BAGUIO CITY – Vice Mayor Edison R. Bilog underscored that the local government will contest all questionable applications for the titling of lands in the different parts of the city to help in ridding the land area from being covered with spurious land applications.
Speaking before the Baguio Leaders forum, Bilog said that the local government will not allow the city’s limited land area from being subjected to questionable land applications as people who deserve to be awarded the said alienable and disposable lands will be deprived of ownerships of their properties in the different parts of the city.
He pointed out that the local government will continue opposing spurious applications for the titling of lands in the city’s 128 barangays while those land applications that are pending and with questions on their processing will be contested by the city so that it will not be awarded to the spurious applicants.
Earlier, the local government questioned the issuance of a certificate of ancestral land title (CALT) by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to a purported land claimant over portions of Wright Park that covered portions of the titled property of the city in the area considering that the issuance of the CALT was fraudulently issued.
Subsequently, the city succeeded in its attempt to preserve the park and portions of its property when the CALT covering the same was eventually cancelled by the NCIP Commission after finding merit to the arguments of the local government.
While it is true that provisions of Republic Act (RA) 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) recognizes the century-old Charter of Baguio city wherein it is provided that all lands in the city will remain under its townsite reservation, prior rights over the said lands that were recognized by the courts or other quasai-judical bodies will be honoured, thus, the ancestral claim of some Ibaloi families will be recognized.
Bilog claimed that available alienable and disposable lands in the city must be awarded to qualified homelot applicants who were supposed to be in possession of their properties for a certain period of time and not to purported land speculators so that residents will be able to own their lands in the city.
Baguio city has a total land area of 57.4 square kilometres and with a rapidly growing population that is now pegged at 364,000 based on data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) as per results of the 2015 Census of Population and which could even increase to over 500,000 during the day because of the student and transient population wanting to study, live, work and do business in the city.
The city’s population continues to rapidly increase because people from the rural areas migrate to the urban center primarily to look for possible employment that will help them in improving the living condition of their families.
Further, the city is considered as the melting pot of different cultures in and out of the country because people want to stay in the city and enjoy its prevailing semi-temperate weather condition.
By Dexter A. See
