Sagada biz permit makes execs tackle whether Manila lady can do business

HAPPY WEEKEND

Gina Dizon

SAGADA, Mountain Province – The question of whether a non-native of this tourist town can do business here is being tackled by local officials.

This, after the Local Investment and Incentives Board forwarded to Mayor James Pooten a request of resident Aurea Claravall, manager of Sagada Brew to have her business permit issued with the recommendation that her business permit be denied.

Her business permit was earlier “suspended” by the local government citing Section 28 of the LIIC which provides, “to maintain and preserve the customary and traditional practices of the municipality, protect the identity of Sagada and to avoid the situation wherein the indigenous people of Sagada are divested and displaced from their basic sources of livelihood, the following areas of investments shall be exclusively reserved to local residents with Sagada ancestry.

Aurea Claravall is a tourist from Manila who came to Sagada in 2012, met Mary Tumapang a native from Sagada and eventually got into a “joint business venture agreement” to set up a coffee and resto shop  called Sagada Brew.

 From 2014 to 2017 the business permit was issued in the name of Tumapang and in 2018 in the name of Claravall. Not until 2019 that permit was not given apparently with the LIIC provision on “ Sagada ancestry” which led Claravall to forward a letter to Mayor James Pooten for reconsideration.

The peaceful business partnership went for three years from 2014 to 2017. Not until 2018 when Tumapang did not renew Sagada Brew’s permit due to some misunderstanding and led Claravall to renew said  business which was granted in 2018.  

In 2019,  the business permit was not given following a letter-reminder  on the provision of LIIC’s exclusivity to “local residents with Sagada ancestry” on getting into tourism-based businesses.

With Claravall not a Sagada native, it would automatically boot her out to manage a tourism-based business in Sagada following Section 28 of the LIIC. Claravall however did not operate and establish Sagada Brew alone much as Sagada Brew was established through a joint venture with Tumapang, a native of  Sagada.  

The LIIC encourages investments or joint ventures, tie up in projects aimed to develop high end industries in the municipality.

The Sangguniang  Bayan on the other hand forwarded  to the LIIB and Pooten’s executive action to decide on the request for reconsideration on Claravall’s  issuance of business permit for Sagada Brew stating  the LIIC’s Section 28 provision,  “pursuant to Section 13 of RA 8731 otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1987, the State recognizes the inherent right of the Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples to self-governance and self-determination and respects the integrity of their values, practices and institutions. Consequently, the State shall guarantee the right of ICCs/IPs to freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. Section 17 of the same further states that the ICCs/IPs shall have the right to determine and decide their own priorities for development affecting their lives, beliefs, institutions, spiritual well-being, and the lands they own, occupy or use.”

With the above, the Sagada native has his own freedom and right to decide what best option he or she shall do on the disposition of his or her own properties particularly including land.

Tumapang got into a business venture agreement with Claravall, a non-Sagadan.

To deny Claravall a permit would  mean denying  the freedom and the right of Tumapang to get into  joint venture agreements with anyone to do business or have an investment partner on the use of the land she owns.

This is provided for under the IPRA and the provision of the LIIC on joint partnerships apart from the provision of the Philippine Constitution on Filipino citizen’s constitutional rights to trade on principles of equality and reciprocity. 

With the freedom of the individual to make his or her own decision to his own properties, cultural norms have to be addressed.

To follow from unwritten rules in Sagada, land is disposed to a nearest relative or members of the community when no one is interested. Sagada is fiercely possessive of its own territory particularly land that it shall not be parted away from the Sagada native, and land should not to be given or sold to a non-Sagadan.

While that is so, discussions are rife here on what “Sagada ancestry” means -- whether it is confined to consanguinity or affinity in applying “Sagada ancestry” as a provision of the investment code.