‘Native Title’ Day

 

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- Just like all the rest of the special days that we commemorate, February 23 that would be 116 years by next Sunday, cannot be moved and should not be moved just to accommodate events and whims of politicians and their lap dogs.

February 23, 1909 was not founded nor invented for the sake of holding events such as the celebrations being held in the city in the same month. It was the day when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. of the United States Supreme Court swung his gavel to lay down a landmark ruling acknowledging the “Native Title”.

Justice Holmes ruled that “lands that were originally occupied in private capacity since time immemorial never became public lands.” The Baguio area has never been “public” as there were Ibaloy occupants even prior to the arrival of the Spaniards, later the Americans.

The central figure in the USA SC ruling was Mateo Cariño, the Ibaloy chieftain who sued the American government in the early 1900s for occupying his land illegally and deceptively. He fought for his land where John Hay was established, all the way to the higher courts.

He won his case in court that led to the recognition of the “Native Title”. He won without seeing the fruit of his fight. The Native Title ruling, a.k.a. Cariño Doctrine, stated that lands in Baguio held since time immemorial by the Ibaloys are private lands.

 Thus, on February 23, 2025 or 116 years after the ruling, the Ibaloys would gather at the Ibaloy Heritage Garden at the Western section of Burnham Park to hold a simple commemoration of the day when Mateo Cariño won his land case.

On that day, Ibaloys would assemble to remind themselves of the struggles that their ancestors had to go through even prior to the appointment of outspoken leader Mateo Cariño as the Ibaloy headman of Kafagway.

But the annual celebration would be like any ordinary fiesta unless it is explained to the crowd that the day commemorates the time the US Supreme Court through Justice Holmes in 1909 ruled and recognized the land rights of Ibaloy headman Mateo Cariño over what is now known as Camp John Hay. 

Every Ibaloy who is aware of this has the obligation to inform those who do not know the reasons for the celebration. It is also for this reason that the annual gathering was called “Onjon” Ni Ivadoy (Reunion of Ibaloys) to unite tribal members for a common cause.

However, the annual event does not anymore function as expected in the first place. Most of those who attend no longer engage in discussing strategies and help correct the injustices on ancestral lands, and strengthen Mateo Cariño’s Native Title Doctrine.
Mostly, those who come do not share ideas and solutions to issues brought about by the colonial and Philippine government’s takeover of Ibaloy lands under the City Charter. They simply attend to see who is who, partake of the meat, get drunk, be merry and go.

By the way, the Native Title ruling came ahead six months before the Charter of Baguio was issued on September 1, 1909. That means, the American colonizers disregarded Justice Holmes’ ruling and practically grabbed Ibaloy private lands when they issued a charter to take control over lands in Baguio that, according to the US Supreme Court, were never “public”.

 For more than 50 years before the Treaty of Paris on April 11, 1899, Mateo Cariño and his ancestors possessed their land by installing fences for holding farm animals, tilled parts of it and used most of the area for cattle pasture.

In the years 1893, 1894, 1896 and 1897, he made an application but with no avail until he was able to process a possessory title over the land under his name in 1901. Still, even if he had a title, he could not have it registered because the Philippine Commission Act No. 926 of 1903 exempted the Province of Benguet from its operation.

Fast forward, since Cariño’s land was not registered as it had no paper title to show the court in the Philippines, he lost his case. However, he appealed his case to the United States Supreme Court.

Then on February 23, 1909; Justice Holmes declared: “It might perhaps, be proper and sufficient to say that when, as far as testimony or memory goes, the land has been held by individuals under a claim of private ownership, it will be presumed to have been held in the same way from before the Spanish conquest, and never to have been public land.”

This proves that the native title to land or ownership of land by natives in Baguio and the Cordillera by virtue of possession under a claim of ownership existed since time immemorial and exempted from the theory of Jura Regalia or Regalian Doctrine under the Spanish colonizers.

The uniqueness of Baguio is not just its being the cool city of Pines but as the home base of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act or IPRA of 1997, and that it was the haven of the American colonizers in the Cordillera.

 Thus, Baguio is where the Native Title in Cariño vs. Insular Government was defined. The doctrine was applicable not only in the Philippines but in other countries, such as the United States and Australia that adopted it for the rights of their indigenous peoples.

