Lim vs. Gamosa, G.R. No. 193964, Dec.
2, 2015
FACTS:
The respondents, Tagbanua Indigenous Cultural Community of Barangay Buenavista, Coron,
Palawan filed a petition before the NCIP against petitioners for "Violation of Rights to Free and
Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and Unauthorized and Unlawful Intrusion with Prayer for the
Issuance of Preliminary Injunction and Temporary Restraining Order."
In their petition before the NCIP, respondents alleged: (1) their status as Tagbanuas, claiming
representation of the Tagbanua Indigenous Cultural Communities in the Calamianes Group of
Islands in Coron, Palawan; (2) the provision in the law which recognizes native title of
indigenous cultural communities and indigenous persons; (3) that they have already filed their
claim for the recognition of their ancestral domains with the DENR; (4) that they have yet to
obtain a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) from the NICP which, under the IPRA, is
the agency tasked to validate their claim; (5) the purported violation of petitioners of their
rights to free and prior and informed consent; and (6) that petitioners unlawfully intruded and
occupied respondents' ancestral domains.
ISSUE:
What proof is required in asserting the right of ancestral property?
Were the Tagabanuas able to establish this requisite proof?
RULING:
The right of ancestral property requires historical proof which, of course, must proceed from
allegations in the petition. As noted in the separate opinion of former Chief Justice Reynato S.
Puno in Cruz v. Sec of Environment & Natural Resources, the IPRA grants to ICCs/IPs rights over
ancestral domains and ancestral lands where land is the central element of the IPs' existence,
viz.:
x x x 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.
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.
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, 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.
The Tagabanuas wasn’t able to establish this requisite proof. They made no allegation outlining
and tracing the history of their indigenous ownership of domain and land. It is also significant to
note that respondents do not identify themselves with other Tagbanuas who have been
awarded a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim as of 1998.
