PIA brings Barangayan sa

BP to Cantaub, SBullones

CANTAUB, Sierra Bullones, Bohol, Nov 19 (PIA)—A multi-agency mission gathered the indigenous community elders and barangay officials to advance government information relative to the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, in time for the 27th anniversary of the law in an activity billed as Barangayan sa Bagong Pilipinas (Barangayan sa BP), November 19.

Organized by the Presidential Communications Office and the Philippine Information Agency in Bohol, in partnership with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), Sierra Bullones Local Government Unit, the Provincial Government of Bohol and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the activity tackled on the provisions of the IPRA specifically on the ancestral domain claims of the indigenous communities.

Here, where most of the barangay is well within the tribal community’s ancestral domains, the delay in the processing of their claim has allowed other government agencies to innocently hand out Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOA) to tribe members and to non-tribe members, significantly shrinking the ancestral domains from 3,173 to nearly a third of that.

Many of the tribe members are also non-conversant with the IPRA and the CLOA policies that some of those that earned their CLOAs sold them, transferring the ownership of the land to non-tribe members, Cantaub Barangay Chair Conchita Sajol.

In fact, former Community and Environment and Natural Resources Officer Elpidio Palaca, a Higaonon tribe member from Mindabao, who married an Eskaya, admitted that the tribes ancestral; domains would be bigger, had the tribe elder Mariano Datahan not opted for the survey of only the Sinaculo, or the smaller portion of the Eskaya domains.

The Sinaculo, or the sacred grounds of the Eskaya, is a little over 3,000 hectares of domains where most of the village centers are located and connected with the tribal trails.

In 1996, pinched by time pressure, Eskaya elder Mariano Datajan has asked Palaca to accompany the government survey team, to determine the boundaries of the ancestral domains.

However, due to the lack of material time to get the survey completed, the old man apparently told Palaca to only survey hallowed grounds of the Eskaya, which is the 3,173 hectares.

With a government issued CAD-title, the whole contiguous area would be declared as a communal property of the Eskaya and assures that the ancestral domain claim remains to be whole, for the future generation of the Eskaya to enjoy as their ancestral hollowed grounds, in the full concept of culture preservation.

As the survey was completed, areas in the domain were drastically reduced, while the residents of communities outside the sacred lands were hoping to also add to the domains the lands they have come to own as a tribe.

As the NCIP helped facilitate the processing of the release of the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claims (CADC), government agencies have also thrown in their title awards, while tenurial instruments were also handed out.

The NCIP however, is now set to put the CAD-C for the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADT) as soon as the Committee En Banc which includes the Land Registration Authority, NCIP, DENR, DAR and other agencies submits their recommendations for the CADT.

When that happens, all those who received their CLOAs after 1996, or when the claim was submitted, would be included in the CADT R-7-014, which contains the claims and the protested parts of it.

To settle the potential double claims, the NCIP Bohol Field Office head said CLOAs issued before 1996, to tribe members would be respected, but CLOAs issue in 1997 until recently, can not be respected anymore in the CADT.

This means, according to Gonzaga that, after the NCIP got the official acknowledgement of the Eskaya

claim in 1996, any more issued CLOAs within the claimed domain are deemed illegal.

With this, the NCIP is now coordinating with the Land Registration Authority, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which also issued other tenurial instruments to tribe members and

non-IPs, as well as the Department of Agrarian Reform, for the cancellation of the issued CLOAS within the ancestral domains.

Aside from DAR which issued CLOAs to farmers, the DENR has also unknowingly issued leases, permits,

agreements, joint venture or production sharing agreements as well as licenses concerning the development, exploration and utilization of the portions of the ancestral claims.

The DENR, who also helped clear the issue said a knee deep pile of CLOAs are due for action: cancellation so that these properties could be reverted to the Eskaya communal lands.

The Barangayan then presented the DENR policies which, can also be sources of potential issues like the tribe members harvesting and transporting tribal resources outside their domains.

While the IPRA allows the tribe full utilization of the resources in the concept of sustainable resource use, transporting these products outside the domain could be illegal.

Register them, suggested the DENR authorities who attended the Barangayan.

The subject raw materials: bamboos which have been planted by the community, prior to the CADC, can not be transported until these are registered and the transporter can prove that these come from the clump which the harvester earlier registered.

Or these are crafted into finished products and packaged under the government assistance programs. (RAHC/PIA-7/Bohol)

ISSUES EVEN KIDS NEED TO KNOW. Apart from the Eskaya elders whose claims for their ancestral domains as promised by the IPRA is stalled, IP children where also represented in the Barangayan, to give them the basic idea of the issues that they could continue fighting to thresh out. (PIABohol)