Background of the Study Land governance recently attracted global attention as it is closely linked with many of the global development challenges such as hunger and poverty, market and investments, climate change, and disasters. In response, the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) of the United Nations (UN) endorsed an internationally agreed document “The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) in the Context of National Food Security.” While the document is not legally binding, the VGGT serves as a reference for internationally accepted standards and practices for the responsible governance of tenure. For farmers and food producers, as well as fisherfolks and indigenous people, it offers a lens by which governance of resource tenure can be assessed and directs appropriate interventions that are deemed necessary. In the Philippines, the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), in partnership with UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and relevant government agencies, is mainstreaming the VGGT to strengthen land tenure governance. Its foreseen impacts include strengthened policies, legal instruments and procedures contributing to enhance land and natural resources governance, and improved tenure security. The intended project outcome is that principles outlined in the VGGT are mainstreamed among key institutions dealing with the tenure of land and fisheries. This case study is linked to the legal recognition of indigenous customary rights as it relates to climate change – specifically, it addresses VGGT’s Part 6 Section 23.3, which provides that “States should facilitate the participation, consistent with the principles of consultation and participation of these Guidelines, of all individuals, communities or peoples, with an emphasis on farmers, small-scale food producers, and vulnerable and marginalized people, who hold legitimate tenure rights, in the negotiations and implementation of mitigation and adaptation programmes.” Introduction Land is life. This is how indigenous people (IP) leaders respond when asked how important land is to their community. It is easy to see how land provides for their daily food needs and their livelihood. And yet, the statement sounds like a sweeping generalization. Taken in its proper context, however, where these lands sustain vast forests spawning biodiversity and supplying water downstream, it becomes fairly convincing. Land even serves their spiritual 2 obligations such as burial grounds and sacred places. In the Philippines, around 50 percent of the total 30 million hectares are considered uplands. Of these lands, 45 percent are classified as ancestral domains of the indigenous peoples who comprise 12-14 percent of the country’s population. What is important to note is that nearly 90 percent of the remaining forest cover are within their ancestral domains. As of 30 September 2010, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP)