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Republic of the Philippines
Congress of the Philippines
Metro Manila
Tenth Congress
Third Regular
Session
Begun and held in Metro Manila, on Monday the twenty-eighth day of
July, nineteen hundred and ninety-seven.
REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8371
AN ACT TO
RECOGNIZE, PROTECT AND PROMOTE THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS CULTURAL
COMMUNITIES/ INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, CREATING A NATIONAL COMMISSION ON
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, ESTABLISHING IMPLEMENTING MECHANISMS,
APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
Be it enacted by
the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in
Congress assembled:
CHAPTER I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
SECTION 1. Short Title. - This Act shall be known as "The Indigenous
Peoples Rights Act
of 1997".
SECTION
2. Declaration of State Policies. - The State shall recognize
and promote all the rights of
Indigenous Cultural Communities/ Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs)
hereunder enumerated
within the framework of the Constitution:
a) The State shall recognize and promote the rights of ICCs/IPs
within the framework of
national unity and development;
b) The State shall protect the rights of ICCs/IPs to their ancestral
domains to ensure their
economic, social and cultural well being and shall recognize the
applicability of customary
laws governing property rights or relations in determining the
ownership and extent of
ancestral domain;
c) The State shall recognize, respect and protect the rights of ICCs/
IPs to preserve and
develop their cultures, traditions and institutions. It shall
consider these rights in the
formulation of national laws and policies;
d) The State shall guarantee that members of the ICCs/IPs regardless
of sex, shall equally
enjoy the full measure of Human rights and freedoms without
distinction or discrimination;
e) The State shall take measures, with the participation of the ICCs/
IPs concerned, to protect
their rights and guarantee respect for their cultural integrity, and
to ensure that members of
the ICCs/IPs benefit on an equal footing from the rights and
opportunities which national
laws and regulations grant to other members of the population; and
f) The State recognizes its obligations to respond to the strong
expression of the ICCs/IPs for
cultural integrity by assuring maximum ICC/IP participation in the
direction of education,
health, as well as other services of ICCs/lPs, in order to render
such services more responsive
to the needs and desires of these communities.
Towards these ends, the State shall institute and establish the
necessary mechanisms to
enforce and guarantee the realization of these rights, taking into
consideration their customs,
traditions, values, beliefs interests and institutions, and to adopt
and implement measures to
protect their rights to their ancestral domains.
CHAPTER II
DEFINITION OF TERMS
SECTION 3.
Definition of Terms. - For purposes of this Act, the
following terms shall mean:
a) Ancestral Domains - Subject to Section 56 hereof, refer to all
areas generally belonging to
ICCs/IPs comprising lands, inland waters, coastal areas, and natural
resources therein, held
under a claim of ownership, occupied or possessed by ICCs/IPs, by
themselves or through
their ancestors, communally or individually since time immemorial,
continuously to the
present except when interrupted by war, force majeure or
displacement by force, deceit,
stealth or as a consequence of government projects or any other
voluntary dealings entered
into by government and private individuals/corporations, and which
are necessary to ensure
their economic, social and cultural welfare. It shall include
ancestral lands, forests, pasture,
residential, agricultural, and other lands individually owned
whether alienable and disposable
or otherwise, hunting grounds, burial grounds, worship areas, bodies
of water, mineral and
other natural resources, and lands which may no longer be
exclusively occupied by ICCs/IPs
but from which they traditionally had access to for their
subsistence and traditional activities,
particularly the home ranges of ICCs/IPs who are still nomadic
and/or shifting cultivators;
b) Ancestral Lands - Subject to Section 56 hereof, refers to land
occupied, possessed and
utilized by individuals, families and clans who are members of the
ICCs/IPs since time
immemorial, by themselves or through their predecessors-in-interest,
under claims of
individual or traditional group ownership, continuously, to the
present except when
interrupted by war, force majeure or displacement by force, deceit,
stealth, or as a
consequence of government projects and other voluntary dealings
entered into by government
and private individuals/corporations including, but not limited to,
residential lots, rice
terraces or paddies, private forests, swidden farms and tree lots;
c) Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title - refers to a title
formally recognizing the rights of
possession and ownership of ICCs/IPs over their ancestral domains
identified and delineated
in accordance with this law;
d) Certificate of Ancestral Lands Title - refers to a title formally
recognizing the rights of
ICCs/IPs over their ancestral lands;
e) Communal Claims - refer to claims on land, resources and rights
thereon; belonging to the
whole community within a defined territory;
f) Customary Laws - refer to a body of written and/or unwritten
rules, usages, customs and
practices traditionally and continually recognized, accepted and
observed by respective
ICCs/IPs;
g) Free and Prior Informed Consent - as used in this Act shall mean
the consensus of all
members of the ICCs/IPs to be determined in accordance with their
respective customary
laws and practices, free from any external manipulation,
interference coercion, and obtained
after fully disclosing the intent and scope of the activity, in a
language and process
understandable to the community;
h) Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples - refer to a
group of people or
homogenous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by
others, who have
continuously lived as organized community on communally bounded and
defined territory,
and who have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial,
occupied, possessed and
utilized such territories, sharing common bonds of language,
customs, traditions and other
distinctive cultural traits, or who have, through resistance to
political, social and cultural
inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and cultures,
became historically
differentiated from the majority of Filipinos. ICCs/IPs shall
likewise include peoples who are
regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the
populations which inhabited the
country, at the time of conquest or colonization, or at the time of
inroads of non-indigenous
religions and cultures, or the establishment of present state
boundaries, who retain some or all
of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions,
but who may have been
displaced from their traditional domains or who may have resettled
outside their ancestral
domains;
i) Indigenous Political Structures - refer to organizational and
cultural leadership systems,
institutions, relationships, patterns and processes for
decision-making and participation,
identified by ICCs/IPs such as, but not limited to, Council of
Elders, Council of Timuays,
Bodong Holders, or any other tribunal or body of similar nature;
j) Individual Claims - refer to claims on land and rights thereon
which have been devolved to
individuals, families and clans including, but not limited to,
residential lots, rice terraces or
paddies and tree lots;
k) National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) - refers to the
office created under
his Act, which shall be under the Office of the President, and which
shall be the primary
government agency responsible for the formulation and implementation
of policies, plans and
programs to recognize, protect and promote the rights of ICCs/IPs;
l) Native Title - refers to 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;
m)Nongovernment Organization - refers to a private, nonprofit
voluntary organization that
has been organized primarily for the delivery of various services to
the ICCs/IPs and has an
established track record for effectiveness and acceptability in the
community where it serves;
n) People's Organization - refers to a private, nonprofit voluntary
organization of members of
an ICC/IP which is accepted as representative of such ICCs/IPs;
o) Sustainable Traditional Resource Rights - refer to the rights of
ICCs/IPs to sustainably use,
manage, protect and conserve a) land, air, water, and minerals; b)
plants, animals and other
organisms; c) collecting, fishing and hunting grounds; d) sacred
sites; and e) other areas of
economic, ceremonial and aesthetic value in accordance with their
indigenous knowledge,
beliefs, systems and practices; and
p) Time Immemorial - refers to a period of time when as far back as
memory can go, certain
ICCs/IPs are known to have occupied, possessed in the concept of
owner, and utilized a
defined territory devolved to them, by operation of customary law or
inherited from their
ancestors, in accordance with their customs and traditions.
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