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;
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