1 Module 3 Topic 1 Part 2

Colonial Land Use Policies

This module gives you an overview of the Regalian Doctrine and other
colonial land use policies that marginalized the indigenous peoples and
undermined their indigenous resource management.

Learning Outcomes
1. explain how the colonial land use policies dispossessed and marginalized the
indigenous peoples
2. describe how the colonial land policies depleted Philippine forests

Key Terms to Understand

block titling Commonwealth Act 141 expropriation Proclamation No. 14

Part 2

Reading 1 illustrates how the Regalian doctrine and other colonial land use policies
affected the Ibaloys’ indigenous concept of land and usufruct rights. It is possible that the
other Cordillera IPs have similar experiences. Reading 2 is not focused on the Cordillera
IP but on the forest policy of the Philippines.

Reading 1: Ibaloy’s concept of land

(Prill-Brett, J. [1992]. Ibaloy customary law on land resources. CSC Working Paper 19. Baguio City: Cordillera
Studies Center, University of the Philippines College of Baguio)

During the pre-Spanish and American periods, land was originally used to produce
the needs of the Ibaloy as self-sufficient politically autonomous communities. Except
rice fields which clearly indicated individual ownership, the land tenure rule was
usufruct rights. Such included forestland, pastureland, and the conversion of these
into swidden gardens. These were commonly owned by the communities wherein
these resources were found and community had access to these land resources for
subsistence needs. The development of rules in the use of these lands resulted in
the customary law that governed the interaction of community members in relation to
the use of land.
With the introduction of Spanish laws on land management, such as the
Spanish Royal Decree of September 21, 1797, a number of baknang families were
able to obtain land grants. There are some baknang families in Benguet who
currently trace their landholdings back to early Spanish grants. Some of the elders
may have received such land grants because of their loyal service to the Spanish
military administration in Benguet ...
While the Spanish administration of Benguet began in 1846, there was hardly
any substantial effect of this administration by way of policy implementation in the
Cordillera, even in as late as 1898. In comparison with the Spanish period, the
Americans, within a period of 41 years (1900-1941), instituted far-ranging and
permanently effective control over the mountain region, especially in the use and
disposition of natural resources ... For example, the Commonwealth Act 141 (Public
Land Act), governed the definition, classification, administration, disposition, and control
of the ‘lands of the public domain,’ excluding timber and mineral land that were
governed by special laws. These were Commonwealth Act 137 covering mineral
lands and Sections 1914-1942 of the Revised Administrative Code as the “Forest
Code.”
All lands were classified as either alienable or disposable, timber or mineral.
Those open to disposition in turn were classified as agricultural, commercial,
industrial, educational-charitable or reservations for townsites and for public or quasi-
public use. Proclamation No. 14, 1922, for instance, ‘reserved’ the Busol forest of
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La Trinidad, obviously ignoring prior rights of the indigenous occupants in favour of

