Cruz and Europa v. Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources

arrangement of power and authority. The economic activities were governed by the concepts of an ancient communalism and mutual help. The social structure which emphasized division of labor and distinction of functions, not status, was maintained. The cultural styles and forms of life portraying the varieties of social courtesies and ecological adjustments were kept constantly vibrant.[98] Land is the central element of the indigenous peoples' existence. There is no traditional concept of permanent, individual, land ownership. Among the Igorots, ownership of land more accurately applies to the tribal right to use the land or to territorial control. The people are the secondary owners or stewards of the land and that if a member of the tribe ceases to work, he loses his claim of ownership, and the land reverts to the beings of the spirit world who are its true and primary owners. Under the concept of "trusteeship," the right to possess the land does not only belong to the present generation but the future ones as well.[99] Customary law on land rests on the traditional belief that no one owns the land except the gods and spirits, and that those who work the land are its mere stewards.[100] Customary law has a strong preference for communal ownership, which could either be ownership by a group of individuals or families who are related by blood or by marriage,[101] or ownership by residents of the same locality who may not be related by blood or marriage. The system of communal ownership under customary laws draws its meaning from the subsistence and highly collectivized mode of economic production. The Kalingas, for instance, who are engaged in team occupation like hunting, foraging for forest products, and swidden farming found it natural that forest areas, swidden farms, orchards, pasture and burial grounds should be communally-owned.[102] For the Kalingas, everybody has a common right to a common economic base. Thus, as a rule, rights and obligations to the land are shared in common. Although highly bent on communal ownership, customary law on land also sanctions individual ownership. The residential lots and terrace rice farms are governed by a limited system of individual ownership. It is limited because while the individual owner has the right to use and dispose of the property, he does not possess all the rights of an exclusive and full owner as defined under our Civil Code.[103] Under Kalinga customary law, the alienation of individually-owned land is strongly discouraged except in marriage and succession and except to meet sudden financial needs due to sickness, death in the family, or loss of crops.[104] Moreover, and to be alienated should first be offered to a clan-member before any village-member can purchase it, and in no case may land be sold to a non-member of the ili.[105] Land titles do not exist in the indigenous peoples' economic and social system. The concept of individual land ownership under the civil law is alien to them. Inherently colonial in origin, our national land laws and governmental policies frown upon indigenous claims to ancestral lands. Communal ownership is looked upon as inferior, if not inexistent.[106] III. THE IPRA IS A NOVEL PIECE OF LEGISLATION. A. The Legislative History of the IPRA It was to address the centuries-old neglect of the Philippine indigenous peoples that the Tenth Congress of the Philippines, by their joint efforts, passed and approved R.A. No. 8371, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. The law was a consolidation of two Bills-- Senate Bill No. 1728 and House Bill No. 9125. Principally sponsored by Senator Juan M. Flavier,[107] Senate Bill No. 1728 was a consolidation of four proposed measures referred to the Committees on Cultural Communities, Environment and Natural Resources, Ways and Means, as well as Finance. It adopted almost en toto the comprehensive version of Senate Bill Nos. 1476 and 1486 which was a result of six regional consultations and one national consultation with indigenous peoples nationwide.[108] At the Second Regular Session of the Tenth Congress, Senator Flavier, in