Baguio’s Ibaloy tribesmen reject John Hay boundary

BAGUIO CITY — Happy Hallow, the only intact Ibaloy farming community in this mountain resort city, rejected yesterday a government bid to conduct a survey and a census in compliance with the so-called "segregation process" that will demarcate the community boundaries with the adjacent Camp John Hay Reservation.

The opposition of community residents was summarized in a resolution made by eight Ibaloy clan leaders and unanimously approved by community members. The resolution was presented during a meeting called by the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) and John Hay Poro Point Development Corp. (JPDC) on May 22 at Happy Hallow.

In the segregation process, as defined by the BCDA, the BCDA-JPDC is to conduct a topographic survey while the National Housing Authority (NHA) will do its own census and house tagging. The idea, according to BCDA officials, is to make sure that the segregated lands will be exactly identified and go to their rightful owners.

Happy Hallow elders noted, however, that in BCDA’s map references, about 116 hectares out of Happy Hallow’s total 250-hectare land area is included within Camp John Hay’s boundaries. The community elders are contesting this.

Consenting to such a process, they added, will displace them from their ancestral land and on top of that oblige them through the Miscellaneous Sales Application (MSA) to "buy again" the lands that they already own.

BCDA’s segregation process does not recognize the ancestral land rights of the Ibaloy community, which already occupied Happy Hallow even before Camp John Hay was established, community elders said.

Camp John Hay, a former US military base, is being rapidly turned into a classy tourist enclave as a joint project of the BCDA, the JPDC, and Fil-Estate, a private land development firm. — Northern Dispatch