watershed conservation. This proclamation was followed by the establishment of
communal forests in all municipal districts in implementation of the American concept
of conservation through controlled logging. The assumption was that domestic timber
requirements, i.e. for house construction or fuel wood, were to be logged only in
communal forests subject to existing rules and regulations. ...
The beginning of land use and management changes can be traced to the
1900s, where the attempt to register these lands for titling under the Torrens title
concept began to shake the foundations of Ibaloy indigenous land law.
An introduced non-indigenous practice which played a major role in the
cementing of the local-level political power of the Ibaloy elites was taxation. Although
… the concept of individual ownership (e.g. irrigated rice fields, mining tunnels) was not
unknown as an indigenous practice, taxation developed and reinforced a
consciousness of individual private property, with its accompanying rights and
responsibilities. Tax declaration of land, Benson surveys, cedulas, certificates of
registration of cattle and horses … and other forms of taxation, bewildered the
ordinary Ibaloy citizen.
Initially it was the poorer class which was disenfranchised by the Torrens title,
since it did not recognize the traditional territorial rights of communities and the
usufruct rights of the community members. … the introduction of taxation and the
individualization of land control was followed by the commoditization of land. This
productive resource was quickly collected in the hands of a few ...
The introduction of the ‘block titling’ system is currently experiencing the
unforeseen negative result through land dispute, three generations after. The Benson
titles or ‘block titling’ system is a mother title comprising various parcels of contiguous
land, individually owned but titled under one name only. These titles were issued
during the land survey and titling where verbal agreement named one individual who
represented several people’s properties in one title. Each property was individually
declared for taxation purposes and taxes were individually collected from each owner
and turned over to the representative. Disputes have resulted, especially in the
subsequent generations such as the current problem where the descendants of the
original entrusted title-holder are now claiming the whole area to be
exclusively theirs.
Another problem faced by the Ibaloy (especially in Baguio) as a result of land
registration and titling, is the problem of encroachment of squatters on the
untitled lands. Many land holders have been helplessly complaining to the
government but the law enforcers are also helpless in preventing this due to local
political power.
Another result of state law superimposed on Ibaloy customary law is the law
on expropriation. Ibaloy lands have suffered miserably from this system. The history
of expropriation appears to have begun with the development of the city of Baguio
when Ibaloy families residing in the Kafagway area (center of Baguio), such as the
present Plaza/Malcolm Square area, Abanao, and Session Road were asked by the
American administrators to relocate to the peripheral areas. Only the Cariños and
Caranteses remained in the city. The rest moved out of the Baguio area (such as the
Pucays, Tadahas, Molintas, Piraso, Sungduan, Sepic, Kedit, Camdas, and Binayan, among 25 others ). The
Baguio Ibaloy residents occupied areas where their swidden gardens, rice fields and
pasture lands were located such as Guisad, Loakan, Camp 7, Badihoy, Lucban,
Aurora Hill, Pacdal, Marcos Highway area in Tuba, Taloy, and Bakakeng.
The expropriation of other areas followed: some of these were the Camp
John Hay area resulting in the celebrated landmark decision by the US Supreme
Court. Cariño vs. Insular Government ... Other expropriation cases include, among
others, the Loakan Airport in 1933, the Philippine Military Academy, Ambuklao and
Binga Dam sites, the Baguio Export Processing Zone, and most recently, the Marcos
Park in Taloy. The Ibaloy landowners have not been properly compensated, and
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some claim not to have been paid at all. The Ambuklao land owners for example,
have never been properly relocated since the 1950s up to this day. (The issue was partly
addressed when SN Aboitiz took over the management of the Ambuklao Dam as shown in the documentary film,
Making Monkey Business.)
The introduction of bureaucratic changes such as property registration
and land titling have enfranchised some, but have also disenfranchised many more.
Heated verbal battles have been fought and are still being fought in courts by family
members, individuals, and clans due to many levels of land conflicts.
The intricacy of state land laws, in addition to the prohibitive cost of
litigation and lawyers’ fees, deters many Ibaloys from pursuing legitimate claims.
The results are imperfect claims of land ownership in terms of tax declarations that
encourage opportunities for land grabbing, squatting, and the overlapping of claims.
Many fortunes were made by some lawyers and ‘intermediaries’ such as real
estate agents at the expense of Ibaloy landholders. This is most pronounced in
the Baguio City area.

