Kiltepan; cacophony of land disputes, search for justice

 HAPPY WEEKEND

Gina Dizon

(Third part of a series)

SAGADA, Mountain Province – The transfer of land via sale on the Kiltepan lot gives credence to veracity of ownership of nnocent and legitimate purchasers. It would be injustice to grab the land of those who in their honest belief and in good faith bought lands they believed they are buying from legitimate sellers.For who would like to buy land that is questionable.The law protects  innocent purchasers.

The law in customary practice basically has a rule to make sure that land is being sold to rightful persons.

Land is first offered to immediate relatives within the line where the lot comes from then to relatives on the other side.It shall then be offered to adjacent owners of the lot should there be no takers from immediate relatives. And where adjacent owners not buy it shall be sold to the public within the ancestral domain/tribe. In Sagada, a standing and oral belief and practice is that land shall not be sold to those outside of Sagada. Meaning, not sold to anyone not related to Sagada ascendants and descendants in the first degree.  

The above rule refers to individual lots referring to residential lots or ricefields where a person has specially inherited or acquired in other ways.

A tayan, lakon or a saguday which is a woodlot in most cases or communal land of the umiliwhich  is a pasture land or watershed or spring in most cases however is not sold. This, based on the customary practice and belief that a tayan or a lakon or saguday or a communal land is for the clan and its members to enjoy in the next generation, and for the communal land for the community to enjoy.   

A communal land for one located at Lamagan is a large tract of pastureland considered communal by folks of Kiltepan as noted in interviews.  This however is tax-declared by one of Kiltepan people, Eduardo Latawan who declared 68 hectares of Lamagan or what is popularly called  Marlboro Country in his name. Shall this communal land cease to be communal and instead owned and enjoyed by one person or shall this communal land be asserted by the people of Kiltepan as their collective land.

Anyway, comes now the application for a Certificate of Ancestral Land Title (CALT) filed by Wilson Capuyan before the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP). Based from an investigation report of NCIP-Mountain Province  counsel  Wilson Kalangeg, lot buyer Capuyan and lot sellers Lamen and Sumedca are relatives and that subject lot is an ancestral land transferred thru sale to Capuyan in accordance with customary laws, said application is endorsed for  a CALT and that there is  no legal basis to withhold CALT application by reason that applicant clearly established his ownership over the subject land.

Land filed by Wilson Capuyan for CALT refers to the three hectare lot located withinTekeng bought from Alfredo Lamen, and Lamen heirs Graal Lamen-Militar and EufemiaLamen+, wife of Bingky Lamen Jr.+ ; and another two hectares bought from WilfredoSumedca.

Former  NCIP regional director Sancho Boquing  decided in favor of  Capuyan for the issuance of a CALT based on the investigation report of  Kalangeg.

Opposition of Capuyan's filing of application for CAL was noted from  iKiltepan native Josephine Dawas, lot buyer Fely Capuyan-Omengan and the people of  Kiltepan.   

Kiltepan people pose their opposition on the CALT application on the ground that the  CALT application is part of the lot ancestrally and communally owned by the indigenous peoples of Kiltepan  and further forwarded that Lamen could not trace any ancestry from Kiltepan. Capuyan though aver that  his predecessors in interest trace their ancestry from  Kiltepan.

While this story is printed, the NCIP en banc is scheduled to hear the CALT application of Capuyan this March it was learned. What the NCIP en banc shall say makes a big difference in how land transfers via sale sets rules and definition of what indigenous cultural communities mean as to favoring a CALT application within a particular indigenous peoples area.   

Kiltepan elders are going by with the tide and held a ritual and a press conference at Tekeng March 17 forwarding their petition to President Benigno Aquino III calling for investigation of private claimants of their communal and ritual site, and government employees favoring  the “privatization” of their “ay-ayagan” (sacred site).

In response to the  on- going issue, the current Sangguniang Bayan in their meeting last March 17 requested private claimants to set aside the identified  Kiltepan view deck as cited  in SB resolution 01-2009 as a community park.

While this is so, the municipal trial court of Sagada-Besao decided that the Lamens’ were in prior possession of said property and ordered Maleng-an andDawas to stop introducing improvements on said property.

