Separate Concurring Opinion 10 G.R. No. 224469 political systems were still structured on the patriarchal and kinship oriented arrangement of power and authority. The economic activities were governed by the concepts of an anc~ent ~ommunalism and mutual help. The social structure which emphasized division of labor and distinction of functions, not status, was maintained. The cultural styles and forms of life portraying the varieties of social courtesies and ecological adjustments were kept constantly vibrant. Land is the central element of the indigenous peoples' existence. 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 ovmers 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. As for the Mangyans, their challenges in availing learning facilities and accessing information are well documented. 33 The location of their settlements in the mountainous regions of Mindoro, though relatively close to the nation's capital, is not easily reached by convenient modes of transportation and communication. Further, the lack of financial resources discourages indigenous families to avail and/or sustain their children's education. 34 Certainly, by these circumstances alone, Mangyans cannot reasonably be compared to those in the lowlands in terms of worldview and behavior. In the Mangyans' worldview, the forest is considered a common property of all the residents of their respective settlements. This means that 33 34 Dong-Hwan Kwon, "The Role of Protestant Mission and the Modernization among Mangyans in the Philippines", A Journal of Holiness Theology for Asia-Pacific Contexts, ASIA-PACIFIC NAZARENE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Volume IX, Number 2, December 2013; See also Cepeda, Cody, "Mundong Mangyan: How Mindoro's Alangan Mangyan face land disputes, lack of teachers, child marriages", Published in inquirer.net on 27 November 2019, <https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1194726/mundong-mangyan-how-mindoros-alangan-rnangyan-face-landdisputes-lack-of-teachers-childhood-marriages> (visited 06 July 2020). Ramschie, Corne/is, The Life and Religious Beliefs of the Iraya Katutubo: Implications for Christian Vol 11 No 2 (2008), Mission, INFO <https://intemationalforurn.aiias.edu/images/volllno02/crarnschie.pdf> (visited 18 August 2020); See also Caparoso, Jun, Evangelista, Luisito and Quinones, Viktor, The Use of Traditional Climate Knowledge by the Iraya Mangyans of Mindoro, (2018).