This year, let us see to it that the significance of the event would not get lost in the steps of the tayao, drowned in the flowing liquor, and meat boiling in a large vat.

 

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High-rise buildings, housing projects, TSAs leading to urban decay?

Letters from the Agno

March L. Fianza 

 

BAGUIO CITY -- In 2009, then Senator Rodolfo Biazon and I had a simple lunch of “tungsoy” (watercress) and fish fillet at a local restaurant. The chain smoker told me his presence here was prompted by then Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s recognizable temper after she introduced a controversial resolution regarding urban decay.

The Senate resolution asked Biazon’s committee to conduct an inquiry on the reported “urban decay and environmental degradation” threatening to wreck Baguio, the City of Pines. There must be a certain degree of truth to the news article that provoked Defensor-Santiago into introducing her resolution.

The news article said tourists no longer found Baguio as cold as it used to be; Pine tree cover was less dense than it was decades ago; downtown streets, especially Session Road were jammed with cars and people like Manila; and heritage buildings, relics of the American colonial rule with historical value have been demolished.

The article further cited uncollected mounds of garbage in plastic bags on main streets that probably led to the enormous trash slide from Irisan that blocked Asin Road, Tadiangan, Tuba in 2011 for many months.  

In consulting Baguio officials and residents at City Hall, Sen. Biazon wondered if there was any truth to the issues mentioned in the news article as he sought for solutions. Reactors from the crowd agreed with the issues raised, contrary to some elected officials who, as expected, spoke in defense of their actions – or the lack of it.

That was 25 years ago. By the city’s present looks, it appears like things have not improved any better. Traffic jams have become more terrible which worsen air pollution, buildings were being built higher which when fully occupied aggravated an already insufficient water supply. In addition, higher occupancy produced more garbage and human waste.   

Other effects instantly impact the environment. For residential subdivisions, initial development requires the construction of roads, where in most cases, the natural green vegetation of trees and bushes are scraped away. In many instances, trees were already cut down even while tree-cutting permits were still to be issued.

For high-rise structures such as hotels, condominiums and apartments; they absorb transient travelers and weekend tourists that contribute to the volume of solid waste as well as sewer waste that clog the city’s ancient sewer system. It is time the heights of buildings should be limited in order to control the volume output of solid and sewer waste.

Concerning townsite sales applications (TSAs), documents on file are more than the actual number of lots that can be distributed. While the TSAs are on process, illegal lot occupants are slowly and inconspicuously erecting shanties.

The informal settlers successfully have their “improvements” tax declared with the government assessor. The government treasurer meanwhile is more than willing to collect all kinds of taxes, including payments for overlapping taxdecs.

The TSA as a way of acquiring a 200 square-meter lot in the city requires that the applicant “must be a notorious occupant and has improvements to show.” In other words, the TSA process basically allows squatting. The rule is squat then apply.    

The unsolicited but ideal answers to urban decay are to stop housing subdivisions, stop the construction of high-rise buildings, and stop the approval of TSAs. But these ideas would certainly be disregarded since some politicians are subdivision developers and realtors. Proposals like these would make both politicians and realtors very mad.

With high-rise edifices, hotels and transient apartments fully occupied during festive months, local residents suffer a shortage in water supply and get mired in traffic jams that worsen air pollution.

And as a bonus to the ugly situation, the low skyline of a beautiful city is altered by skyrise buildings that permanently block priceless golden sunsets.

The more people, the happier businessmen and realtors are. In contrast, high-rise buildings, traffic, garbage, pollution and overpopulation are multiplying factors that cause many other social illnesses in a city such as Baguio. All these lead to urban decay.

But there are choices. Either cut the trees in exchange for concrete structures and parking lots just like what happened at Luneta Park, or sacrifice your dream of belonging to a cement jungle and just let the grass grow. 

