Though ‘ancestral domain’ was not yet coined in the prewar period, the Bagobos were already insisting on ownership of lands belonging to their tribe which the government declared as ‘public lands’ but were let to Japanese firms and subleased by the companies to Japanese farmers.
By tradition, Bagobos had always planted wherever they want, and every piece of land their forebears had cultivated, often with seasonal crops, or tilled as swidden farms, was part of the tribal territory. Supporting this belief system is the fact that before the rise of hemp plantations, there never was any evidence someone had preceded the Bagobos in these areas.
The Bagobos did not agree with the ruling that tribal lands, under a law, would be passed on to outsiders, notably the Japanese, for this would deprive them of the right to develop the farms that traditionally belonged to them. Often the discord results in violent reactions.
The Bridgeport Times (US), in its August 9, 1922, issue, reported: ‘Out of these quarrels have come the Bagobo killings of Japanese—sometimes over as trivial a thing as single banana stalk.’
Curiously, amid the brewing disagreement, the government allowed the natives to own guns to hunt wild games as a way to appease them. But arming the docile tribesmen at times resulted in abuse when the agrarian conflict went out of bounds. The report added:
‘Having so much trouble over the Bagobos’ claims, the State induced many of them to select lands and register them several years ago. This make them, in the eyes of the law, good property-owning citizens; they were allowed to put up the necessary bond, 100 pesos per gun, and to purchase shotguns, which they could use for killing wild boar and deer. But some of the guns were used on the Japanese settlers.’
Apprised of the Japanese slays that resulted from the ownership of guns, the Philippine Constabulary had to confiscate the firearms, including bows and arrows, spears and bolos. The provincial governor, consequently, issued a ruling that for the shotguns to be returned to the Bagobos, the tribesmen had to cease their outrages.
But the natives did not budge and were not content with superficial pledges. They would only agree to a truce if a settlement was made. As a compromise, the government proposed that despite the flimsiness of their claim, it was willing ‘to pay them nominally for the land and set them back farther into the hills, where the march of civilization is remorselessly crowding them.’
To say the agrarian claim of the Bagobos was insubstantial was based on the absence of records that would attest ownership of the domains the tribesmen were claiming.
The land conflict between the tribesmen and the foreign lessees actually resulted in the killing of a few Japanese, not hundreds as declared. Not all those who were slain died from government-licensed guns or had anything to do with the land row but due to misunderstanding arising from language difficulty when confrontations happened even if an interpreter was present.
Fast forward, as of 2017, a total of 131,003 hectares were issued certificates of ancestral domain titles (CADT) by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) in Davao City alone, divided as follows: 29,930 hectares, awarded to 3,208 Obu-Manuvu tribe; 26,633 hectares to 2,918 Matigsalug-Manobo; 65,819 hectares to 3,423 Ata; 6,378 hectares to 4,125 Bagobo-Klata; and 2,244 hectares to 4,112 Bagobo-Tagabawa.
The SunStar report dated November 16, 2017, said: ‘Of the 244,361 hectares ancestral domains in the city,’ 131,003 have been issued with CADT. The NCIP shall issue CADT and certificates of ancestral lands title before the Registry of Deeds in the place where the property is situated.’
