10/12/2019 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Petitioners argued that respondents' acts of demolishing and bulldozing the subject land, which caused the destruction of small and full grown trees and sayote plants and other resources of the petitioners, violated their rights pursuant to the IPRA; violated environmental laws, specifically PD 1586, as respondents' project poses grave and/or irreparable danger to environment, life, and property, and also violated the Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) issued to them.[11] For its part, Baguio Properties, Inc. invoked ownership over the subject land and as such, they argued that petitioners' complaint is a collateral attack to its Torrens Titles. [12] On March 2, 2017, the RTC, sitting as an environmental court, dismissed the Complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The RTC held that the recognition of the petitioners' rights as IPs is not the proper subject of an environmental case, as such, it should be threshed out in an appropriate proceeding governed by the very law relied upon by the petitioners, i.e., the IPRA. The RTC cited Section 11[13] of the IPRA stating that the rights of IPs to their ancestral domains by virtue of native title shall be recognized and respected. The said formal recognition, when solicited, shall be embodied in a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), and the power to issue the same is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the NCIP.[14] The RTC also held that assuming arguendo that the case falls within the coverage of Administrative Matter (AM) No. 09-6-8-SC or the Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, Sec. 4,[15] Rule 2 thereof requires that an action under said Rules must be filed by a real party-in-interest for the enforcement or violation of any environmental law. The RTC found that as the main relief prayed for by the petitioners is the recognition of their right of ownership over the subject property, it is in effect an admission that their asserted right over the same, if any, is yet to be established. According to the RTC, without the confirmation of their rights as IP to the property, the filing of this case is premature. As such, the petitioners do not have the legal personality to initiate the same.[16] The RTC disposed, thus: WHEREFORE, for lack of jurisdiction, the above-captioned case is hereby DISMISSED. SO ORDERED.[17] In its motion for reconsideration, the petitioners argued that NCIP has no jurisdiction over their complaint as its jurisdiction covers only claims and disputes involving rights of Indigenous Cultural Communities (ICCs) and IPs only.[18] Respondents are not ICC/IP members, hence, the RTC, not the NCIP, has jurisdiction. Further, petitioners pointed out that they are not praying for the issuance of CALTs/CADTs in their favor but merely for the recognition of rights under the IPRA to their ancestral land by virtue of their. native title.[19] Their motion for reconsideration, however, suffered the same fate. The RTC ruled that the such arguments do not put the case within the operation of AM No. 09-6-8-SC. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/63937 2/10