Boracay Ati take resort developer to court over barricaded land

MANILA, Philippines – A group of Ati went to court to sue a private resort developer in Boracay for barricading a piece of land covered by a previously issued Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA).

The Ati are an indigenous group in the Visayas, and the Boracay Ati are the native inhabitants of what would later become a world-famous tourist destination known for its white sand beaches.

The Boracay Ati Tribal Organization (BATO) last week sued JECO Development Corporation for recently barricading CLOA-covered land with barbed wire and armed guards.

This has been a tense dispute for at least two years now, and which has displaced Ati families before.

JECO, based in Cebu, operates Sheridan Villas in Boracay, about 450 meters from the disputed land. The developer was worth P2.45 billion as of 2024.

A petition to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) to cancel the CLOA was printed on a tarpaulin, seemingly to assert a legal basis for armed guards to restrict access to the “private property.”

“The President himself gave it to us — he put the title in our hands. Now a company with armed guards is telling us we cannot enter. We are not asking for anything new. We are asking only to go home,” Delsa Justo, tribal chieftain of BATO, said in Aklanon.

A photo of armed guards by a giant canvas tarpaulin showing JECO Development Corporation’s granted petition by the DAR. Photo by BATO/Atty. Romy Paolo Lucion

CLOAs canceled by DAR

In 2018, then-president Rodrigo Duterte closed Boracay Island to the public, a move challenged in the Supreme Court as unconstitutional but subsequently upheld, along with other executive actions, on grounds of deference to the political branches. One dissenting justice warned the ruling “leads to the realization of tyranny in its most dangerous form.”

For the Ati, however, the move also resulted in Duterte fulfilling part of his promise to grant CLOAs to the tribe.

CLOAs are awarded by DAR under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). Under this social justice mechanism, agricultural land is redistributed to marginalized sectors such as farmers or the landless. It can also benefit indigenous peoples groups. In this case, five of the CLOAs awarded by Duterte in 2018 were to 45 Ati families.

Private individuals and corporations claiming ownership of the land began filing disputes with the DAR. In 2024, under the Marcos administration, DAR Secretary Conrado Estrella III voided the CLOAs, citing a soil analysis that supposedly showed the land was not suitable for agricultural use.

Estrella also said at the time that notices of coverage informing private landowners that their properties were under the CARP were issued in 2014. The CLOAs were awarded in 2018.

The case involves “CLOA 5,” an area of about 8,000 square meters, according to a local council resolution. In January 2024, Estrella upheld a decision against the Ati’s CLOA and in favor of JECO. The order was served only in February, this year.

The Ati group said they were able to file a motion for reconsideration within the allowable period, but on February 15 their members could no longer access the land after armed guards barricaded it, while the Estrella order in favor of JECO was enlarged and displayed on a canvas tarpaulin, as if to indicate the legal basis for the restriction.

JECO has filed an opposition to the motion for reconsideration.

The Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Aklan said the Ati’s CLOA “remains valid,” and “BATO remains the registered owner as evidenced by OCT No. CARP2018000280 on file with the registry of deeds of Aklan,” according to its resolution on April 8.

“That order [by Estrella] had been timely challenged through a Motion for Reconsideration, had not attained finality, and no writ of execution had been issued by any competent authority,” said BATO’s lawyers.

BATO filed a petition for injunction with the Kalibo Regional Trial Court to stop JECO’s “exclusionary acts,” a summary action before the Municipal Circuit Trial Court (MCTC) to assert BATO’s possession of the land, and a criminal complaint for qualified trespassing to dwelling and grave coercion before the Aklan provincial prosecutor’s office.

“This is not a case about complicated agrarian law. It is a case about a title and a barricade. The previous president put these titles in the Ati’s hands. A real estate company put a gate on their land — with no final order, no writ, no lawful authority of any kind,” said BATO’s lawyer Romy Paolo Lucion.

“If the courts do not intervene, we are telling every indigenous community in this country: your titles are only as strong as the company willing to ignore them,” said former Ifugao representative Teddy Baguilat. – Rappler.com