Baguio mayor orders probe on new Busol watershed buildings

By Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. has ordered an investigation on new structures being put up at the Busol watershed here.

The mayor said he directed the city buildings and architecture office to conduct an inspection at the site and work out the demolition of the structures in January to March next year.

The mayor said that it is unfortunate that some people have the temerity to take advantage of the situation even while the city and the squatters within the watershed are embroiled in a court battle over the removal of the illegal structures in the subject forest reservation.

Information on the new structures reportedly reached the Busol Task Force after the survey of the illegal structures was completed by joint forces from the task force, the CBAO and the public order and safety division.

The city was efforts to demolish the structures at the forest watershed last July was snagged after the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) issued temporary restraining orders and injunction in favor of the squatters.

For this, the city filed a petition before the Supreme Court to cite NCIP-CAR hearing officer Brain Masweng for contempt for issuing the TROs despite the Supreme Court decision giving due course to the city’s bid to remove the illegal structures.

The Supreme Court in a decision dated February 4, 2009 sustained the city government’s bid to demolish structures within the Busol Watershed in 2006 by reversing an earlier decision of the Court of Appeals which upheld the jurisdiction of the NCIP to issue temporary restraining orders and later a preliminary injunction to stop the implementation of the three demolition orders issued by then Mayor Braulio Yaranon.

Masweng last July 28 issued a 72-hour TRO and extended the same for 17 more days on July 31 maintaining that the city government has no power under the NIPAS Act of 1992 “to evict indigenous communities from their present occupancy nor resettle them to another area without their consent.

He also said the owners of the Busol structures “have a clear legal right to be protected against the summary demolition of their houses as the law provides that the Indigenous Cultural Communities and the Indigenous Peoples are presumed to be holders of native titles over their ancestral claims.”

Masweng also later granted the petition for writ of preliminary injunction of the occupants of illegal structures within the Busol watershed.