FLORIDABLANCA, Pampanga – Listing tribal land titles at the Registry of Deeds is a struggle half-won.

The other half of the struggle – protecting and defending the indigenous abode from encroachments or losing ownership of these in the future – is the most difficult, elders of Aeta, Abelling and Dumagat tribes said on Wednesday.

The four Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title (CADTs) given out by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Wednesday were the first to be registered among 29 CADTs in the country.

Rolando Rivera, commissioner for Luzon of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, called the occa-sion a “historic day.”

Bonifacio Florentino, chieftain of the Aetas in Pastolan in Hermosa, Bataan, said CADT RO3-HER-0703-008 is “a shield against land grabbers.”

That CADT spans 4,284.13 hectares of lands and 13.7 hectares of waters.

But these – the result of oral research, finding landmarks, dialogues, coordination and follow-up with four agen-cies – can be lost if future Aeta generations won’t guard the tribe’s ownership of lands that their ancestors nur-tured, Florentino said.

Aside from reforesting the area, the tribal council is buckling down to work by involving families in preparing plans to develop and protect their ancestral domain, he said.

Param Santos, 94, was in tears when he held CADT RO3-FLO-1206-057. It covers 5,496.82 ha in Barangay (villages) Nabuklod and Mawakat in Floridablanca, Pampanga, and portions of San Marcelino and Subic towns in Zambales.

Santos instructed his nephew, Pablo Santos, to gather the youth and teach them how to guard the lands with their life.

“I fear that if they won’t be prepared for their responsibilities, the lands would be neglected and abused,” Santos said.

Pablo Santos, former commissioner of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, said he has assumed the task like it was his own life’s.

Spending 15 years in the revolutionary movement and supporting the Nabuklod Aetas in their CADT applica-tion, Pablo Santos said there was no other option for Aetas now but to develop the area to strengthen their hold on the land.

Some Aetas questioned the decrease in the size of the domain from 10,000 ha in the 1930s to 5,000 ha at pre-sent.

Pablo Santos said the Aetas still have the right to question, if need be, the legitimacy of pieces of private prop-erty in the domain.

Dumagat chieftain Cipriano de la Torre said the awarding of CADT RO3-SLU-1205-039 signalled the beginning of new efforts to cultivate the area and defend it from mining or logging.

The CADT covers 2,789.26 ha of lands and 2,859 ha of waters in Barangay Dibut in San Luis and in portions of Barangay Zabali and Pingit in Baler, both in Aurora.

Oscar Rivera and Ruben Sison, chieftains of Aetas in Bamban, Tarlac, and Mabalacat, Pampanga, see their lands as a way out of poverty.

It was what Conchita Pamintuan prayed for when she sang the adakudo (plea) to Apo Namalyari, the deity on Mt. Pinatubo.

The biggest among the four CADTs awarded by Arroyo, CADT RO3-BAM-1204-025 consists of 10,323.308 ha in the villages of San Nicolas, San Vicente, Sto. Niño, Anupul and Calumpang in Bamban, and parts of Barangay Marcos in Mabalacat.

“Because you are now the owner of your land, nobody will bother you anymore,” Ms Arroyo told the tribe members.

An Aeta woman, however, shouted: “We want jobs.”

Arroyo then proceeded to explain the Next Frontier, the new growth area at Clark Freeport which uses that same Aeta enclave.

For its use, the state-owned Clark Development Corp. entered into a joint management agreement with 12 Aeta elders whose tribes will get 20 percent of the net income from the Next Frontier.

The project needs P12 billion to put in electricity, water, communications and roads.

The Next Frontier has not created jobs for the Aeta but more than 500 are employed in Clark, mostly as main-tenance workers.

The matter of jobs will be addressed as well as a social development issue, CDC president Benigno Ricafort told Arroyo.

NCIP Commissioners Rivera and Felicito Masagnay reminded the tribes that the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 prohibited the selling of ancestral domains covered by registered CADT.