Land Acquisition, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Indigenous Peoples’ Policy, 3rd edition (2007) Free and Prior Informed Consent (FPIC) must be determined using methods appropriate to the social and cultural values of the affected Indigenous Peoples’ Communities, recognizing the primacy of customs, traditions, practices, and sociopolitical structures of the ICCs/IPs concerned. The process must be free from any external manipulation, interference and coercion and must give special attention to the concerns of Indigenous women, youth, and children. Free and prior informed consent is obtained only after a full disclosure of the intent, scope, benefits, potential adverse effects of the project, and measures to avoid, reduce, minimize, and mitigate these effects in a language and manner that is culturally appropriate and understandable to the affected Indigenous Peoples’ Communities. As required by the FPIC Guidelines of 2006, the DPWH or the project proponent shall prepare a presentation of the project to be explained to the affected IP/ICCs during the Consultative Community Assembly (CCA) or the First Meeting, whichever is applicable. The project proponent shall present the goals and the scope of the project, the operation plan including timeframe if available, the cost and benefits of the project to the ICC/IP and their ancestral domains, its relationship to the Ancestral Domain Sustainable Development and Protection Plan (ADSDPP) if available, and the perceived disadvantages or adverse effects to the ICC/IP and the measures that the project proponent is proposing to mitigate and minimize these. In addition, the project proponent will explain during the CCA or the First Meeting, the legal framework governing the taking of private or communal property for public use, the different modes of acquisition, policy on eligibility, compensation and other entitlements, and the other applicable laws and policies concerning these. With the NCIP representatives, the project proponent will explain the proposed grievance procedures to be followed and the institutional arrangements for monitoring and evaluation. 1. Land Acquisition without resettlement The project may involve the acquisition of land and/or the structures, improvements, crops, trees, and perennials on it. The acquisition must ensure that nonreplicable cultural property will not be damaged in the process in accordance with Chapter VI, Section 33 of the IPRA. All reasonable efforts should be done to ensure that road sections and linked activities projects, will not pass through religious and cultural properties of IPs, e.g. burial sites and the like and that these be preserved, respected, and protected in situ. If passage through, and hence damage to and/or partial or total relocation of religious and cultural properties is unavoidable, this should be presented to the ICC/IPs in the Consultative Community Assembly (CCA) or First Meeting whichever is applicable and obtain the Free and Prior Informed Consent of the affected ICC/IPs. If consent is Environmental and Social Services OfficeDepartment of Public Works and Highways February 2007 21