Occupied by a Savage Tribe

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

IPRA and / its IFF excluded the Ibalois of Baguio?

  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

   

  

Ibaloi's right to claim reservations

 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.

 They also gave the Ibalois a very short time to understand the new law that they were implementing in the Country. 

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

 (Authority to repost given by Author)

 

Published:
Volume 1, No 29
TNT, Baguio City, Philippines
October 12, 2014
https://thenortherntribune.blogspot.com/

On the Ibalois’ Right to Claim Parts of Lands Reserved for Various Purposes

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?

I would like to discuss this further, but I would like to get some materials first to support  my statements.  For the meantime, I say Until then.  May my fellow Ibalois read and understand  what I have quoted, and defend their claims in such manner that the people heckling them will understand.  B.T. Pistola 

Ibalois' Rights on Lands Denied

When we consider the arguments for the acceptance autonomy for the Cordilleras, and the insistence of the leaders in Mindanao for the approval or passage of the Bill for the Bangsamoro, and the quest of the Ibalois for the recognition of their ancestral land rights, especially in the City of Baguio, one cannot help but think that there seems to be an insistence in denying the rights of the Ibalois to the land of their forebears.

There are similarities in the situations of the people of Mindanao and the Cordilleras, including the City of Baguio, and the rest of the Filipinos.

All the lands in the Philippines were declared as public lands as soon as the Americans arrived in the islands. Then, they proclaimed some portions of the country as reservations for military, town site, forest, mining, hospitals and other purposes.

Then, because of the clamor of the Indigenous Peoples for the recognition of their land rights, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) was made into a law, and no other than the much admired late Senator Flavier helped in making it so.

Now, indigenous peoples in other parts of the Country are happy because of the recognition of their ancestral land and domain rights. But, in the City of Baguio, the indigenous peoples here are contending with the insistence of the leaders that “only those whose claims were “processed” before the passage of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) are the ones to be recognized. Because of the provisions of that Section 78 of the IPRA, or of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the IPRA.

It seems an innocent and logical enough reason. The inclusion of that Section in the Law seems to be innocent, and legal. But is it? May be, it is legal, because it is already part of the law. But is it moral?

Why is it that other people in the Philippines are given more time to have their land rights recognized, while the Ibalois of Baguio have been limited only to that time before the passage of the IPRA? Before the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Special Order No. 31 creating the Special Task Force on Ancestral Lands (STFAL), the Ibalois have been struggling for so long for the recognition of their land rights.

Then after the passage of the IPRA, many are again wondering how to go about their land rights in the face of the statement that it is only those applications for the recognition… of ancestral lands that were ”processed “ before the passage of the IPRA that will be recognized.. . B.T. Pistola

B.T. Pistola

 (Authority to repost given by Author)

Published:
Volume 1, No 22 
TNT, Baguio City, Philippines 
December 14 2014 
https://thenortherntribune.blogspot.com/