10/12/2019 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Section 83 of the IPRA, the repealing clause, only specifies Presidential Decree No. 410, Executive Order Nos. 122B and 122C as expressly repealed. While the same section does state that "all other laws, decrees, orders, rules and regulations or parts thereof inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed or modified accordingly," such an implied repeal is predicated upon the condition that a substantial and an irreconcilable conflict must be found in existing and prior Acts. The two laws refer to different subject matters, albeit the IPRA includes the jurisdiction of the NCIP. As such, resolution of conflicts between parties who are not both ICCs/IPs may still fall within the general jurisdiction of regular courts dependent on the allegations in the complaint or petition and the status of the parties. There is no clear irreconcilable conflict from the investiture of jurisdiction to the NCIP in instances where, among others, all the parties are ICCs/IPs and the claim or dispute involves their rights, and the specific wording of Batas Pambansa Bilang 129, Sections 19-21 on the exclusive and original jurisdiction of the Regional Trial Courts, and Sections 33-35 on the exclusive and original jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Trial Courts, Municipal Trial Courts, and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts. We should not, and cannot, adopt the theory of implied repeal except upon a clear and unequivocal expression of the will of the Congress, which is not manifest from the language of Section 66 of the IPRA which, to reiterate: (1) did not use the words "primary" and/or "original and exclusive" to describe the jurisdiction of the NCIP over "all claims and disputes involving rights of ICCs/IPs" and (2) contained a proviso requiring certification that the parties have exhausted their remedies provided under customary laws. We are quick to clarify herein that even as we declare that in some instances the regular courts may exercise jurisdiction over cases which involve rights of ICCs/IPs, the governing law for these kinds of disputes necessarily include the IPRA and the rights the law bestows on ICCs/IPs. In Begnaen v. Spouses Caligtan,[29] the Court affirmed and emphasized the aforequoted ruling in Lim v. Gamosa[30] where it struck down as void an administrative rule that expanded the jurisdiction of the NCP beyond the boundaries of the IPRA. However, exception must be taken to the pronouncement in Begnaen v. Spouses Caligtan[31] that "[a]t best, the limited jurisdiction of the NCIP is concurrent with that of the regular trial courts in the exercise of the latter's general jurisdiction extending to all controversies brought before them within the legal bounds of rights and remedies." Concurrent or coordinate jurisdiction is that which is "exercised by different courts at the same time over the same subject matter and within the same territory, and wherein litigants may in the first instance resort to either court indifferently, that of several different tribunals, each authorized to deal with the same subject matter, and when a proceeding in respect of a certain subject matter can be brought in any one of several elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/63044 8/32

Select target paragraph3