part of the 20th century however has seen some Ibalois getting to be more forward, and not very shy anymore. But now, the FBI’s are getting fewer and fewer with a good number of them getting married to men or women from other tribes because they have learned that it is not good for relatives to marry each other. Some still do of course. And some prefer to marry fellow Ibalois.
But a good number have been getting married to men or women who are Ilocanoes, Tagalogs, Pangasinense, Kankanais, Ibontocs, Ikalingas, Ifugaos, and others. So we have Ibalocs, Ibatags, Ibapangs, Kanibals, Ibabon, Ibafug, and what have you.
Sooner, or later, we will just have Filipinos because it will be difficult to combine the letters of so many tribes from where our parents or the parents of our descendants will come from. If we did that, we might have so many smaller tribes of Kanibaltags like my apo whose father is a Tagalog and whose mother is a Kanibal, or Kankanai-Ibaloi. The other one is a Visibalkan or Kanibalvis because his father is a Visayan and his mother is a Kanibal.
Some of us say we may be the last generation of FBI’s. But when somebody says my grandfather was Spanish, my great grandma was dark skinned with a long nose, and that I have Chinese blood in my veins, and I learn that my relatives have Russian blood in their veins, and that one says her grandma may have been a descendant of some small Englishmen of old, etc. etc., I tell myself that we may not be FBI’s anymore. The last FBI may have been in the distant past, the brave warriors that the Conquistador Quirante was not able to subdue way back in the 1600s. But then a writer wrote that the Kidit of Quirante’s time was Mandarin-like. And I have been wondering why my late father whose father descended from a Kidit would sometimes look like a Chinese of the Mandarin type. A Chinese woman once told me also, after seeing my handwriting, pointed at me, and told me that I have Chinese blood. So much for the last of the FBI’s. Basta we are ibalois. B.T. Pistola
Because of this, they do not
contribute to the heavy traffic in the Central Business District, or Baguio
(Ba-giw). They also do not form part of
the crowd in the cemeteries.
This is because the non-christian Ibalois of old did not believe that the dead are unconsciousness. To them, the dead have become gods. Enkirios ira, as some say it. Or enkishiyos ira, as others do.
The younger Ibalois who have become Catholics do still believe in the old concepts. That is why they still keep their dead in a special place inside their houses, or under their floors, or in their front or back yards.
Some of those who brought their dead
to the cemeteries bring home the bones thereof, especially when they dream that
their dead loved ones are in need of shelter,
or blankets, or other things that they enjoyed while alive as human beings.
And because of their act of bringing home the
bones of their loved ones, or their not bringing to the cemeteries the remains
of their loved ones, they have waived their rights to free burial at the
cemeteries reserved for them. (I
actually do not know how many community cemeteries are free to the
Ibalois. I am just certain of one
cemetery, i.e. the Loakan Community Cemetery which was reserved in the early
1900s on representation of the then Consejal Tagley also known as Tagdi and
other elders of the old Loakan for Loakan Ibalois and where they are not
supposed to pay fees).
Today, the Loakan Community Cemetery is filled with the remains of many non-Ibalois who have gotten into the place and are now enjoying free burial that was supposed to be for the Ibalois of Loakan. The area earlier reserved even got over-filled so that a portion of the adjacent lot got included in the cemetery area.
The original cemetery area, and the addition are parts of the land owned by the late Chacchacan (Shakshahan) and/or his ascendants in the native concept. The areas were supposed to be for the Ibalois of Loakan who are the relatives of the late Chacchacan.
B.T. Pistola
(Authority to repost given by Author)
Regarding the Revised Charter of Baguio City that is now pending in the Senate, one particular provision in the old Baguio Charter that was not included in it is that one for an Advisory Council of five members who shall be Igorots.
The Advisory Council is supposed “to hold meetings on the request of any three members transmitted to the city secretary or when convened by the mayor. The presiding officer shall be the mayor or other member of the city council designated by him. It shall be the duty of the said presiding officer to explain or cause to be explained to the advisory council all action taken or proposed by the city council regarding ordinances, public improvements, and other matters of general interest to the population of the city, to ascertain its views thereon, and on other subjects concerning which the advisory council is desirous of making recommendations or suggestions; and to present said recommendations and suggestions to the city council or the proper city officer for consideration”.
For many years, no advisory council of five Igorots has been working with the City Council and/or the City Mayor after the Americans left.
Why this is the case until now, I do not know yet. May be there is an answer.
May be an old Ibaloi still living can tell why the Ibalois who were the Igorottes who were deprived of their lands can answer this question.
And may be the young ones now will seek the re-institution of this provision of the Old City Charter and work for a re-revision of the Revised City Charter that is now pending in the Senate.
The Local Government Code of 1991 also provides for the representation of the Indigenous Peoples in the City Council. At present, there are two (2) city councilors from the Ibaloi/Igorot tribe of Baguio City. Although they can speak for the Ibalois also, their presence in the City Council is due to their having been elected at large, or by the citizenry of the City of Baguio, and not as representatives of the Ibaloi/Igorot or Indigenous Sector as provided by the laws.
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
