AKLAN – Members of the Ati community in Boracay Island in Malay, Aklan are battling to keep their ancestral land.
Tensions sparked anew early Palm Sunday morning, March 24. Private security guards allegedly stormed Ati-occupied lands in Barangay Manoc-Manoc’s sitios Cagban Babaw, Bantud and Angol, and installed galvanized iron sheets. They showed to the Ati a copy of a recent decision by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
Because of the barricades, some Ati children got trapped in their houses without access to their parents. Some had to climb fences to give provisions to those trapped.
The installation of the barricade transpired at about 6 a.m., according to Maria Tamboon, one of the leaders of the Boracay Ati Tribal Organization (Bato) and whose family has been residing on the site for more than 48 years.
The purported basis for the barricade was the March 5, 2024 decision by the DAR, which revoked the Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) issued by the Duterte administration to the Ati community in 2018.
Private claimants later filed for the cancellation of CLOA which, despite Bato’s motions for reconsideration and appeal with the DAR central office, was granted by DAR in March and April last year. DAR said the land was not suitable for agriculture.
Tamboon said they were not informed of the DAR order nor had the lawyers of the land developers appeared before them.
She also lamented the way the order was enforced.
“We don’t want to lose [our] again…We have the title,” said Tamboon.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is being urged to intervene.
Delsa Justo, one of Bato’s leaders, wrote to CHR chairperson Richard Palpal-latoc, claiming that the actions by the private security guards were tantamount to human rights violations. (Inquirer.net)/PN
