THE Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) is opposing the Baguio local government’s push to declare the city’s only Ibaloy ancestral domain a heritage site for preservation purposes, the Baguio City Council revealed during Monday’s regular session.
In a letter sent to the council from the BCDA through John Hay Management Corporation (JHMC) president, Allen Garcia, the agency expressed its opposition to the draft ordinance because designating Happy Hallow, the Ibaloy ancestral domain, as a heritage community may “unduly influence the adjudication of the rights and interests of both BCDA and Barangay Happy Hallow.”
Garcia also informed the council that BCDA, through the Office of the Solicitor General, has petitioned the Supreme Court to cancel the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title or CADT (now registered as Original Certificate of Title No. 0-CALT-58) that was issued to Baguio Ibaloys in 2006, which recognizes 146.4 hectares of indigenous communal lands occupied by Ibaloys and Kankanaeys “since time immemorial” at Barangay Happy Hallow.
Barangay Happy Hallow is wholly within the Camp John Hay reservation, which the BCDA is asserting its control over using various legal means.
In a previous April 5, 2021 council session, BCDA and JHMC officials disclosed that the agency could not recognize ancestral land rights within Camp John Hay where BCDA has “vested rights.”
