Tagbanua communities pushed off ancestral lands in Palawan

Former lawmaker Teddy Baguilat puts DENR under scrutiny over alleged land titles, fencing and trespassing complaints involving Indigenous communities.

Indigenous peoples advocate and former lawmaker Teddy Baguilat is calling attention to what he described as widespread land conflicts involving Tagbanua communities in Coron and Busuanga, Palawan, and raising concerns over how ancestral lands are being lost.

In a series of Facebook posts, Baguilat alleged that outsiders have obtained titles to areas that Tagbanua communities, one of the country’s oldest indigenous groups, consider ancestral land.

Large portions of Palawan contain highly valuable forests, with certain areas classified as “timberland” or public forest land, which generally cannot be privatized because of restrictions intended to avoid mass deforestation from extracting wood.

“Sa Coron, tanong ng mga Tagbanua, bakit ang balikbayan na hindi nila ever nakita sa lugar, bigla na lang may titulo sa Isla at ninunong lupa nila?” he wrote, questioning what he described as a “kababalaghan sa DENR na nag i-issue ng titulo.”

Baguilat also said some Indigenous residents are facing trespassing complaints on land they consider to be their own ancestral territory.

“Biruin mo, sa Busuanga at Coron, kinakasuhan sila ng trespassing sa sarili nilang lupa kung saan sila at mga ninuno nila lumaki!!” he wrote.

In Lakdayan, Busuanga, he alleged that resorts had fenced off portions of the area and prevented Indigenous residents and fishermen from accessing what they consider ancestral land.

He also claimed that around 80 armed and masked individuals had attempted to fence off an ancestral-domain area in Lakdayan, before Tagbanua residents removed the barriers.

The claims come against a legal backdrop in which the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, recognizes ancestral-domain rights through native title, meaning Indigenous ownership can exist even without a formal title.

The issue goes beyond individual land disputes. If Tagbanua communities have ancestral-domain rights recognized under Philippine law, the alleged issuance of titles to outsiders and the fencing off of areas claimed as ancestral land raise serious concerns about how those claims were processed and protected.

For the Tagbanua communities in Coron and Busuanga, the fight is ultimately over whether ancestral land recognized by law can be taken from the people who have lived on it for generations. Baguilat’s allegations put that conflict squarely before the agencies tasked with protecting public lands and Indigenous peoples’ rights, and place the spotlight on how those protections work on the ground.

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