Last 25 January 2012, Joint Administrative Order (JAO) No 1 was signed, effectively relegating the ancestral domain titling process to a joint national committee composed of four government agencies responsible for issuing and registering land titles in the country.
We are now living in a context of scarcer and more degraded natural resources, severe environmental problems from unabated consumerism and unsustainable lifestyles, and a deepening social dilemma driving more people into poverty.
As protests brew against pine tree felling and balling in a mall and resort camp in Baguio City, it is worthwhile to consider that forest loss and degradation on a much wider and harmful scale persists outside the city, in its province of Benguet and in the rest of the larger region of the Cordillera.