By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
Here is one way.
There is a good three-hectare parcel of land about 30 kilometers from Baguio City. It was made beautiful by improvements thereon. Choice flowers were planted on the right places. The edges were planted with Alnus trees that were trimmed regularly that they became bushy at a controlled height of just about four feet. And there was a source of water nearby.
A friend visiting the owner of the land asked him how he was able to buy the land from the original Ibaloi owner at a very reasonable (cheap) price. The answer was oblique. The friend was so interested to buy a similar property at a reasonable price.
The answer was kinda oblique. Just prepare P300,000.00 then we will wait. If you are lucky, you will be able to get your dream land. Then the guy went into the details of the answer as to “how)?
When one of the respected elders here will have a bad dream, that would be the time. Often, he is well respected as he is landed and would easily have a kanyao—the traditional celebration or party for the community. Animals will be butchered and if the dream is recurrent, the merry making can go on for days. It would mean a humongous expense.
Another reason when such kanyaos were held was when somebody got sick, especially if it was the debilitating or serious kind. Or the type medical people gave up on.
That would be the time when the family would start selling assets, often, parcels of land. When there are no takers at reasonable rates, the price would slowly keep going down. Have the patience to wait for the cheap price.
As I came to know some landed families lost a sizeable part of their estate, if not the whole of it due to such.
A classmate of mine long ago in high school who is from an outlying barangay in Baguio came a visiting at the office one time. I kiddingly asked him if their lands are still intact or were sold to finance frequent kanyaos? His answer was the lands of the family are still there. His parents go to church every Sunday. Insinuating, they were not the kind who never went to college and who relied on native ways for solutions such as kanyaos.
Then he related some cousins whose parents often had kanyaos as they had money from the frequent sale of their parcels. They got to a point where they lost all their parcels except for a small one where their small house was standing.
That is just one way of getting a good parcel for a song.
For us lawyers, there is another way. You pray for a landed family to get into legal troubles (what a prayer), particularly of the kind involving a wide tract of land. And that they will get you as their lawyer.
You can charge cheap or even with no cash out. But the fee can be a portion of the land subject matter of the case. That could already include the gravy.
Do you have a land case? So many lawyers are just a phone call or a message away. It might even be worth getting out of retirement for.**