Reading 2: Trends in forest policy of the Philippines

(Pulhin, J.M., College of Forestry and Natural Resources, UP Los Banos, available at
https://pub.iges.or.jp/system/files/publication_documents/pub/policyreport/180/03_Philippines.pdf)

… The dark past of forest use in the Philippines still haunts the country today.
Forests have disappeared altogether in many places, and the remaining fragments
are concentrated in only a few regions, ... To make matters worst, more than 20
million Filipinos occupy the uplands, and nearly half of this population is entirely
dependent on the forest resource which remains in these areas. …
The 1997 data on land classification show that 15.88 million hectares of the
country’s total land area are classified as forest land. Of this figure, about 15 million
hectares (94 per cent) have been classified into various categories, while the remaining
0.88 million hectares remain unclassified (Forest Management Bureau, 1998). …
Since the Spanish colonial period, forest policy in the Philippines has been
continuously revised to suit the changing priorities and needs of the country in
relation to the goods and services provided by the forests. Despite this, however, the
country’s forest resources have continued to dwindle, benefiting the privileged
few at the expense of the millions of people living in the uplands who depend on
these resources for survival. …
With the introduction of this Regalian Doctrine, the colonial authorities
changed the public attitude towards a range of forest issues by undermining
traditional rights to land ownership as well as other prior claims of indigenous
communities to forest resources (Borlagdan, Guiang and Pulhin , 2001). Furthermore, rights to
forest utilization were granted only to a few “privileged” individuals, which led to the
conversion of lowland forest land into agricultural crop plantations (Sajise, 1998 ; Borlagdan,
Guiang and Pulhin ,2001).
Spanish land law weakened customary Filipino systems of land tenure,
depriving indigenous peoples of their rights to their land and bypassing communal
Indios associations. Instead, the colonial government and the local elite claimed
the land for themselves (Poffenberger and McGean, 1993; Sanvictores, 1997).
The Spanish institutionalized the notion of state ownership of forest land and
forest resources in the country through the establishment of a forest bureaucracy and
its constituent instruments which allocated proprietary rights for forest use (Borlagdan,
Guiang & Pulhin, 2001). In 1863, the Inspeccion General de Montes (IGM) was created,
which governed the utilization of forest resources (Boado, 1988; Sajise, 1998). Though the
IGM facilitated the release of forest land to private interests, land had to be
thoroughly surveyed, gazetted and officially certified as both alienable and
disposable, before it could be sold (Borlagdan, Guiang & Pulhin, 2001; Boado, 1988).
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Despite this, forest policy enacted under Spanish rule can be considered as
instigating relatively little forest exploitation in the Philippines. Commercial forest
exploitation for timber and the generation of government revenue from forest use was
limited since the Spanish colonizers had control over only a small portion of the
archipelago. Moreover, even though illegal logging and the development of
agriculture in forest lands increased at this time, the pressure on forest lands was
negligible and the net loss not extensive, since the human population was small
(Boado, 1988; Borlagdan, Guiang & Pulhin, 2001).
When the United States took control of the Philippines in 1898, the country,
apart from Cebu and Bohol, still had extensive forest cover. The lush forest
vegetation which remained in many parts of the country was effectively “waiting to be
explored by American capitalists” (Boado, 1988), and encouraged the rapid development
of the forestry industries. As the government asserted ownership over forests and
forest land (Borlagdan, Guiang & Pulhin, 2001; Boado, 1988), American logging companies
entered the country and mechanized logging began.
Accordingly, the forest industries in the Philippines flourished throughout the
American period of rule, and the country became a major exporter of logs and timber
on the world market, trading particularly with the United States. Amongst its domestic
industries, the lumber industry ranked fourth in terms of production, second in terms
employment, and third with regard to monthly payments at this time. The forest
industry also generated annual revenue averaging at P2.9 million (Boado, 1988; Borlagdan,
Guiang & Pulhin, 2001).
However, the boom in the forest industry also prompted a “steady loss
of forest throughout the era of American rule” (Poffenberger, 2000). In response to the
negative impacts brought about particularly by destructive logging, laws prohibiting
kaingin-making and illegal entry into public forests were promulgated. Reforestation
