Office of the President
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
2/F, D & E Building, Quezon Avenue, corner Roces Ave. Quezon City
 
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples
Administrative Order No.1 – Series of 1998

RULES AND REGULATIONS IMPLEMENTING REPUBLIC ACT NO. 8371, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS “THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ RIGHTS ACT OF 1997”

RULE I. PRELIMINARY PROVISIONS

a)   Cultural Diversity. As the beginning of unity is difference, the diversity of cultures, traditions, beliefs and aspirations of indigenous peoples shall be encouraged and fostered in openness, mutual respect for, and active defense of the equal and inalienable dignity and universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated rights of every human being, in the spirit of inter-people cooperation;
 
b)   Consensus and Peace-Building. In resolving conflicts or disputes affecting or pertaining to indigenous peoples, any determination or decision thereon shall be reached through dialogue and consensus as far as practicable;
 
c)   Cultural Integrity. Within ancestral domains/lands, the holistic and integrated adherence of indigenous peoples to their respective customs, beliefs, traditions, indigenous knowledge systems and practices, and the assertion of their character and identity as peoples shall remain inviolable;
 
d)   Human Dignity. The inherent and inalienable distinct character, sacred human dignity, and unique identity of indigenous peoples as peoples shall be respected;
 
e)   Subsidiarity, Solidarity and Total Human Development. In the pursuit of civil, political, economic, social and cultural development, the human person shall be the central subject thereof and its active participant and beneficiary. Everyone has duties to the community. In the exercise of rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by custom or law, solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society; and  chan robles virtual law library
 
f)    Transparency and Capacity Building. The Commission shall perform its tasks on the basis of transparency and active support and participation by the ICCs/IPs, and shall take a pro-active strategy in empowering ICCs/IPs and in the fulfillment of its mandate.

RULE II. DEFINITION OF TERMS

a)   Ancestral Domains. Refers to all areas generally belonging to ICCs/IPs, subject to property rights within ancestral domains already existing and/or vested upon the effectivity of the Act, 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 voluntary dealings entered into by the 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. Refers to land, subject to property rights within the ancestral domains already existing and/or vested upon effectivity of the Act, 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 (CADT). 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 Land Title (CALT). Refers to a title formally recognizing the rights of ICCs/IPs over their ancestral lands.
 
e)   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.
 
f)    Communal Claims. Refer to claims on land, resources and rights thereon belonging to the whole community within a defined territory.
 
g)   Commercial Forest Plantation. Refers to any land planted to timber producing species, including rubber, and/or non-timber species such as rattan and bamboo, primarily to supply the raw material requirements of existing or proposed public or private forest-based industries, energy-generating plants and related industries.
 
h)   Customary Laws. Refer to a body of written or unwritten rules, usages, customs and practices traditionally observed, accepted and recognized by respective ICCs/IPs.  chan robles virtual law library
 
i)    Customs and Practices. Refers to norms of conduct and patterns of relationships or usages of a community over time accepted and recognized as binding on all members.
 
j)    Community Intellectual Rights. Refer to the rights of ICCs/IPs to own, control, develop and protect: (a) the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as but not limited to, archaeological and historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies, visual and performing arts and literature as well as religious and spiritual properties; (b) science and technology including, but not limited to, human and other genetic resources, seeds, medicine, health practices, vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals, indigenous knowledge systems and practices, resource management systems, agricultural technologies, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, designs, scientific discoveries; and, (c) language, script, histories, oral traditions and teaching and learning systems.
 
k)   Free and Prior Informed Consent. As used in the 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 an activity, in a language and process understandable to the community.
 
l)    Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs). Refer to a group of people or homogeneous 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.
 
m) Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) or Act. Heretofore, the Act shall refer to Republic Act No. 8371.
 
n)   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 Timuay, Bodong Holders, or any other tribunal or body of similar nature.
 
o)   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.
 
p)   Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices. Refer to systems, institutions, mechanisms, and technologies comprising a unique body of knowledge evolved through time that embody patterns of relationships between and among peoples and between peoples, their lands and resource environment, including such spheres of relationships which may include social, political, cultural, economic, religious spheres, and which are the direct outcome of the indigenous peoples, responses to certain needs consisting of adaptive mechanisms which have allowed indigenous peoples to survive and thrive within their given socio-cultural and biophysical conditions.
 
