Cruz and Europa v. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources

"The State shall consider the customs, traditions, beliefs, and interests of national cultural communities in the formulation and implementation of State policies."[88] For the first time in Philippine history, the "non-Christian tribes" or the "cultural minorities" were addressed by the highest law of the Republic, and they were referred to as "cultural communities." More importantly this time, their "uncivilized" culture was given some recognition and their "customs, traditions, beliefs and interests" were to be considered by the State in the formulation and implementation of State policies. President Marcos abolished the CNI and transferred its functions to the Presidential Adviser on National Minorities (PANAMIN). The PANAMIN was tasked to integrate the ethnic groups that sought full integration into the larger community, and at the same time "protect the rights of those who wish to preserve their original lifeways beside the larger community."[89] In short, while still adopting the integration policy, the decree recognized the right of tribal Filipinos to preserve their way of life.[90] In 1974, President Marcos promulgated P.D. No. 410, otherwise known as the Ancestral Lands Decree. The decree provided for the issuance of land occupancy certificates to members of the national cultural communities who were given up to 1984 to register their claims.[91] In 1979, the Commission on the Settlement of Land Problems was created under E.O. No. 561 which provided a mechanism for the expeditious resolution of land problems involving small settlers, landowners, and tribal Filipinos.[92] Despite the promulgation of these laws, from 1974 to the early 1980's, some 100,000 Kalingas and Bontoks of the Cordillera region were displaced by the Chico River dam project of the National Power Corporation (NPC). The Manobos of Bukidnon saw their land bulldozed by the Bukidnon Sugar Industries Company (BUSCO). In Agusan del Sur, the National Development Company was authorized by law in 1979 to take approximately 40,550 hectares of land that later became the NDC-Guthrie plantation in Agusan del Sur. Most of the land was possessed by the Agusan natives.[93] Timber concessions, water projects, plantations, mining, and cattle ranching and other projects of the national government led not only to the eviction of the indigenous peoples from their land but also to the reduction and destruction of their natural environment.[94] The Aquino government signified a total shift from the policy of integration to one of preservation. Invoking her powers under the Freedom Constitution, President Aquino created the Office of Muslim Affairs, Office for Northern Cultural Communities and the Office for Southern Cultural Communities all under the Office of the President.[95] The 1987 Constitution carries at least six (6) provisions which insure the right of tribal Filipinos to preserve their way of life.[96] This Constitution goes further than the 1973 Constitution by expressly guaranteeing the rights of tribal Filipinos to their ancestral domains and ancestral lands. By recognizing their right to their ancestral lands and domains, the State has effectively upheld their right to live in a culture distinctly their own. 2. Their Concept of Land Indigenous peoples share distinctive traits that set them apart from the Filipino mainstream. They are non- Christians. They live in less accessible, marginal, mostly upland areas. They have a system of self-government not dependent upon the laws of the central administration of the Republic of the Philippines. They follow ways of life and customs that are perceived as different from those of the rest of the population.[97] The kind of response the indigenous peoples chose to deal with colonial threat worked well to their advantage by making it difficult for Western concepts and religion to erode their customs and traditions. The "infieles societies" which had become peripheral to colonial administration, represented, from a cultural perspective, a much older base of archipelagic culture. The political systems were still structured on the patriarchal and kinship oriented