Separate Concurring Opinion 31 G.R. No. 224469 Section 17; 153 and (6) Article XVI, Section 12. 154 ~ > The 1987 Constitution has made a noticeable shift from its predecessors. Unlike the 1935 and the 1973 Constitutions, the present Constitution recognizes and expressly guarantees the indigenous peoples' rights to their ancestral lands and ancestral domain. Through these constitutional provisions "the State has effectively upheld their right to live in a culture distinctly their own." 155 V(A) Enacted in 1997, Republic Act No. 8371 or the IPRA seeks to address the "centuries-old neglect of the Philippine indigenous peoples." 156 It is considered as "the principal piece of legislation that would govern with respect to most of the demands of indigenous peoples through their various organizations." 157 IPRA implements Article II, Section 22 and Article XII, Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution in four (4) ways: (a) Firstly, enumerating the civil and political rights of all members of indigenous cultural communities or indigenous peoples, regardless of their relation to ancestral lands or domains; (b) Secondly, enumerating the social and cultural rights of all members of indigenous cultural communities or indigenous peoples; (c) Thirdly, recognizing a general concept of indigenous property right and granting title thereto; and (d) Finally, creating a National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) to act as a mechanism to coordinate implementation of the law as well as a final authority that has jurisdiction to issue Certificates of Ancestral Domain/Land,Titles." 158 153 154 155 156 157 158 lands of the public domain under lease or concession suitable to agriculture, subject to prior rights, homestead rights of small settlers, and the rights of indigenous communities to their ancestral lands. The State may resettle landless farmers and farmworkers in its own agricultural estates which shall be distributed to them in the manner provided by law. CONST., art. XIV, sec. 17 provides: SECTION 17. The State shall recognize, respect, and protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions, and institutions. It shall consider these rights in the formulation of national plans and policies. CONST., art. XVI, sec. 12 provides: 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. J. Puno, Separate Opinion in Cruz v. Secretary of Natural Resources, 400 Phil. 904, 960 (2000) [Per Curiam, En Banc]. Id. at 963. Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples: An Overview of Recent Developments in Policy, 1998PHIL.PEACE&HUM.RTS.REV.159, 160(1998). Id. at 161. f