BEHIND THE SCENES

A controversial DAR land title in Bontoc
Alfred P. Dizon

BONTOC, Mountain Province – The mystery of a controversial land title here at Barangay Samoki is getting more interesting. People are now saying it was issued with money from Marcos “hidden wealth funds.”

Any mediaman with an ear for controversies or a Hollywood superstar could now make a David Copperfield story out of the issue and make a good movie or news account out of it complete with CIA or Garci-inspired backroom deals.

You see, any modern day pied piper could lead people by the nose especially with a good mystery ort gossip story featuring ala ZTE sexcapades by elections officials or trysts in underground Malacanang rooms involving the rich and the famous.
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Who got the funds, who gave the moolah and how it was given is now the magic spell people are trying to break as according to them, the magicians got a hefty amount at the expense of marginalized farmers.

Sha nan kanan di Ifontok ay makapaakhar, said a local. It’s what people in Samoki say in their own peculiar, sing-song intonation, “I cried a tear.” For the non-Ifontoks, it literally means a crying matter.
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The subterfuge maybe lost for the non-native particularly those in the Dept. of Agrarian Reform who gave the “certificate of land ownership award” on Dec. 24, 1997 to one Erickson Akiate et.al. consisting of more than 1,146,000,000 square meters of land located at Samoki.

Whoever was the town, provincial and regional DAR directors at that time need to explain now how the award was “perfected” and given to beneficiaries. It is now being called a mind-boggling magic trick which needs explanation. You see, if DAR officials won’t explain how the magic trick was done, pretty soon, they could be the ones men-akakhar.

Affected folk are irate and want the land title cancelled. Resident writer Rommel Lengwa said farmers earlier held a public meeting on the matter at the Bontoc municipal plaza on August 13 and 14 demanding an explanation from concerned DAR authorities who reportedly disappeared into thin air.
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They may have performed their disappearing act seeing the outraged folk seething with anger over the perfected” CLOA. Affected folk said they were never consulted about it. Former mayor Alfonso Kiat-ong, Sr. said he learned about the deal a few months after it was issued and informed the affected parties but nobody cared to follow it up.

Kiat-ong said sometime in 1998, he called the attention of some people especially the land-rich personalities with landholdings at Samoki and informed them their ancestral lands were already titled but nobody believed it.

Can’t blame the locals. Who would have believed anybody like those in the DAR could perform a magic trick like that – right in their territory? In the olden days, anybody who could have had the temerity to do such a thing could have gotten home without a head because for the Ifontok or the Isamoki, land is sacred especially if these are tayan (lands inherited and handed down from generation to generation.)
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Tomasa Sangayab, a retired teacher said that until she was furnished a copy of the documents did she realize of the done deal. “We do not like our grandchildren that one day when we are gone people will tell them that they do not own the lands they inherited from us,” she said. “We will work for the revocation of the CLOA even as we seek the assistance of some lawyer-friends from the University of the Philippines who are very willing to help us.”

Mayor Franklin Odsey suggested one measure to test the credibility and acceptability of the duly perfected CLOA was for the concerned parties to file a joint or individual affidavit in the right court or government agency. “Along with it, I will also write a letter addressed to the DAR management requesting them to furnish the Local Government Unit a copy of the map that covers the titled lots.”

Well and good before violence erupts. Lengwa said a petition clamoring for the immediate cancellation of the CLOA was also circulated in the community for signature. The petition said there was no consultation conducted as evidenced by the absence of the minutes of meeting of Samoki barangay officials where the CLOA was issued.
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The petition bared many names appearing in the CLOA were not the actual owners making the document fraudulent. According to the petition, some names appearing in the document were not consulted. They added uniform sizes of land areas in the CLOA awarded to each recipient contradicted the tax declaration of real land owners.

“The CLOA did not serve its purpose to preserve the agricultural land as embodied in the CARP program and the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program is not applicable in the ancestral domain areas,” the petition declared.

Money, from the “Marcos hidden wealth” was reportedly utilized to bankroll the implementation of land titling in the province in order to institute CARP and “promote social justice and industrialization and provide a mechanism for its implementation.”
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According to Lengwa, provincial DAR personnel in their office located at the provincial government center didn’t issue a press statement on the matter. Since no court case was filed yet on the matter, maybe, concerned DAR officials who had a hand in the “perfection” of the CLOA could explain how it was done because if they don’t, some people in the department could end up menakakhar in the near future.

You see, when the rain-dance warriors called manerwap would go up the highest Bontoc mountain to pray to Kabunian for water during this so-called dry spell, it could become a deluge for the magicians. For the “perfectionists,” if the subterfuge is still lost on you, you could ask any old man at the ator.