Baguio execs ask Marcos to appoint IP representative in BCDA
BAGUIO CITY—The city council of Baguio has asked President Marcos to include indigenous people’s (IP) representatives to the policy bodies overseeing all former American baselands in order to give voice to their constitutionally-protected rights.
Appointing Indigenous Peoples Mandatory Representatives (IPMR) at the board of directors of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), as well as its subsidiary companies, would serve indigenous communities whose ancestral lands overlap with baselands, according to City Resolution No. 283-2025 passed by the council on April 28.
IPMRs at BCDA and its other firms would shield all IP communities nestled within or around former baselands, said Councilor Jose Molintas, an Ibaloy human rights lawyer who sponsored the resolution.
Res. 283-2025 urges Mr. Marcos to require a BCDA IPMR with full voting rights and access to all information and “decision-making processes,” asserting that their presence there should not be treated as merely symbolic.
In the case of Baguio City, an IPMR at the BCDA board or its subsidiary, the John Hay Management Corporation (JHMC), will give a voice to the Ibaloy, Kalanguya and Kankana-ey residents of 14 barangays thriving inside Camp John Hay, the former American military recreational base here, said Molintas in an interview last week.
Ancestral land rights
The presence of IPMRs will allow IP communities to exercise their right to grant a “Free, Prior, Informed Consent” before BCDA can proceed with projects that would disrupt ancestral land communities, said Molintas.
The Aeta, for example, have ancestral land rights over vast central Luzon properties in the provinces of Tarlac and Pampanga, which overlap with some former baselands.
In 2020, BCDA was criticized for issuing eviction notices against all occupants – including Aeta households – who were standing in the way of the government’s green urban planning experiment, New Clark City. A BCDA release at the time argued that no Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) were issued in these areas of Tarlac province.
In 2022, the Aetas in Porac, Pampanga were granted a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) over 18,660 hectares of ancestral property, although it may not directly intersect with BCDA custodial lands.
Baguio Ibaloys were granted their CADT at Barangay Happy Hallow, which is inside John Hay. Several Certificates of Ancestral Land Titles (CALT) have also been issued to Ibaloy clan homelots at John Hay. But BCDA has actively pursued the nullification of these IP titles before the courts.
Baguio exemption
Adding to the woes of Baguio’s Ibaloys were three Supreme Court rulings (2019, 2022 and 2023) that affirmed a special clause in the 1997 Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Ipra) that exempts Baguio from Ipra’s coverage. The decisions meant Baguio Ibaloys are unable to secure NCIP services and benefits they are entitled to.
Molintas said a BCDA IPMR should also help prevent any forms of “overreach,” citing a congressional measure that would have facilitated the sale of Camp John Hay lands had it not been vetoed by President Marcos on April 25.
The Baguio Council had opposed Senate Bill No. 2647 that empowered BCDA to sell 10 percent of special economic and freeport zones that it would declare as alienable and disposable, said Councilor Peter Fianza, an Ibaloy lawyer.