q)   Large Scale Agriculture. Refers to any commercial or profit making business activity or enterprise, involving the cultivation of soil, planting of crops, growing of trees, raising of livestock, poultry fish or aquaculture production including the harvesting of such farm products, and other farm activities and practices performed in conjunction with such farming operations, agribusiness or services, by natural or juridical persons whether single proprietorship, cooperative, partnership or corporation.
 
r)    National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP). Refers to the office created under the 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.
 
s)    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.
 
t)    Natural Resources. Refer to life support systems such as, but not limited to, the sea, coral reefs, soil, lakes, rivers, streams and forests as well as useful products found therein such as minerals, wildlife, trees and other plants, including the aesthetic attributes of scenic sites that are not man-made.
 
u)   Non-Government Organization (NGO). Refers to a private, non-profit 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.
 
v)   Peoples’ Organization. Refers to a private, non-profit voluntary organization of members of an ICC/IP which is accepted as representative of such ICCs/IPs. chan robles virtual law library
 
w)   Self Governance. Refers to the right of ICCs/IPs to pursue their economic, social, and cultural development; promote and protect the integrity of their values, practices and institutions; determine, use and control their own organizational and community leadership systems, institutions, relationships, patterns and processes for decision making and participation, such as, but not limited to, Council of Elders, Bodong Holders, Dap-ay, Ator, Council of Mangkatadong, or any other body of similar nature.
 
x)   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, belief systems, and practices.
 
y)   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 and utilized a defined territory devolved to them, by operation of custom law or inherited from their ancestors, in accordance with their customs and traditions.
 
z)    Unlawful or Unauthorized Intrusion. Refers to the occupation of lands and utilization of resources within the ancestral domain without the consent of the IP concerned or through invasion, violation, wrongful entry or entry by stealth or force or uninvited entrance upon the territorial domain of another.
 
aa) Usurpation. Usurpation of real rights in property or occupation of real property as defined in Article 312 of the Penal Code is committed by any person who, by means of violence against or intimidation of persons, shall take possession of any real property belonging to another.  chan robles virtual law library

RULE III : RIGHTS TO ANCESTRAL DOMAINS/LANDS

Part I. Policies and Concepts

a)   The area or resource could no longer serve its normal or natural functions; or
 
b)   That the area or resource is used in a manner not consistent with customary laws or agreements of the indigenous peoples concerned; or chan robles virtual law library
 
c)   That the area or resource is used or gathered in a wasteful or excessive manner resulting to irreversible loss or irreparable damage.
 

Part II. Rights of Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples to Ancestral Domains

(1) The right to source out, control, manage, disburse or use any funds or appropriations from any legal entity, for the development of the territories, provided that the community concerned shall have adequate systems to ensure individual and collective accountability and responsibility for such funds;
 
(2) The right of ICCs/IPs through their Council of Elders/Leaders, subject to the principle of Free and Prior Informed Consent provided in these Rules and Regulations, to enter into agreement with any legal entity, for the utilization, extraction or development of natural resources, subject to a limited term of 25 years, renewable at the option of the ICCs/IPs for another 25 years, and to visitorial and monitoring powers of the ICCs/IPs and the NCIP for purposes of ensuring that the ICCs’ /IPs’ rights and interests are adequately safeguarded and protected;  chan robles virtual law library
 
(3) The right of ICCs/IPs to protect, conserve and manage portions of the ancestral domains/lands which they find necessary for critical watersheds, mangroves, wildlife sanctuaries, wilderness, protected areas, forest cover or reforestation, with the full and effective technical and financial support of concerned government agencies or other legal entities; and
 
(4) Subject to the customary laws, and Free and Prior Informed Consent of ICCs/IPs concerned, the right to temporarily allow or permit appropriate government agencies to manage the areas enumerated in the preceding paragraph, under a written agreement that shall ensure that: a) a program of technology transfer shall be pursued to enable the concerned ICCs/IPs to ultimately manage the area themselves; and b) that no displacement or dislocation of ICCs/IPs shall occur as a result of the implementation of the project/activity.
 

