Baguio charter uprooted IPs

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza  

BAGUIO CITY -- What’s keeping former DENR Sec. Gina Lopez busy now and what happened to the Indigenous Peoples Inter-Agency Task Force that she created sometime in 2017? The creation of the task force was envisioned to guarantee social protection and uphold the self-determination of IPs in the country.

The Indigenous Peoples Inter-Agency Task Force that may be called IPIT Force for brevity is composed of representatives from the DENR, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and the Natural Resources Development Corp., DENR's corporate arm.

The IPIT Force was created to stand as the IP desk at the DENR central office in Quezon City that will attend to the concerns of IPs who often face threats of land grabbing, forced eviction and human- rights violations.

The IPIT Force is for IPs who are “naiipit” and exposed to undue pressure and influence from industries intending to extract natural resources.

The DENR through the IPIT Force promised to employ a strict policy of verifying the authenticity of documents pertaining to the use of lands within IP communities, aside from agreeing to desist from issuing regular titles within ancestral lands.

This comes at a time when IP individuals and communities are being marginalized by big companies and influential persons who are in possession of fake papers.

That is where the IP Mandatory Representatives in legislative councils all over the country come in and be partners with the IPIT Force if said task force is still in existence.

In Baguio and the Cordillera, for example, the time is ripe in hoping for new strategies against decimation and fight for IP rights by becoming IPMRs in LGU legislative bodies, respectively.

Having IPMRs in the council and provincial legislative bodies would certainly simplify matters on ancestral lands and other contentious matters that concern IPs and non IPs who commonly inhabit a particular area.

But choosing an IPMR is not easy. Just like in selecting persons to become NCIP commissioners, the one to be endorsed should be one who has not wronged the Ibaloys or any other tribe.

An IPMR should be one who will push for the issuance of ancestral land titles and IP rights, unlike an NCIP commissioner who has conflicting interests because he favors TSAs and cancellation of CALTs being a realtor. 

The need to protect IP rights by any or all means is recognized here in commemoration with the International IP Day that is being celebrated today at the Baguio Central School.

Strengthening IP rights by putting in place IPMRs in LGU councils is also recognized here in commemoration of Proclamation No. 1906 s. 2009 declaring October of every year as national IP month. 

By the way, a couple of years ago, the theme for the national IP month celebration was about unity and development. A month before that, organizers for the inauguration of the charter city of Baguio invited the Ibaloy IPs to join the parade and merry-making.

For me, I could only say that I cannot join them because of my conviction that the charter was not something to be celebrated by the Baguio Ibaloy.

In contrast to the national IP month theme that year, the truth is that the Ibaloys were uprooted from their lands and became disunited, after the Baguio charter of 1909 was written by the Americans.

They were not empowered, they were not at peace with their souls, and could not develop what remained of their lands because of government proclamations that sided the interests of the American colonizers.

In fact, the charter document gave the American colonizers “official” grounds to grab and dispose the land which we now call Baguio City the way they wanted to. Writing a charter document gave the act of creating a city a semblance of legitimacy.

The land which became Baguio City that everybody claims to love now was with no basis delineated from the old towns of Tuba, Itogon and La Trinidad of Benguet. Without the American charter order, Baguio could not have been a city. The land could have grown on its own.

The roads and public schools could have been named otherwise. The Ibaloys to this day could still be the owners of the lands of Teachers Camp, Country Club, John Hay and BPI Guisad areas.

The land where SM sits on, Session Road, Harrison Road, and even city hall and this area where we are presently celebrating international IP day could still be owned by Ibaloys today.

The lands from Pacdal to Brent School could not have been squatted on by wealthy businessmen from Manila and the Visayas. This is where the role of the IPMR in collaboration with the IPIT Force comes in – fight for the lands and correct the injustices of the past. In the meantime, Congratulations to the charter squatters.