 

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Wishful New Year

  LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

The first month of the year was named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings or in other words, the god of openings, by Julius Caesar (July 100 BC - March 15, 44 BC). Janus was also called the god of doors and gates.
    Julius Caesar, the emperor of Rome declared January 1st a national holiday in honor of Janus, the god with two faces, one looking forward and one looking back. Medieval Christians then attempted to replace January 1 with more religiously significant dates but Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 revised a calendar that officially established January 1 as New Year's Day.
    Early medieval Christian thinkers were really thinking. To have a continuous celebration of the season, they conveniently placed New Year’s Day a week after Christmas Day and a week into the first month comes the Three Kings bearing gifts for the King of Kings.
    If not for the official declaration of January 1 as New Year’s Day a week after Christmas Day by Pope Gregory XIII, the world today could awkwardly be celebrating Christmas Day and New Year’s Day in two separate seasons.     
    Life truly is full of conflicts. Whatever, we all wish for the best every time the New Year comes, and may those wishes come true. Once I was told that to attain a good percentage of that, the best move is to choose the opposite in order to come up with a positive result.
    Quite similar to the Law of Interaction which says “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” You have a list of wishes but it is not easy to choose the best. Sometimes, there are wishes that need opposite actions that need to be done.
    I do wish that the act of forgiving someone comes easy even to one who does not deserve to be forgiven. I wish people have enough patience when things seem to be unreachable, and for people to be calm in times of anguish.
    When one wants to shout at the top of his voice, I wish that he chooses the opposite and be quiet instead. I wish that people learn to love those who hate them, to include the excluded, to forgive without apology, and to be strong to accept mistakes.
    I wish that we get disappointed too in order to realize the importance of doing favors for others, never to refuse their simple requests in order to remember the little kindness that we received in the past.
    I do wish that our failures make us realize humility. I wish that our losses make us value the little that we have left, and may our spirits be broken so that God may save our souls. I do wish that when one feels he needs to be comforted, he comforts someone instead; to suffer the pain of a broken heart in order to make others happy, and smile when he feels like crying.
    I wish that we all be part of other peoples’ lives even while we do not know where to fit. I do hope that pieces of us fill the empty spaces in other people’s lives who will feel that they may never be complete without others.
May you be blessed with the best in 2024 and may your wishes all come true! 
 

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Reason for the season

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

These times when information is as fast as clicking your internet device, the meaning of Yuletide celebrations from December to January with Christmas in the middle, has become so many that they even have doubts about the date of the birth of Jesus Christ.

    Blame that on research based on historical data and stories in the Bible and those told in many other religious reading material and maybe hold Mr. Google responsible too. Christmas sometimes brings back the blues and heartaches as it rekindles the abundant and happy past.     The Yuletide season also becomes sad for some whose loved ones are no longer with them.

    But if recent research could change history that would soon be acceptable or not, I still believe that Christmas, whether it fell on any month of the year, was designed to remind us to love and give to those who have less in life.

    During the Yuletide Season, people would decorate their houses, prepare food and gifts, and be merry. But in the middle of the jolly atmosphere, there are people who are reminded of their lack of material benefits.

    They pity themselves because of their misfortune. Their children peek through fences of rich neighbors partying in the garden and exchanging gifts. They dream that someday they will have food on their table. But while they do not have that, they think that life is unfair and curse it.

    Every time Christmas comes and the New Year approaches, rich and poor children everywhere expect to receive gifts. But the children of the rich and well-off are the ones who are assured of that prospect. And so for every shiny gift that the rich kid receives, the poor child becomes poorer.

    It is quite disturbing when celebrities show off on TV the shiny gifts that they give or receive. The poor who watch these shows certainly find their condition more reduced and feel less fortunate even more.

    We all love to receive gifts, but I sometimes wonder if the practice of gift-giving during Christmas has been implanted wrongly in us since the start of Christianity. It should not have become a tradition in the first place because Christmas and the birth of Christ should not be leveled with the love for material things.

    And so church and community leaders who have the means to explain the good reason for the season should take the lead to correct misimpressions about Christmas and how the birth of Christ should be celebrated.

            ***

Environmental awareness may have compelled Yuletide season followers to shift from using Pine Trees to other plants. This, as far as the Cordillera where Pine Trees grow, is concerned. Today, Christmas trees made of plastic are sold in department stores. But whether the tree was real or plastic, the important thing is that the trees were used to celebrate Christmas.

Christmas trees that were first developed in Germany in the 15th century were traditionally decorated with apples, nuts and other foods, and lighted with candles.

    After the discovery of electricity, the candles were replaced by Christmas lights. Today, a star is placed at the top of the tree to symbolize the Star of Bethlehem, and a ceramic angel to represent Angel Gabriel.

    In contrast, evergreen trees and wreaths that preceded Christmas trees were used to symbolize eternal life by the Chinese, Hebrews and Egyptians. The Vikings and the pagans in Europe also practiced “tree worship”. After their conversion to Christianity, they still used evergreens in the New Year to “scare away the devil, witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness”.

