It is not incumbent on a man to secure permission of the owner of an abandoned field before working it; it is incumbent on the owner to prevent others from working his field against his will.
In the event a rice field is made on privately owned forest lands from which the timber has long been cut, the owner of the land, when he has proved title, demands payment for the land. But he may not take advantage of the labor that the other has spent on the land in making rice fields, to demand an exorbitant payment. To take such a course would invite danger to himself.
Forest lands that have been divested of their wood may be planted in camotes (sweet potatoes) by any person without asking the consent of the owner. If the owner does not want his land so planted or intends to use it himself, it is his business to inform any who may have started to work the land. But if he is tardy in making this prohibition, he must pay for the labor expended, or must allow the continuance of the work, and the harvesting of one crop of camotes from the land. I am not certain that this is the case in all parts of Ifugao.
42. “Homesteading.”—That land which is not rice fields or forest land and which is not owned by some individual by reason of its having been one or the other formerly, becomes the property of whomsoever makes it into rice fields. The tenure so acquired is perpetual.
43. Paghok, or landmarks.—Whenever a rice-field terrace is walled, the terrace wall is an unfailing and unimpeachable landmark. But in many districts, the terraces are not walled. In such cases, the division lines between fields are marked by large chunks of wood or by large stones, buried three or four feet deep along the division line. A boulder is of course a most excellent landmark.
Weather and the elements are continually wearing back an unwalled terrace. The amount each year is very small. But when in the course of years the displacement is sufficient to justify it, the owner may take that part of the field in the terrace below that belongs to him.
The moving of a landmark is said never to occur, since it would take two or three men to lift the heavy stones, and would require a long time. Moreover it could not be done without leaving plain and indisputable evidence of the crime.
44. Right of way through property owned by others.—In order to get rid of insect pests, clay is sometimes conveyed to a field to form a layer over it about two inches thick. The clay is shovelled into a stream of water above, and carried as silt to the field and there allowed to settle. Sometimes leaf mold and other fertilizers are conveyed to a field in this manner.
It makes no difference how many fields there may be above that on which it is desired to deposit the sediment, the owner of the last has a right to cut a ditch through the upper fields as a conduit for the stream of water. He must, however, repair all the upper terraces so as to leave them as they were before.