3 Social Relations: Power and Labor
1. The actual arrangement varied both within and among different Benguet villages. In most Ibaloi areas the wealthy had an even greater advantage than in Buguias; in these places the pastol would usually receive only one of three newborn cattle. In the more restrictive inkatlo system (common in the nineteenth century), the cowboy would receive only one-third of each animal , thus precluding the possibility of ever acquiring a herd of his own (see Tapang 1985:11, and Hamada-Pawid and Bagamaspad 1985:80-81). [BACK]
2. Hamada-Pawid (1984:90) argues that in Benguet, as a rule, not even terraces were really private: "Strictly speaking, there [was] no 'ownership' of land. . . . Rather, there [was a] right to stewardship of land." The "private" rights to terraces were certainly more restricted than in Western tenure systems; one could not, for example, forbid others to trespass. But in all societies private land rights have some limits, and by most definitions Buguias rice terraces would be considered fully private. [BACK]
3. American land-policy makers gave lip service to safeguarding indigenous land rights, but their ultimate aim was to allow efficient exploitation of Benguet resources by American nationals (see Tauli 1984, and Hamada-Pawid 1984). Public Law 235 (1902) stipulated that any grants from the "public domain" should go to the actual inhabitants, and Act 496 (1902), for example, established the registration and survey system under which Torrens Titles were to be issued. While this act sent survey teams into Buguias, another act (718) of the same year potentially undermined the claims of many Buguias residents, proclaiming in effect that all tenure claims deriving from "chiefs of non-Christian tribes" were void. [BACK]