City Hall, ancestral land or ancestral domain?

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Roger Sinot

(First of a series)

PINSAO, Bagiw – The article includes easy to understand information about the abbreviations and acronyms we read in newspapers and the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) all concerning indigenous peoples. Be familiar with the terms in order to easily comprehend future articles.   

ANCESTRAL DOMAIN – refers refer to all areas generally belonging to ICCs/IPs (indigenous communities/ indigenous peoples) subject to property rights within ancestral domains already existing and/or vested upon the effectivity of the IPRA, comprising lands, inland waters, coastal areas, and natural resources therein, held under a claim of ownership, occupied or possessed by ICCs/IPs, 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 land, 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 their 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.

ANCESTRAL LANDS – refers to land subject to property rights within the ancestral domain already existing and/or vested upon effectivity of the IPRA, 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.

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.

CERTIFICATE OF ANCESTRAL LAND TITLE – refers to a title formally recognizing the rights of ICCs/IPs over their ancestral lands.

COMMUNAL CLAIMS – refers to claims on land, resources and rights thereon, belonging to the whole community within a defined territory.

 CULTURE SENSITIVE – refers to the quality of being compatible and appropriate to the culture, beliefs, customs and traditions, indigenous systems and practices of ICCs/IPs.

FREE AND PRIOR INFORMED CONSENT (FPIC) - 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 and coercion, and obtained after fully disclosing the intent and scope of the activity, in a language an process understandable to the community.

INDIGENOUS CULTURAL COMMUNITIES/ INDIGENOUS PEOPLES (ICCs/ IPs) – refer to a group of people or homogenous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by other, 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 customs, tradition and other distinctive cultural traits, or who have, through resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and culture, 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.