Elusive Happy Hallow CADT

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- The police should be congratulated for being on their feet in as far as apprehending drug personalities are concerned. In the wee hours of a certain day the other week, and after more than a month long surveillance that justified the issuance of a search warrant by Judge Danilo Camacho of RTC Branch 62; four persons, one of them a former policeman, were arrested for possession of dangerous drugs and other violations.

Police Supt. Dante A. Lubos said the suspects were arrested inside the Travellers Inn at Quezon Hill, Baguio City. The police operation was conducted in the presence of the Barangay Kagawad Ceasar Malicdan and Prosecutor Bryan Sagsago in compliance with the rules under RA 9165. 

Indeed, proper procedures should be followed to the letter in order to avoid dismissal of such cases. 

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 Sometime in 1992, the mixed Ibaloy – Kankanaey – Kalanguya community of Happy Hallow was organized by a team of volunteers together with Philip Canuto, to become the luckiest beneficiary of a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim, the first CADC ever issued in the Cordillera or the Philippines with an area of 250 hectares more or less.

The CADC area soon to be converted into a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title or CADT is where more than 1,000 residential houses, farm lots, Pine and fruit trees and more than 2,300 individuals belonging to nine indigenous clans are found. The nine clans are Canuto, Carino, Gasic, Pacday, Liwan, Paytocan, Otinguey, Pitlongay and Siso.

More than 10 years later, the NCIP was about to convert the Happy Hallow CADC to a CADT but the issue on what name would be written on the certificate came up. Three Ibaloy clans of the nine original clans wanted it to be called Happy Hallow Ibaloi Tribal Domain, considering an advice from the NCIP-Manila that a single domain title cannot be approved for two indigenous tribes.

So as not to delay the issuance of the CADT, three Ibaloy clans namely the Carino, Gasic, Pacday and some members of the Canuto clans opted to be out of the domain’s coverage. For reasons unknown, the NCIP still issued the Happy Hallow CADT composed of six clans belonging to the Ibaloy, Kankanaey and Kalanguya tribes. With the issuance, the domain area of 250 hectares was therefore reduced to only 1,464,182 sq.m or 146 hectares.

This was however unacceptable to the three Ibaloy clans who were excluded from the CADT. Thus, in a letter to NCIP chair Leonor Oralde-Quintayo, the three clans agreed to seek an amendment of the CADT to correct the erroneous area from 146 hectares to the original survey of 250 hectares, in order to complete the nine clans originally included in the CADC to CADT process.

“Recalling and reviewing our September 9, 2014 stakeholders’ assembly, we are convinced that the Commission En Banc’s approval (of the CADT) then, was anchored on the area of 250 hectares in the name of nine clans, but that the issued CADT suddenly became 146 hectares. We note that the 146-hectare area Happy Hallow CADT was not published. If published, we would have raised the same concern as we do now”, the three clans wrote in their letter to NCIP chair Quintayo. A publication of the metes and bounds of the CADT area is a requirement to complete the process.

Last week, representatives of the three clans met to sign the letter to Quintayo, hoping and praying that with the NCIP’s “sense of good governance, historical injustice would finally be corrected.” The event was witnessed by Baguio council of elders Philip Canuto who was also a signatory in the letter, Roger Sinot and Bert Antonio.

The CADT process started in 1990 after then DENR Sec. FulgencioFactoran issued Special Order 31 aimed at processing Igorot Claims and later issued Department Administrative Order 02. Both orders opened the initial processing of ancestral land claims and ancestral domain claims of IPs. In 1997, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act continued the processes done under SO 31 and DAO 02. Hence, the Happy Hallow CADT.

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Meanwhile, Assistant Secretary Michael P. Ong of the Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs in Malacanang referred to DENR Sec. Ramon Paje for his action a request for the deferment of implementation of a demolition order of houses at the Busol Forest Reservation within the Baguio side in view of a petition requesting President Noynoy Aquino to declassify portions of the reservation.

A memorandum from the Malacanang Legal Affairs office dated October 8, 2014 has already been forwarded to the DENR, directing that a review on whether the totality of the lands covered by the Busol Forest Reservation is still serving the purpose for which it was originally reserved, and for DENR to recommend if Proclamation No. 15 of April 27, 1922 be revoked or amended.

As far as studies and researches done by foreign and local scholars are concerned, the forest reservation proclamation has a separate survey from the proclamation of the lands owned by the seven original Ibaloy families who were identified by the American government prior to the Proc. No. 15. There are also reports that the aquifer of the reservation is found within the La Trinidad side of Busol. Baguio therefore should be paying La Trinidad for siphoning the water resources of its neighboring town.