Said decision was affirmed by the Regional Trial Court and currently now on appeal by Maleng-an and Dawas from a civil case of forcible entry filed by  Florence Lamen spouse of the late  Alfredo  Lamen  and Graal Lamen Militar, daughter of Alfredo Lamen  against Francis Malengan  averring that the late Simon Lamen the father of Alfredo Lamen  was the owner of an unregistered  parcel of  land since the 1950s  covering an area of 24 hectares more or less  declared for taxation purposes; and that the late Alfredo Lamen Sir purchased for his wife, Florence Lamen a  2 and ½ hectare land from  Maleng-an, a portion of which is the subject matter of the case.

Subject property has been undisturbed until  sometime in August and December 2009  when Malengan entered  portion of the subject land  and sometime in July 2010 began bulldozing the lot   reportedly with the use of heavy equipment  belonging to the construction  company of  contractor  Eduardo Latawan.

Lot buyer Wilson Capuyan filed a case of forcible entry against Francis Malengan in  civil case filed at the Municipal Trial Court of Sagada-Besao in 2009 over a portion of purchased property claimed by Maleng-an.

Capuyan and Maleng-an entered into a compromise agreement in March  2010 for the peaceful agreement and for public good Malengan relinquished his claim of actual possession of the disputed property in favor of Capuyan.  That however Maleng-an maintains  and retains his claim,  over the nearby lots  located at  Kiltepan and for the record  specifically denies  having executed a  deed of  sale  of lots located at Kiltepan  in favor of the late  Alfredo Lamen.

Noting the lack of  opposition from Kiltepan people for a long period of time since he bought said  property in 1993, Capuyan asks why only now in 2010 when improvements  were made  that opposition is being aired by adverse claimants and folks from Kiltepan.

In separate civil case of forcible entry filed by Capuyan against Maleng-an, the latter with Josephine Dawas claim they are owners and prior possessors of the land in question.  Dawas posits that she acquired the possession and ownership from her late father Felix Padcayan.

The regional trial court in their decision found that  assertion of prior actual possession has greater weight over the allegation of  Padkayan and Maleng-an. The court conducted an ocular inspection where it saw the improvement of the heirs of Simon Lamen such as the Igorot house and pigpen and a road opened by  Lamen  in 1980.  In  1982 a small portion was donated  by  Lamen to the Bureau of  Telecommunication  and in 1993  Lamen  sold a portion  with an approximate value of 2 hectares  to Wilson Capuyan.

Also, another case filed by Fely Capuyan  against his brother Wilson Capuyan got resolved in an amicable settlement. The subject lot involved  a question on encroachment on one hectare lot bought by Wilson Capuyan from  GraalLamen- Militar and Eufemia Lamen, spouse of Bingky Lamen.

 Another  case involved a two hectare lot  purchased by Capuyan from Wilfredo ‘Liling’ Sumedca within the Kiltepan area which led to some portions being claimed by spouses Samuel Dawas Jr and Josephine Dawas from Kilong. The case for annulment of tax declaration with recovery for possession filed by spouses Dawas on March 2013 against Capuyan was decided on May 2013 by Judge Luis Daoen of the Municipal Circuit Trial Court (MCTC) of Besao-Sagada. In said order, Daoen pointed out the existing improvements introduced by the Capuyans over the property which is being contested ‘can no longer be restrained or enjoined because they are improvements to preserve the existing structures; and what is to be enjoined is the construction of a new house or building. Planting of fruits on the land is allowed because the defendant is presumed the lawful owner or possessor until his right is defeated by the plaintiff”.

While a case in the Court of Appeals decided that land cases ancestral in nature shall be heared at  NCIP’s adjudicatory venue, the fate of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) and how it shall be applied in cases already heard in regular courts is an on-going challenge in how customary basis of land ownership and other customary practices gets recognized in said courts.

A case decided in the Court of Appeals forwards that cases  ancestral in nature should be tried at the NCIP as the proper jurisdiction. As noted however, said cases involving KIltepan land continue to be heared and decided in the municipal and regional trial courts and the court of appeals much as the courts took jurisdiction over said cases.

In the approval of CALT applications, customary evidences are a crucial need demanding the statements and testimonies of elders apart from other customary evidence to assist decision making in issuing CALTs. Too, documentation is a need to record customary practices and rules on land ownership, transfer for one.  

That in the present and in further cases ancestral and customary in nature, documented age-old practises help firm up IPRA’s application on deciding land ownership as to individual, clan and communal. Where transfer of ownership via sale covering private rights vis a vis  communal and/or ancestral right comes as a trying point on establishing  criteria on ancestral land title applications and rules on approval.