A Synthesis on Leonen’s “Weaving Worldviews: Implications of Constitutional

Challenges to the Indigenous Peoples Right Act of 1997”

The premise of Republic Act No. 8371 or the Indigenous Peoples Right Act
(IPRA) is the need to recognize and protect the rights of indigenous cultural
communities (ICCs) within the framework of national unity and development. 1 The IPRA
codifies this mandate of the fundamental law. Primarily, IPRA is considered a remedial
legislation which seeks to correct injustices which our indigenous brothers and sisters
have long suffered since the time of foreign conquests in the country, especially with
respect to them being dispossessed of their lands and its implications and
consequences to ICCs. 2
Upon its passage, questions about its constitutionality were quick to be posed
before the Court. Cruz v. DENR3 was filed alleging among others, that it runs counter to
the Regalian doctrine, and that the law gives indigenous peoples right over lands of
public domain claimed as ancestral lands by the latter including the natural resources
therein. That in derogation of this constitutionally enshrined doctrine, the property rights
of indigenous cultural communities are put above the interest of the State with regard to
lands of public domain. The case however was dismissed for failing to obtain a majority
vote for its declaration as unconstitutional. Thereby, the presumption of the law’s
constitutionality remained undisturbed.
In his article “Weaving Worldviews: Implications of Constitutional Challenges to
the Indigenous Peoples Right Act of 1997”, Justice Marvic Leonen implied that the IPRA
is an attempt to weave indigenous worldviews into the fabric of the national legal system
and whether or not this could be done is essentially the question asked in Cruz v.
DENR. This is because for the longest time, there has been a recognized conflict
between national laws and customary laws of IPs, especially with respect to land. To
them, land is their life source, land defines their very existence. It is granted and
entrusted by one Creator for everyone to harness, cultivate, sustain, and live on. This
concept is distinct because it adheres to the spirit of collectivism and rejects the idea of
private property4; they hold that land, being sacred, cannot be subject to ownership,
sale, purchase, or lease.5
Accordingly through the IPRA (Section 5), the legal status of IP’s ancestral
domain is “private but community property which belongs to all generations and
therefore cannot be sold, disposed or destroyed.”
Justice Leonen explains that State’s recognition of IP’s rights over their ancestral
domain is not violative of the Regalian Doctrine because the ancestral land has never
been part of the public domain in the first place. In Carino v. Insular Government, the
court affirmed the concept of native title – possession since time immemorial in the
1
Article II, Section 22 of the 1987 Constitution
2
Dean Sedfrey M. Candelaria, Indigenous Peoples and Their Right to Ancestral Domain (2015)
3
G.R. No. 135385, December 6, 2000
4
Jojo Guan & Ros B. Guzman, IPRA: Legalizing Dispossession? IBON Special Release 42 (1999).
5
Karl M. Gaspar, The Lumad’s Struggle in the Face of Globalization 99 (2000)
concept of an owner is sufficient basis to claim protection of vested property rights. By
this concept, the seeming contradiction between IPRA and the Regalian doctrine is
appeased. .6 Thus, Chapter II, Section 3(1) of IPRA, defines native title as “pre-
conquest rights to lands and domains which, as far back as memory reaches, have
been held under a claim of private ownership by ICCs/IPs, have never been public
lands and are thus indisputably presumed to have been held that way since before the
Spanish Conquest.”

Additionally, the same case explains that this native title is a vested right
protected under the due process clause of the Constitution. The fact that it is
undocumented does not derogate the right of IPs to seek its eventual documentation
under the law now specifically recognizing such right because as explained by the
Court, the process leading to the issuance of paper titles is not what creates the vested
and private nature of the right. It is the fact of possession since time immemorial which
grants such right and the paper title merely evinces ownership.

Another point of contention on the constitutionality of the law was the definition of
ancestral domain in the IPRA and all other provisions stemming from this definition.
Petitioners argue that taking these provisions together imply that it is the indigenous
community which owns and has control over the natural resources in their ancestral
domain rather than the State.

Leonen, in this regard, explained that the State is not stripped of its control over
these ancestral domains as it still exercises its power of imperium rather that its power
of dominium. The former is the government authority possessed by the State
appropriately incorporated in sovereignty while the latter is the capacity of the State to
own and acquire property. Since ancestral domains are not public, the power of
dominium by the State does not find application. However, just like any other private
property, these domains are still subject to the State’s authority albeit with lesser
restrictions on the part of the IPs because they are the “owners” of these properties.

Moreover, whether IPRA is unconstitutional can best be answered by taking into

account the whole of the fundamental law. 7 Article II, Section 22 provides that the State
recognizes and promotes the rights of indigenous cultural communities within the
framework of national unity and development. Furthermore, Article XII, Section 5
declares that the State, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national
development policies and programs, shall protect the rights of indigenous cultural
communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social, and cultural well-
being. In this regard, the same provision allows Congress to pass a law for the
applicability of customary laws governing property rights or relations in determining the
ownership and extent of ancestral domain. In addition, Article XIII, Section 6 also
provides that the State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform or stewardship,
whenever applicable in accordance with law, in the disposition or utilization of other
natural resources, including lands of the public domain under lease or concession

6
G.R. No. 2869, March 25, 1907
7
Supra note 2
suitable to agriculture, subject to prior rights, homestead rights of small settlers, and the
rights of indigenous communities to their ancestral lands. Article XIV, Section 17 also
provides that the State shall recognize, respect, and protect the rights of indigenous
cultural communities to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions, and institutions.
It shall consider these rights in the formulation of national plans and policies. Finally,
Article X, Sections 15–21 have accorded autonomous regional status to the Cordillera
up north and the Muslims in Mindanao, groups who have historically asserted their right
to self-determination since the Spanish era. Reviewing these constitutional provisions
gives us an impression of how serious the constitutional framers were in their intent to
have the IPs rights be recognized and protected. In this regard, the Regalian doctrine
does not enjoy primacy over other constitutional provisions. 8 As explained by the Court,
these must be applied and viewed together with other provisions in a way that will avoid
manifest injustice.

While some indigenous peoples hold the view that indigenous law cannot be
harmonized with state law because the two bodies of law originate from disparate
contexts that involve different histories and views on land issues and land rights 9, the
IPRA continues to be a valid statute. This, however, does not negate the concerns still
confronting our IPs today – dispossession through mining, the increasing militarization
and environmental degradation in these areas, to name a few. To this end, much more
is to be done in order to truly achieve what the IPRA envisions for our indigenous
brothers and sisters.

8
Director of Lands vs. Funtilar, G.R. No. L-68533 May 23, 1986
9
Jose Mencio Molintas, The Philippine Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle For Land and Life: Challenging Legal Texts
(2015)