(1) Relocation to a site, which shall, in all possible cases, be of equal quality and legal status as that previously occupied, and which shall be suitable to provide for their present needs and future development;
 
(2) Security of tenure over lands to which they will be resettled or relocated; and.
 
(3) Compensation for loss, injury or damage as a consequence of such relocation or displacement.

(1) Who may file. The following shall be entitled to compensation for loss, injury or damage:
 
 
(2) Notification to NCIP. In case the claim is filed by the affected ICC/IP, the NCIP must be notified through its field office, of such loss, injury or damage suffered as a result of the relocation or displacement.
 
(3)  Filing of claim. The NCIP or affected ICC/IP with the assistance of NCIP shall file the claim for compensation of loss, damage or injury with the appropriate office of the agency which has caused such relocation or displacement.
 
(4) Payment of compensation. The NCIP shall ensure that such claim for payment is given due consideration and that the claimant is duly compensated within a reasonable time.

a)   Migrants. For purposes of these rules, a migrant is a person who is not a native to the ancestral domain or not a part owner of ancestral land but who, as a consequence of social, economic, political or other reasons, such as displacement due to natural disasters, armed conflict, population pressure, or search for seasonal work, opted to occupy and utilize portions of the ancestral domains/lands and have since established residence therein;
 
b)   Other entities. Other entities shall include all organizations, corporations, associations or persons who intend to enter the ancestral domains/lands for the purpose of doing business, development or other activities therein; and
 
c)   Procedure for Regulating Entry of Migrants and Other Entities. All migrants and other entities must first secure the express permission of the community’s council of elders/leaders who shall, in accordance with their consensus building process, community practices, customs and traditions and upon the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the community members agree to accept such migrant or entity within the domains, subject to the following conditions:
 

(1) For purposes of the enforcement of this right, the NCIP shall review all existing Executive Orders, Administrative Orders, Presidential Proclamations covering reservations within ancestral domains to determine the actual use thereof.
 
(2) Thereafter, it shall take appropriate steps to cause the dis-establishment of the reservation or the segregation and reconveyance of ancestral domains or portions thereof to the concerned ICCs/IPs.

Part III. Rights of the ICCs/IPs to Their Ancestral Lands

Part IV. Responsibilities of ICCs/IPs to their Ancestral Domains

RULE IV: RIGHT TO SELF-GOVERNANCE AND EMPOWERMENT
 
Part 1: Self-Governance and Political Leadership Systems.

a) The socio-political structures, systems and institutions of ICCs/IPs are strengthened;
 
b) The indigenous structures, systems, and institutions are not supplanted by other forms of non-indigenous governance; and/or
 
c) Mechanisms that allow the interfacing of indigenous systems of governance with the national systems are established.

a) Right to Confer Leadership Titles. The ICCs/IPs concerned, in accordance with their customary laws and practices, shall have the sole right to vest titles of leadership such as, but not limited to, Bae, Datu, Baylan, Timuay, Likid and such other titles to their members.
 
b) Recognition of Leadership Titles. To forestall undue conferment of leadership titles and misrepresentations, the ICCs/IPs concerned, may, at their option, submit a list of their recognized traditional socio-political leaders with their corresponding titles to the NCIP. The NCIP through its field offices, shall conduct a field validation of said list and shall maintain a national directory thereof.
 
c) Issuance of Certificates of Tribal Membership. Only the recognized registered leaders are authorized to issue certificates of tribal membership to their members. Such certificates shall be confirmed by the NCIP based on its census and records and shall have effect only for the purpose for which it was issued. chan robles virtual law library

a) Demonstrates sustained wisdom and integrity in the administration of justice and pronouncement of judgments and decisions based on truth and the maintenance of peace;
 
b) Model head of the family, as a provider and protector of family and community values such as cooperation, sharing and caring;
 
c) Contributes and makes decisions aimed at protecting the ancestral domain, community peace, truth, IKSPs and sustaining harmonious relationships with neighboring tribes;
 
d) Recognized authority on customary laws and practices, conflict resolution mechanism, peace-building processes, spiritual, rituals and ceremonials; and
 
e) Personal integrity and honesty.