Decision
G.R. No. 224469
30
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SECTION 12. The Congress may create a consultative body to
advise the President on policies affecting indigenous cultural communities,
the majority of the members of which shall come from such communities.
The Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act echoes the constitutional
impetus for preservation. Its declaration of state policies reads:
SECTION 2. Declaration of State Policies. - The State shall
recognize and promote all the rights of Indigenous Cultural
Communities/Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/lPs) hereunder enumerated
within the framework of the Constitution:
a) The State shall recognize and promote the rights of ICCs/IPs
within the framework of national unity and development;
b) The State shall protect the rights, ofICCs/lPs to their ancestral
domains to ensure their economic, social and cultural well-being and
shall recognize the applicability of customary laws governing property
rights or relations in determining the ownership and extent of ancestral
domain;
c) The State shall recognize, respect and protect the rights of
ICCs/lPs to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions and
institutions. It shall consider these rights in the formulation of national
laws and policies;
d) The State shall guarantee that members of the ICCs/IPs regardless
of sex, shall equally enjoy the full measure of human rights and freedoms
without distinction or discrimination;
e) The State shall take measures, with the participation of the
ICCs/IPs concerned, to protect their rights and guarantee respect for
their cultural integrity, and to ensure that members of the ICCs/IPs benefit
on an equal footing from the rights and opportunities which national laws
and regulations grant to other members of the population; and
f) The State recognizes its obligations to respond to the strong
expression of the ICCs/IPs for cultural integrity by assuring maximum
ICC/IP participation in the direction of education, health, as well as
other services of ICCs/IPs, in order to render such services more
responsive to the needs and desires of these communities.
Towards these ends, the State shall institute and establish the
necessary mechanisms to enforce and guarantee the realization of these
rights, taking into consideration their customs, traditions, values,
beliefs, interests and institutions, and to adopt and implement measures
to protect their rights to their ancestral domains.
The 1987 Constitution's attitude toward indigenous peoples,
with its emphasis on preservation, is a marked departure from regimes
under the 1935 and 1973 constitutions, which were typified by integration.
Integration, however, was still "like the colonial policy of assimilation
understood in the context of a guardian-ward relationship." Like
assimilation, it was eager to have indigenous peoples attune themselves
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