On legal pluralism

BENCHWARMER
Ramon S. Dacasi

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- The Regional Development Council decided last Tuesday to factor in the issue of legal pluralism in its efforts to help local government units settle their political and traditional boundary conflicts, some of which remain unresolved for decades now.

Legal pluralism, in the case of the Cordillera, refers mainly to the application of either the legal system of the state or indigenous or traditional law, whichever is deemed agreeable to both parties settling their differences. Conflicts arise when one party invokes the system he finds more to his advantage while the other party demands application of the other system.

The two-legal-system dimension surfaced during discussions on whether boundaries delineation should be based on political or state maps and guidelines or indigenous community mapping of ancestral domains.

For one, Mt. Province Gov. Maximo Dalog, host of the RDC meeting, pointed out that municipal councils and provincial boards are reluctant to decide on boundary conflicts lodged before them lest they lose the votes of residents of the local government unit adversely affected by their legislative judgment.

A representative of the Department of Budget and Management also noted the practice of some barangays, towns, cities and provinces to bloat the areas of their political jurisdictions, as their shares from the Internal Revenue Allotment is based – aside from population – on their sizes. She said that a summary of the figures would expand the land area of this archipelago far beyond what is actually on the ground.

More critical is the overlapping of boundaries triggered by rivalry in the ownership, possession and use of resources such as water, mineral and other natural resources which the Cordillera used to have in abundance. As these resources dwindle and as population rises, the demand for them becomes more pronounced, with parties invoking rights over them based on state or traditional law, whichever gives them the edge.

(On national and global scales, state laws and international treaties being forged tend to allow developed and powerful regions and nations access to the remaining natural resources of undeveloped or developing regions and nations. Most of what remains of the world’s resources lie on domains of indigenous peoples. Laws are tailored by and for the rich regions and nations, including former colonizers, and in the process of resource exploitation, indigenous peoples are pushed out, some towards extinction, in favor of corporate greed.

It’s ironic that while some conservation efforts are aggressively focused on the protection of endangered animal species such as frogs, the onslaught against the survival or indigenous peoples is sometimes overlooked. The colonizers’ doctrine of terra nullius which justified the occupation of Aboriginal lands by Europeans who settled in Australia, on the pretext that these were un-tilled, un-cultivated by the Aborigines, remains a norm, although in other, more subtle forms.)

Over a decade ago, residents of Gonogon, a barangay of Bontoc, Mt. Province availed of the process provided by state law to protest what they claimed was the sudden, unilateral act of dispossession of their traditional water resources by neighboring barangays. They filed two petitions, one before the town sanggunian against Balili barangay, and another before the provincial sanggunian against a barangay of neighboring Sabangan town.

To pre-empt legal pluralism even as it awaited (I guess until now) the decisions of the town and provincial councils, Gonogon, through then punong barangay Jackson Paclayan, filed for and obtained from the National Water Resources Board a “water right” covering one of the village’s contested water sources.

Similar conflicts are emerging all over the Cordillera, be these between or among family members and relatives, neighbors, sitios, barangays, towns and provinces.

In Sagada, a resident admitted a breakdown in the cultural fabric when he found that the “mohon” or lot boundary monument between his property and that of a relative had been moved – inward to his side and disadvantage. In Hungduan, Ifugao, a rice terrace owner found that the adjoining hill serving as buffer and “muyong” or “pinugo” (watershed) to her rice terrace and traditionally recognized as part of her property was recently declared for taxation towards eventual possession by a neighbor.

Would it be the tribal council or the barangay council, or the courts, which would resolve these conflicts? Whichever, would the decision be anchored on tribal or state law?

Reports have it that even forests traditionally deemed “bilid” or common, communal and community property over the generations are being declared as “muyong” or “tayan” by Johnny-come-latelys on the pretense of inheritance according to tribal law.

I am aware of two cases wherein traditional keepers of community water resources were sued in court for removing hoses tapped to their resource – without their knowledge and consent – by other villages.

The fight over dwindling resources has triggered armed conflicts between and among villages, giving credence to the statement that the next war will be over water.

Before more shooting wars occur, it would do well for our leaders in the region, the provinces, towns and barangays to take a closer look and factor in legal pluralism in the settlement of boundaries. The issue seems to have been overlooked or simply ignored for sometime now. It’s getting more critical with each passing day, and the passing on of village elders who are the keepers of tribal memory needed to validate traditional ownership of resources.

Time was when tribal practice dictated that water is a shared resource, but never at the expense of the traditional developer of the resource. It’s a tall order to restore this wisdom of our ancestors. It means going back to the traditional practice of forest management that sustained village life, vis-à-vis the material acquisitiveness of some of our leaders and state laws that come into conflict with the time-honored ways practiced up here long before the Philippine government was established.

One thing is clear: The rate of erosion of the Cordillera rice terraces is directly proportional to the fraying of the culture that built and sustained them for generations. (e-mail: mondaxbench@yahoo.com for comments).