NCIP, Baguio agree to repeal Ipra exclusion of Ibaloys
BAGUIO CITY—Baguio officials and the agency promoting indigenous Filipino rights have agreed in principle to remove restrictions in the 1997 Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Ipra, or Republic Act No. 8371) that excludes the city’s Ibaloys from securing ancestral land titles.
But how to fulfill that would have to be studied by a technical working group which was also formed in a resolution passed by the city council and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) on Tuesday during their first joint session here.
NCIP commissioners led by chair Jennifer Pia Sibug-Las and majority of the Baguio councilors, led by Mayor Benjamin Magalong and Vice Mayor Faustino Olowan, convened to discuss the full impact of Ipra’s Section 78 which three recent Supreme Court rulings cited when it nullified Certificates of Ancestral Land Title (CALTs) granted to Baguio Ibaloy families dating back to 2010.
Section 78 states: “The City of Baguio shall remain to be governed by its Charter, and all lands proclaimed as part of its townsite reservation shall remain as such until otherwise reclassified by appropriate legislation.”
The SC decisions issued in 2019, 2022 and 2023, and a July 2024 Baguio Regional Trial Court decision all say the NCIP does not have authority to grant CALTs here because of this special clause. The NCIP last year heeded the high court by freezing ancestral land processing in the summer capital, angering Ibaloys and indigenous rights advocates.
According to Councilor Jose Molintas, an Ibaloy human rights lawyer, Section 78 discriminates against Baguio’s Ibaloy dwellers contrary to what Ipra is supposed to uphold and should be expunged.
But fellow Ibaloy Councilor Peter Fianza, also a lawyer and a former city administrator, advised the group against reviving the constitutionality issues that had plagued Ipra immediately after it was signed into law by the late President Fidel Ramos.
Constitutionality
Former Justice Isagani Cruz and lawyer Cesar Europa had questioned Ipra before the SC for violating a constitutional provision that all Philippine resources are owned by the State, which is referred to as the Regalian Doctrine, but their petition was dismissed on Dec. 6, 2000, after the high court sitting en banc could not break a 7-7 tie in votes.
Simplicia Hagada, NCIP ethnographic commissioner for Cagayan, also said that a straightforward amendment of Ipra in Congress to remove Section 78 might open it to tampering by interest groups that wanted it watered down.
Some NCIP commissioners instead suggested that the repeal of Section 78 could be achieved by amending Baguio’s modern charter.
