Busol claimants given 10 days to vacate watershed

By Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY – The city government gave owners of the illegal shanties built at the area designated for the Busol Tree Nursery at the Busol watershed a 10-day deadline after occupants appealed for more time to consider voluntarily demolishing the structures.

Ancestral land claimant Lucia Ampaguey last May 21 issued an undertaking asking the mayor to defer implementation of the demolition order for 10 days to allow them to discuss their next course of action.

“We understand that if we fail to undertake the demolition by ourselves, we are aware that the demolition team will do their job (of removing our structures),” Ampaguey noted in the letter she signed in the presence of city engineer Nazita Banez, forester Walter Aguirre and city police director Rolando Miranda and the other occupants.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan said he hoped claimants will fulfill their commitment so there will be no more hitches in the removal of the structures.

The area will be used as a tree nursery and field office of the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources, the Baguio Regreening Movement and the city environment and parks management office.

The city government last May 7 was set to dismantle the five shanties but held back after the occupants barricaded the area.

The mayor however notified the owners the city government will pursue the demolition anytime in collaboration with the concerned law enforcement agencies even as he appealed to them to cooperate to avoid criminal charges.

Earlier, the mayor turned down the request of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to defer the implementation of the demolition of the shanties saying the structures are built within the city’s main watershed and their owners’ lot claims have been denied with finality by the courts.

“Much to our regret we cannot grant your request for it has no legal basis and we have to proceed with the intended demolition.  Please understand that it is the need for adequate water supply and ecological balance that compels the City Government of Baguio, the Baguio Water District, the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources and the Baguio Regreening Movement to do all necessary acts allowed under the law to preserve the Busol Forest Reserve including but not limited to the clearing or demolition of illegal structures therein,” Domogan told  NCIP Chair Leonor Quintayo in the letter.

Quintayo last May 7 asked the mayor to postpone the demolition scheduled that day “to give the Commission the time to investigate and validate” the petition for recognition of ancestral land claim of Ampaguey.

The mayor said the claim of Ampaguey “had been repeatedly denied with finality” by the courts.  He cited the Supreme Court decision in 1989 denying land registration over the forest reservation maintaining that “forest lands are inalienable and possession thereof, no matter how long, cannot convert the same into private property… and the courts are without jurisdiction to adjudicate lands within the forest zone.”

In a decision dated Feb. 4, 2009, the Supreme Court cited the same decision saying the “declaration of the Busol Forest Reservation as such precludes its conversion into private property” and reiterated the same in succeeding decisions dated Feb. 27, 2013 and Feb. 14, 2014.

After these decisions, the Ampaguey family filed before the NCIP Cordillera another case this time against the BRM to prevent the establishment of a nursery at the watershed but the petition was dismissed on April 21, 2014 by NCIP-CAR assisting regional hearing officer Richard Cawas applying the same Supreme Court decision.

The mayor also cited need to protect the watershed which supplies 35 percent of the water needs of the city from the squatters.

“At present drinking water is our number one problem.  You can just imagine what will happen to us if our watershed will be fully squatted upon or denuded.  Hence, apart from enforcing the law within our jurisdiction, the City has to protect the area to ensure adequate water supply and to preserve the ecological balance in the City,” the mayor said.