    My father had his way of using trees. Days before December, he had already looked around for a good size of a Pine Tree from a group of live Pine seedlings. The seedlings have grown naturally on a hill a few steps away from our old house at New Lucban. Then on the first day of December, we woke up surprised to find a tree standing in the living room.

    Years later, we used a Christmas tree cut from a big branch of a wild Guava tree instead of a Pine Tree. There was really no need to sacrifice a young Pine Tree. A Christmas tree does not have to be big but it is better that it is a living tree that has roots and appears to be full of energy so that it can be replanted after it has served its purpose.

    Wishing you a warm and peaceful Christmas. And all the best for the New Year too!

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Face-saving over recycled violations

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- Wear that mask. Covid-19 is still here. No less than President Bongbong Marcos caught it for the third time last Wednesday. Despite completing his vaccines, he still caught the virus. It means, BBM has been meeting lots of people. So the health officials around him would have to contact-trace those he had been in contact with.
    Dropping by the city hall last week, I chanced upon councilors Art Alladiw and Peter Fianza at the stairs leading to the mayor’s office. Prevailing issues and problems with no foreseeable solutions in the nearest future were the topics at that instant meeting.
    A few of the fleeting topics we talked about that continue to haunt the city council no end were the segregation of barangays from the Camp John Hay land area and the 19 Conditionalities that were hinged on the approval of the BCDA law.
    But what was more interesting was the topic that was timely for the season. Since the main ingredients in producing a Christmas Village are the decors and twinkling lights powered by electricity, then this is a project that is best offered to no other than the Benguet Electric Cooperative.
    The idea was brought out by Councilor Fianza to which Councilor Alladiw and I agreed without thinking. The idea should be studied by Beneco considering that it is in the business of providing electricity and possesses the needs for the project, including the lot area.
    Talking about Beneco, as far as the electric power consumers and members see it, no election for a legitimate set of Beneco board of directors for all districts will be happening this month as announced. Not even in January or February.
    Why? The indicators toward an election are not there. No registration of bets, no schedule, nothing. The fake and unelected board will stay. The consumer-members say they sat there without spending time, money and effort; nor blood, sweat and tears. They have tasted the spoils. What more can you ask?
    Saving face! When I heard one of the former directors say that the authority over electric cooperatives was saving face for its series of lapses, violations and unexplainable actions, I retorted that how can that be when in the first place there was no face to save.
    Then one of them butted in by saying that I was not accurate because the concerned national agency cannot even face the issues over Beneco because in the first place it has no face. Its order to put an interim board consisting of individuals who are not members of Beneco prior to the order was already a violation.
    They have not even participated in general membership assemblies, they have no electric meter under their name, and some were suspected of not residing inside Beneco’s franchise area. These were corrected to suit the requirements after their appointment to the interim.
    So more rules were violated in the attempt to correct previous violations. Violations of rules overlapped previous violations. Violations of rules started when the unanimous selection of Engr. Mel Licoben as General Manager by the elected and genuine Beneco board was not accepted by the National Electrification Administration (NEA).
    Instead, they endorsed an unqualified person, removed the elected Beneco board and installed an interim board consisting of a number of members that is lesser than its actual quorum. For how long they will stay there, no one knows. What is known is that they draw money from the coffers of Beneco and would continue to do so for as long as they are there.
    Fast forward to the present, the NEA had no one to “recycle” but Engr. Licoben as he was the most qualified. He “re-applied” along with others and risked a case in relation to his removal by the NEA that was still undecided by the court.
By the way, supporters had already applauded GM Licoben as they all had done so many times over when he was selected as GM by the elected board prior to the mess brought about by the actions of the NEA.
    When GM Licoben and I chanced upon each other during the wake of a relative, I congratulated him for finally being selected, not “appointed” as some quarters would want the public to know.
    Those are two distinct things. When one applies for a position along with a few others, the most qualified is selected from among the applicants. If one gets appointed, the appointee would be under the control of the appointing authority. 
Naturally, he thanked me with that ever present smile. But immediately remarked: “No, I was not selected. I was re-selected.” Those were his words. I said, “Well you saved the face of those who wanted to install another GM instead of you.”
 
 

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