10/12/2019
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Petitioners further point out that Section 72 of the IPRA permits the imposition of
penalties under customary law even to non-IPs, and does not distinguish as to whom
customary law may apply. According to them, any natural or juridical person, IPs or
not, found to have violated provisions of then IPRA, particularly those identified in
Section 72, may be dealt with by imposing penalties found in the corresponding
customary laws. They submit that Section 72 does not require as a condition precedent
familiarity of the person to be penalized to the existing customary law of the affected
community nor does it require for the said customary law to have been published to
allow for its imposition to any person who committed the violation. Thus, they assert
that Section 72 negates the ruling that NCIP's jurisdiction applies only to Sections 52,
54, 62 and 66, insofar as the dispute involves opposing parties belonging to the same
tribe.
Petitioners likewise aver that Sections 46(g), 62, 69, 70 and 72 of the IPRA, taken
together and in harmony with each other, clearly show that conflicts and disputes
within and between ICCs/IPs are first under the jurisdiction of whatever their
customary law provides, but disputes that are not covered by their customary laws,
either between different ICCs/IPs or between an ICC/IP and a non-IP are also within
the jurisdiction within the NCIP. Petitioners invoke The City Government of Baguio City
v. Masweng[13] and Baguio Regreening Movement, Inc. v. Masweng[14] to support their
theory that NCIP has original and exclusive jurisdiction over a case involving a dispute
or controversy over ancestral domains even if one of the parties is a non-ICC/IP or
does not belong to the same ICC/IP group.
In essence, petitioners argue that (1) the IPRA was not enacted to protect an IP from
another IP whether from the same or different group, because they have their own
means of resolving a dispute arising between them, through customary laws or
compromises, as had been done for a very long time even before the passage of the
law; (2) the IPRA is meant to address the greater prejudice that IPs experience from
non-IPs or the majority group; and (3) the limited interpretation of Section 66 of the
IPRA to its minute details without looking into the intent of the law will result in an
unimaginable situation where the jurisdiction of the NCIP is only limited to those where
both parties belong to the same ICCs/IPs; and (4) the. application of the provisions of
the IPRA, as a national law and a landmark social justice legislation, is encompassing
and not limited to a particular group, i.e., ICCs/IPs.
In their Supplemental Motion for Reconsideration, petitioners stress that (1) the NCIP
and not the regular courts has jurisdiction over the case under the principle that
jurisdiction over the subject matter of the case is determined by the allegations in the
complaint, and pursuant to jurisprudence allowing exemptions thereto; (2) the
jurisdiction over the subject matter of the case rests upon the NCIP as conferred by the
IPRA; (3) the IPRA is a social legislation that seeks to protect the IPs not so much from
themselves or fellow IPs but more from non-IPs; (4) the IPRA created the NCIP as the
agency of government mandated to realize the rights of IPs; (5) in the exercise of its
mandate, the NCIP was created as a quasi-judicial body with jurisdiction to resolve
claims and disputes involving the rights of IPs; (6) the jurisdiction of the NCIP in
resolving claims and disputes involving the rights of IPs is not limited to IPs of the
same tribe; (7) harmonizing the related provisions of the IPRA supports the argument
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