BAGUIO CITY – The city council last Monday approved measures intended to reclaim tracts of lands within the Forbes Park forest reservation that were issued Certificates of Ancestral Land Title (CALTs).
The body adopted the recommendation of the committee earlier created to investigate the titling of Lot 1 of Forbes Park headed by Councilor Isabelo Cosalan Jr. for the council to pass a resolution asserting adverse claim over the parcels of land covered by Original Certificate of Title Nos. O-CALT-26, O-CALT-27, O-CALT 28 and O-CALT-29 within said reservation and directing the City Legal Office to cause the annotation of the said adverse claim.
Also upon recommendation of the committee, the body also sought to request the Office of the Solicitor General to file the appropriate cases for the recovery of those portions of Forbes Forest Reservations which were taken and included in O-CALT-26, O-CALT-27, O-CALT-28, and O-CALT-29.
Other recommendations of the committee which were subsequently adopted by the council were:
*To ascertain the actual area on the ground of the remaining Forest Reserve in coordination with the Department of Environment and Natural Resource-CAR including that of the Botanical Garden/Imelda Park, by conducting an actual relocation survey using Parcels I and II of Proclamation No. 10, series of 1924 and the CALT’s as basis.
*To request President Gloria Arroyo through the DENR to turn over or proclaim in favor of the City of Baguio the remaining portions of Forbes Forest Reservation for Watershed/Forest Purposes illegible from future conversion or reclassification.
*To request the Congress of the Republic of the Philippines to conduct a congressional inquiry on why the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) and the Land Registration Commission are giving due course to the applications for titling as ancestral lands of government reservations like the Forbes Forest Reservations; and
*Allocate the amount of P500,000 from any available city fund for the conduct of the relocation survey.
The committee in its investigation made the following findings:
*That Proclamation No. 10, series of 1924 consists of 3 parcels, namely, Parcel I with a an area or 298,510 square meters, Parcel II with an area of 168,615 square meters, and Parcel III covering an area of 212,266 square meters;
*That portions of Parcels I and II were segregated for settlement purposes by virtue of Proclamation No. 773, series of 1970 and Republic Act 8963 with the following area:
*That Proclamation No. 773, series of 1970 covers an area of 69,982 square meters of Parcel I, while R.A 8963 segregated from the Forbes Forest Reservations an area of 37,939 square meters of Parcel I and 3,934 square meters of Parcel II.
*That there are indeed titles issued through the NCIP to the Heirs of Lauro Carantes over portions of Forbes Park Parcels I and II.
*That the following are the titles issued by the NCIP on November 12, 2008 and registered with the Register of Deeds, Baguio City on April 7, 2009, all in the name of the Heirs of Lauro Carantes represented by Antino Carantes married to Espenilla Carantes, with residence and postal address at Purok I, Poblacion, Itogon, Benguet: O-CALT-26 containing an area of 89,242 square meters; O-CALT-27 containing an area of 2,327 square meters; O-CALT-28 containing an area of 34,855 square meter; and O-CALT-29 containing an area of 112,603 square meters for a total aggregate area of 239,027 square meters.
*That the above CALT’s cover 5 lots with O-CALT-28 consisting of two lots with respective areas of 3,488 square meters for Lot 1 and 31,367 square meters for Lot 2.
*That based on the Plan prepared by the City Assessors Office, O-CALT-29 falls inside Parcel I while O-CALT’s-26 and 27 are within Parcel II of Forbes Park, respectively. Lot 2 of O-CALT-28, on its western portion overlaps with Forbes Park Parcel II.
*That apparently, the Botanical Garden is a portion of Parcel II of the Forbes Forest Reservations, however, it is not clear whether the same Botanical Garden or any portion thereof is covered by O-CALT-26; and
*That Proclamation No. 290 or the Teachers Camp Reservation and Proclamation No. 613, a portion of Proclamation No. 290 segregated for settlement purposes are not covered nor overlapped by the CALT’s.
During the session, NCIP-CAR Amador Batay-an said most of the CALTs were issued before his term of office.
The body also decided to asked the NCIP-CAR to submit a copy of claim book or list of applications over said reservations.
The body earlier urged the NCIP and the DENR to stop accepting applications for ancestral land claims and to suspend processing of pending applications until the Supreme Court issue a definite ruling on whether Baguio City is covered by the Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA).
The investigative committee was composed of city legal officer Melchor Carlos Rabanes, city planning officer Arturo Orig, city engineer Leo Bernardez and city assessor Augustus Medina. – aileen p. refuerzo
