Council urged to scrutinize proposed charter amendments

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

A FORMER councilor and a representative of Indigenous Peoples to the United Nations urged the City Council to scrutinize proposed amendments to the Baguio City Charter.

The amendments, proposed by Baguio City Mayor Mauricio Domogan, include the removal of the Bridal Waterfalls from the city's seal and the codification of an arrangement between Tuba town and Baguio regarding a boundary dispute.

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A new charter will also speed up the awarding and disposal of public land to Baguio beneficiaries, Domogan said.

But former councilor Jose Molintas specifically requested the City Council committee on laws to look into the provision on the disposal of alienable and disposable lots.

He said that in the proposed charter, the swapping agreement between the Tuba and Baguio "could create a situation where the people of Baguio City will be displaced."

The Municipal Council of Tuba agreed earlier to swap with Baguio so the area where its municipal hall stands becomes a property of the municipality, not of the city.

"It is unconstitutional, it deprives people of their political and civil rights," Molintas said.

He also said the proposal where disposal of alienable and disposable will be lodged with an awards committee headed by mayor, is a mere transfer of functions.

Molintas said he does not see the need of creating an awards committee, or even revising the city's charter for there are no longer lands to sell in the city.

"Let us be practical. If we have a charter, it should last a hundred years. It's an absurd policy," he said.

Molintas said the committee on laws should stand up for the rights of the people of Baguio and look into the economic and other benefits if the 101-year-old charter was revised.

"For the common good, this should be debated upon so the people of Baguio [if finally approved] will not ask for [it to be declared] unconstitutional," he said.

Another oppositionist to the revision of the city charter, Irisan resident Honorio Sagmayao, said awarding of A and D lots should not be done through auction.

"Why insist on this concept. It deprives us of the right to inhabit native lands and empowers people to humiliate those who are already marginalized. Bakit pa magbi-bidding e atin na ang mga lupang iyan," he said.

Meanwhile, descendants of the original Ibaloi settlers in Baguio are asking Senate committee on local government chairperson Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to think deeper into the consequences of thumbing the measure seeking to revise Baguio's century-old charter.

The rights, privileges and recognition of our ancestral lands guaranteed by the Constitution and the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (Republic Act 8371), according to at least 14 heads of original Ibaloi families here, "is in grave danger of extinction and destruction," with House Bill 3759 now with the hands of Marcos.

On March, the Senate committee on local governments held the first committee hearing on the proposed charter.

Salient points raised during the discussion are the charter's possible conflict with the Free Patent Law.

Environment officials in the Cordillera and Mayor Mauricio Domogan are presently discussing how to reconcile this.