Mob proposal?

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- In one local newspaper, its headline screams, “Bill to lop 3 hectares from Forbes opposed”. The Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources opposition is worth supporting considering that the bill filed by Rep. Nicasio Aliping which he based on a supposed “position” paper by “landless” families as claimed, will chop off three hectares from the Forbes Park Forest Reservation.

Anyone in his right mind will say that lopping portions of a forest reservation in favor of illegal squatters is a lopsided proposition. It can encourage Mobocracy and Anarchy. It is insane. I am not saying the congressman is insane but the proposal by the so-called landless families who call themselves the Baguio-Benguet Mountain Province-Maydatan Group is.

The name sounds fictitious. It is my first time to come across such a group. If this means the group includes landless families from Benguet, something is not right. But if the group is composed of brothers from Mountain Province, I think that is normal as that has been the case with Baguio lands.

As early as the 1920s, the forested Forbes was named as such and was declared a reservation by the national government during the watch of Baguio American Mayor Eusebius Julius Halsema, one reason why the original Ibaloys in the area, out of respect or timidity avoided making improvements inside the forests where they used to roam.

The naked truth and contrary to the forest reservation proclamation of 1924, residential houses obviously owned by people from Manila and other places began sprouting along South Drive, Gibraltar, Pacdal, Leonard Wood road, around Baguio Country Club, Teachers Camp and Brent road at the behest and backing of the powers that be in Baguio and Malacanang in those years. This situation is painful enough for the Ibaloy whose lands were taken away then “awarded” to migrants.

Today, not a single residential house in these parts of the Forbes Reservation is owned by an Ibaloy as they were uprooted and eased out of their playground through legal maneuvering in the past. Today, we find them inside settlements on the outskirts but even these lands are being encroached, if not already occupied by illegal settlers and government facilities.

Despite the passage of a law that was mandated to protect IP rights 17 years ago, help is yet to come – maybe never, unless people in charge of implementing the law take the cudgels for the IP landowner and do not surrender their power to the whims of politicos.

Apart from the IP sentiments forced out by the proposal to segregate portions of the Forbes forest in favor of illegal settlers, the DENR cited that the reservation is a natural watershed that supplies water to the city that is on a very critical level. Certainly, Congressman Aliping and elected officials at city hall fully understand this. Although their choice is between people who vote and trees that do not.    

The group’s position was filed with the Commission on the Settlement of Land Problems or Coslap under the Department of Justice. I hope the concerned agencies, including the Baguio Regreening Movement and the Baguio Water District, set aside politics and stop bowing their heads to their benefactors for a while, and consistently oppose the lopsided position. Otherwise, no law can ever stop illegal occupants and organizations from entering other lands in the future, because they are fully aware that the lands they squatted on are eventually awarded to them no sweat.