projects were also initiated in 1916 to address the deforestation problem. However,
these acts proved ineffective and difficult to implement due to the size of the
population, a lack of forest rangers, and the enormous size of forest lands (Sajise, 1998;
Boado, 1988).
Despite the entry of the Japanese in 1942, all districts and forest stations in
occupied territories continued to operate. The country’s forest resources were heavily
exploited for war purposes, resulting in severe deforestation and a devastated forest
industry (Boado, 1988).
… The post-colonial period did not bring any major change in the focus of
forest policy (Boado, 1988) as the government continued to support and even reinforce
the system of ownership promoted by the Regalian Doctrine (Sajise, 1998; Boado, 1988). …
The post-war period was also characterized by increased forest exploitation.
Large-scale logging expanded to meet the increasing market demands for timber in
Japan and the United States. This generated more revenue for the government,
which was greatly needed to help accelerate national rehabilitation and development
(Boado, 1988; Borlagdan, Guiang & Pulhin, 2001). However, many politicians and “well
connected” individuals also found the exploitation of natural resources to be a very
lucrative business (Borlagdan, Guiang & Pulhin, 2001).
Amidst the highly destructive logging activities in the post-independence era,
policy which advocated sustainable forest management and brought about the
formation of regulated felling procedures known as the Philippine Selective Logging
System (PSLS), was introduced in 1953. The government also adopted the policy of
“land for the landless”, instituted the Homestead Act, and promoted export and import
substitution policies (Borlagdan, Guiang & Pulhin, 2001).
When Marcos ascended to the presidency in 1965, deforestation peaked as
the number of logging concessionaires grew, the export market became hungrier for
logs, and the population increased. Under his regime, the number of timber license
agreements (TLAs) granted also soared. As logging rights to vast forest concessions,
TLAs were used as a tool to cement political patronage and as a means to
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strengthen Marcos’ political network. That is, forest concessions were dispensed to
the president’s cronies as a reward for political loyalty (Vitug, 2000).
Experiencing eventually the inevitable results of several decades of forest
exploitation, the Marcos administration in the 1970s formulated a number of
programmes that rallied the involvement of individuals and upland communities in
forest management. These included the Forest Occupancy Management (FOM) in
1975, the Family Approach to Reforestation (FAR) in 1976, and Communal Tree
Farming (CTF) in 1978. The Programme for Forest Ecosystem Management (PROPEM)
was also introduced in 1978, requiring all citizens of the Philippines to plant one tree
a month for a period of five years (Boado, 1988; Sajise, 1998; Pulhin, 1997). Though these
programmes enlisted the public in their capacity to provide labour rather than as
partners in forest conservation and development, they did mark the onset of a
pioneering period in the establishment of community forestry in the Philippines (Pulhin,
1997).
... Recognizing the potential role of people in the conservation and
development of forest resources, Letter of Instruction 1262 was issued in 1982,
which consolidated the CTF, FOM and FAR into one comprehensive programme
entitled the Integrated Social Forestry Programme (ISFP). This programme
accordingly aimed to “democratize the use of public forests and to promote more
equitable distribution of the forest bounty”. Under the ISFP, stewardship agreements
were granted to qualified individuals and communities allowing them to continue
occupation and cultivation of upland areas, which they were required to protect and
reforest in return. However, the programme has been characterized by
weak implementation, low participation of beneficiaries, poor government support,
neglect of ancestral domain rights, and uncertainty with respect to sharing of benefits
from forest products (Pulhin, 1987; Sajise, 1998).

ENHANCEMENT ACTIVITY
Answer the following to assess your understanding of the lesson. You are not
required to submit any output.

A. Briefly describe how the following changed the Ibaloys’ concept of land and how
they enfranchised and disenfranchised some Ibaloys:
1. Proclamation No. 14, 1922
2. taxation
3. land registration and titling; block titling
4. law on expropriation

B. Identify colonial forest policies and explain how these policies contributed to the
deforestation of the Philippines.

C. Identify the colonial and post-colonial forest policies that were aimed to
rehabilitate and conserve the Philippine forests and the reasons why these
policies were not successful in attaining the goal of forest rehabilitation and
conservation.