OLD MODERN Baguio鈥檚 original settlers come from big clans of Ibaloys in Benguet province. This 2008 photo shows Ibaloy elders during a festival in Kabayan, Benguet. 鈥擡V ESPIRITU
BAGUIO CITY 鈥� This city鈥檚 indigenous community of Ibaloys has drawn up a manifesto objecting to House Bill No. 9608 that will remove the ancestral land titling powers of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).
The manifesto, addressed to HB 9608 sponsor Camiguin Rep. Jurdin Jesus Romualdo, was adopted during the Ibaloy Day celebration on Feb. 23 at Burnham Park鈥檚 Ibaloy Garden, according to Councilor Maximo Edwin, the Baguio Indigenous Peoples鈥� (IP) mandatory representative, who also goes by his clan鈥檚 name, Bugnay.
The Ibaloy manifesto was adopted ahead of a city council resolution passed on Monday that backed the 鈥渕ounting opposition by the city鈥檚 indigenous peoples organizations and IP associations to House Bill 9608 introduced by Representative鈥omualdo.鈥�
Romualdo鈥檚 measure would remove from the NCIP the ancestral domain office, which oversees the issuance of Certificates of Ancestral Land Title and Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title to IPs, and transfer it to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which issues land patents throughout the country.
The bill said changes had to be made because 鈥渇raudulent claims to ancestral domains and ancestral lands undermine the IPs鈥� rights, leading to disputes and injustices.鈥�
HB 9608 also claimed that 鈥渘on-Indigenous cultural communities are also involuntarily subjected to customs not their own through the all-encompassing jurisdiction of the NCIP.鈥�
But the Ibaloys said Congress should instead increase funding to make NCIP function more efficiently, as they acknowledged that 鈥淣CIP is not immune to controversy 鈥� (and) has its own weaknesses and lapses due to its poor and outdated organizational structure coupled with (a few) erring personnel.鈥�
鈥楾补惫迟补惫补濒鈥�
NCIP, they stressed, only required 鈥渢imely reorganization or upgrade [for a bureaucracy it inherited from] its predecessors, the Office for Northern Cultural Communities and the Office for Southern Cultural Communities.鈥�
The Ibaloys, which formulated the manifesto through a customary decision-making process called 鈥渢avtaval鈥� (communal discussion),鈥� stressed that the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997, which gave them legal rights over their ancestral lands, was grounded on the landmark 鈥淣ative Title鈥� Doctrine issued in 1909 by the United States Supreme Court, which recognized the indigenous land rights of Mateo Cari帽o, an Ibaloy, over what is now Camp John Hay. INQ