Ibaloi clan, ‘CPLA’ fight for Baguio land ownership
>> Wednesday, March 5, 2014
BAGUIO CITY
– Cordillera People’s Liberation Army men are still trying to assert their
authority in this tourism resort, and gaining adherents despite being accused
by the city government of “trying to lord it over the city.”
Last week,
a native Ibaloi clan here linked with the CPLA in their ancestral land dispute
with private realty developer Sta Lucia Realty and Development Inc. along km 3,
Asin Road here.
The
Criminal Investigation Detection Group earlier confirmed reports of CPLA men
acting as bodyguards of land grabbers or were themselves trying to amass lands
for their own in Baguio.
But belying
earlier allegations that the CPLA, a militia group that had since severed ties
with the New People’s Army in 1986, “occupied” the 54-hectare ancestral land being
disputed by the native Ibaloi clan “Tunged”, Rosita Liwan speaking in their
behalf said it was even the CPLA headed by Melchor Balance alias “KaKawar” that
brokered dialogues with the huge realty firm to agree on a joint relocation
survey of the disputed land.
The CPLA
had been “maligned” publicly for its alleged “land-grabbing” activities in
Baguio City and Benguet province.
But
Balance, chairman of the group, instead blamed “pseudo-CPLA” groups like those
that had since agreed with a “closure agreement” with government that are still
“using the name of the group for their personal interests.”
Liwan said
it was their clan’s decision to close ranks with Balance’s group to strengthen
their claim of the disputed 54-hectare land that had been appropriated by
the realty developer as part of the subdivision development.
“We have
proof that it is the clan’s property as shown by tax declarations since
1959,” she said, adding they are holding boundary proofs with other
Ibaloi land claimants which had since sold theirs to Sta Lucia.
There are
about 10 Ibaloi families under the Tunged clan fighting it out with Sta Lucia,
which agreed that a “status quo” on the property pending a determination
of the metes and bounds of each claim.
The
CPLA involved with land-grabbing issues in Baguio maybe linked, Tingguian
(Abra) “Ka Kawar” said, to those still claiming they are CPLA’s but in fact have
turned their backs on the “uniform, identity and aspiration” for
Cordillera regional autonomy.
“Haan dan a
CPLA a ta nag closure agreement da ngarud (They are no longer CPLA because they already entered a closure
agreement with the government)."
Two years
ago, the CPLA group led by Arsenio Humiding entered into a closure agreement
with the government through the Office of the Presidential Assistant on the
Peace Process (OPAPP).
They had
since transformed as a socio-economic group, its leaders had claimed.
The present
CPLA now, Balance said, is alive and still aspiring for regional autonomy
and had since embarked on a citizen’s initiative-fueled “autonomy caravan”
consulting Cordillerans in the grassroots if they still yearn for
self-government.
The
response in the provinces where they went so far is tremendous, said CPLA
consultant Benedict Ballug, convenor of the “Autonomy Movement in the
Administrative Cordillera” (AMIN-TACO), meaning, “all of us”.
The same
autonomy movement dreams to craft a “tribal version” of the third Organict Act
that will establish the Cordillera Autonomous Region by the end of this
year.
“This time
around, with its beginnings in the grassroots unlike in the past, Cordillerans
will say yes to it,” Ballug said.
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