Baguio Ibalois seek Duterte’s help in land row vs Sta. Lucia

April 29, 2017 Headlines

BAGUIO CITY – For over a hundred years since 1909, an Ibaloi clan has fought a long battle to own and nurture their land. From a harsh team of PC constables of the Marcos dictatorship to shotgun-bearing security men of a huge realty development firm, their forebears had suffered and the present generation are standing against.
“This land is ours,” the legal battle-weary heir of Ibaloi elder Tunged, Rosita Yaris Liwan, in front of her cousins, nephews, nieces and grandchildren at the small parcel of land they have occupied since 1994 at the contested Sta. Lucia Golf and Country Estates here.
Showing hand-written documents by their forebear Tunged with other Ibaloi elders way back in 1909, the heirs led by Liwan are standing ground at the Ibaloi land they have been dreaming to finally own while a bulldozer and backhoe are roaring at the background moving earth in what it used to be their sayote (chayote) and camote farms.
Sta. Lucia Development Corporation had acquired a development permit on what Liwan and her Ibaloi kin claimed as theirs “since time immemorial”.
Mabel Saingan-Daling, a third generation offspring from the Tunged clan said it would be her relatives’ third time to be driven away from their land since Martial Law when PC constables harshly told them to leave because it is a military reservation. Earlier, they too were shooed away by armed guards of Sta Lucia, but they kept on returning to “reclaim what is rightfully theirs”.
Our last recourse is President Duterte’s help, said Liwan. “Sana pansinin niya kami,” she appealed while indicating that they have lost any inch of hope with officials here.
“We’ve been working out our claim with NCIP (National Commission on Indigenous Peoples) since it became operational in 1997,” explained Saingan-Daling. They have been claiming 195 hectares for the government to declare these as Certificate of Ancestral Land Title (CALT).
But worse has come. Aside from getting no favorable and swift rulings from government agencies including the courts, they are physically distraught by harassments by armed guards of Sta Lucia encamped just a few steps from the mass of makeshift houses at a clearing in their land claim.
“We’ve been victimized by expanded titles of Sta Lucia,” Liwan blurted out further adding, “now they want us even to flee as they have fenced the disputed property and want us out.”
Earth movement activities started in February 2 this year.
Baguio Vice Mayor Edgardo Bilog vouched that Sta Lucia had acquired a permit to develop the disputed land, while Councilor Ed Avila, also a lawyer like Bilog said the local court has ruled in favor of the realty firm in its development of the area.
Land Taken In Fraud
The Santa Lucia Pinewood Golf and Country Club Estates at the city border with Tuba, Benguet lies within the claim of the Tunged heirs.
Several holes and the golf clubhouse are reportedly within their claim.
This finding was contained in a letter to the Lands Management Service of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources whose personnel were present when the survey was conducted late 2016.
In his letter to LMS assistant regional technical director Augusto Lagon in Dec. 28, 2016, and received only last Jan. 7, surveyor Romulo Antonio wrote “during the Joint Relocation Survey executed on Nov. 10, 2015 duly witnessed by DENR-CAR representatives, encroached the Ancestral Claims of the Heir of Tunged.”
Antonio was able to find the monument/boundaries of PCS-131102-000454 which was the lot purchased by Santa Lucia from Manila Newtown in Nov. 11, 1997 that was earlier bought from the Puyat family. The same lot was purchased from the heirs of Sioco Carino, one of the original settlers of Baguio with whom the old man Tunged agreed in a 1909 document.
Liwan believed the titles being held by Sta Lucia were fraudulently “relocated” on their claim, hence the long-standing controversy that had distraught them for decades now. “This will only stop if President Duterte steps in and help us Ibalois, the original settlers of Baguio,” she appealed.
Sta. Lucia however had opposed the Tunged heirs claim and pursued its “development” in the area. And the tension goes on. The conflict remains. Ace Alegre / ABN