‘Imperial’ Baguio treating Tuba a minion?

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

BAGUIO CITY – For so long, officials and residents of Tuba, Benguet have been complaining “imperial” Baguio City had been treating the town like the way China is treating this Banana Republic of ours.      

For one, the long-standing boundary dispute between Baguio City and Tuba has still not been settled due to reported insistence of Baguio officials in having their way over the years.

Baguio is set to commemorate the founding anniversary of the summer capital on Sept. 1 as a chartered city but still the problem lingers.

***

It was August last year that former Baguio City mayor Mauricio Domogan and Tuba town officials headed by then Tuba Mayor Ignacio Rivera agreed to settle the issue by exploring legal proceedings to resolve the matter.

Domogan pushed a compromise settlement where either the city or Tuba can file the case for boundary issue resolution and in the course of the litigation, both parties can submit the case for amicable settlement.

He said the amended technical description of the metes and bounds of the city and Tuba as established in the agreed settlement that was confirmed by both the city and the municipal councils as a result of earlier negotiations with the Tuba town officials will be followed.

***

Under the agreed settlement, the city property along Marcos highway measuring close to eight hectares that includes three-fourths of the area where the Tuba municipal building is erected among other public structures will be ceded to the Tuba municipal government.

In turn, Tuba will give to the City a portion of the Sto. Tomas road area leading to the Mt. Sto. Tomas forest reservation.

Both former mayors said then they did not want the issue to be blown out of proportion so they agreed that legal officers of Baguio and Tuba meet to discuss the actions that will be taken to resolve the matter with finality.

***

Hopes to settle the dispute years flickered after being included as one of the amendments in the repeated attempts in Congress to revise the city’s Charter to no avail.

Aileen Refuerzo, chief of the Baguio City information office said during the term of President Noynoy Aquino, the bill passed both Houses of Congress only to be vetoed eventually by the President for still unclear reasons.

She said apart from the municipal hall, the Tuba police station and the Tuba Elementary School also lie within Baguio as shown during the probe done by the Senate committee on local governments chaired by Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on the third bill filed for the purpose back in 2011.

***

Former city information officer Ramon Dacawi, who passed away two months ago, earlier said that years back, a former Tuba mayor recalled to him how a municipal judge insisted that his sala be transferred to the other tip of the municipal hall to ensure that court proceedings were within legal jurisdiction.

With the coming Baguio Day celebration, maybe Mayor Benjamin Magalong and Tuba Mayor Clarita Sal-ongan could meet as equals to discuss the matter and find means to end the long-lingering dispute.

***

As narrated by Tuba folks who attended municipal council sessions in past administrations to discuss the matter with Baguio officials, the latter always insisted on their ways often with impervious and condescending attitudes that the boundary dispute was never settled.

***

For so long, Tuba officials and constituents have been complaining that Baguio had been treating Tuba as a minion and had been acting like the former’s master.

Take the case of the Asin hydros. Tuba officials have been saying these should be considered owned by the Tuba local government considering these sit over ancestral lands of indigenous peoples of the town.

Historical annals note it was during the time of the Americans before World War 2 that the hydros were built in Tuba to supply electricity for Baguio.

Ancestral land owners are now saying their forebears were hoodwinked by the Americans when they built the hydros over their lands.  

***

The controversy of ownership of the original Asin Hot Spring Resort is another case. The Baguio City government under the Domogan administration said it owned the property. The Tuba municipal government however said the Baguio Government doesn’t have any property like the Asin Resort registered in Tuba.    

Recently, the Tuba Municipal Trial Court ruled that the area starting from the center of the big pool as boundary of the original Asin Hot Spring Resort is owned by the Sinot family.

Despite the ruling, the city government under the former city administration took over the resort and allegedly infringed over the property of the Sinots.      

The city government reportedly appealed the decision so we will not comment on the matter lest we be accused of sub judice.

***

Anyhow, it is now a new administration in Baguio under Mayor Benjamin Magalong. The mayor had reportedly proposed to relocate the Summer Capital’s piggeries in Tuba, drawing opposition from some sectors of the town.   

Magalong earlier said the Dept. of Agriculture will fund the creation of a technology-based piggery farm in Barangay Nangalisan in Tuba.

Noting dissent, Tuba Mayor Clarita Sal-ongan said a public consultation should be held with her constituents first before approving Baguio’s high-tech piggeries in the town.

Sal-ongan said the municipal government has not yet committed to Magalong’s proposal.

The Tuba mayor said the municipal government already had proposed projects at the area being eyed for the state-of-the-art piggeries.

“We understand the passion of Mayor Magalong to relocate the piggery owners in Baguio city to a suitable area but we have to strictly adhere to the prescribed processes under our existing laws, rules and regulations governing the implementation of environmentally-critical projects and the need to secure the free and prior informed consent of the affected indigenous peoples,” Sal-ongan told the media.

After the Domogan administration started dumping Baguio waste in Tuba at a so-called “transfer station,” residents of the town complained. Some are now critical of the proposal to make the town what they called the “piggery of Baguio.”

“We don’t want Baguio to make Tuba its toilet bowl and trash site,” a resident said.