Relations between the Toledo villages of Yemeri Grove and Laguna have simmered down after both sides signed unto an interim agreement on Friday.
GOB has expressed its commitment to define a boundary between the two villages - and in the interim all sides have agreed to a temporary border.
The meeting was facilitated by the Ministries of Indigenous Peoples' Affairs, Natural Resources, and Rural Transformation. Today we asked the Minister of Indigenous affairs for more on the agreement:
Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Minister of Human Development
"Now down in the South we have so many villages and communities and oftentimes people might have an idea in their heads of what their boundary is but it if has not been actually settled then that can lead to some kind of dispute and that is what has happened with Laguna and Yemeri grove. And it first came up I believe in April of this year and we did ask all the parties not to agitate and to hold a status quo until a definitive boundary can be set but that didn't happen and so we did have some flare up if I could put it that way and the government decided that we really need to get the parties to sit at the table. I want to give a big thanks to the ministry of natural resources they are the lands ministry and then of course local government and then we had the involvement of our own senior counsel and other parties and so I just want to say that it was wonderful that the leaders of Yemeri grove and the leaders or Laguna could have sat together and say look this might not be the permanent definitive boundary but in the interim we will respect like a no go zone and a line so I am very pleased that on an interim basis the parties were able to agree. There was mediation of course but we made sure that we sat with the parties, they came up with their own proposals but the mediators were out commissioner again lands local government, our ministry and everybody else who participated along with our legal advisor. So I'm very pleased that that had happened because we want to keep the peace in the south."
