Decision
12
G.R. No. 221139
The Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act echoes the constitutional impetus
for preservation. Its declaration of state policies reads:
SECTION 2. Declaration of State Policies. -- The State shall
recognize and promote all the rights of Indigenous Cultural
Communities/Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs) hereunder 1~numerated within
the framework of the Constitution:
a) The State shall recognize and promote the rights of ICCs/IPs
within the framework of national unity and development;
b) The State shall protect the rights of ICCs/IPs to their ancestral
domains to ensure their economic, social and cultural well being
and shall recognize the applicability of customary laws governing
property rights or relations in determining the ownership and
extent of ancestral domain;
c) The State shall recognize, respect and protect the rights of
ICCs/IPs to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions and
institutions. It shall consider these rights in the formulation of
national laws and policies;
d) The State shall guarantee that members of the ICCs/IPs regardless
of sex, shall equally enjoy the full measure of human rights and
freedoms without distinction or discrimination;
e) The State shall take measures, with the participation of the
ICCs/IPs concerned, to protect their rights and guarantee respect
for their cultural integrity, and to ensure that members of the
ICCs/IPs benefit on an equal footing from the rights and
opportunities which national laws and regulations grant to other
members of the population; and
f) The State recognizes its obligations to respond to the strong
expression of the ICCs/IPs for cultural integrity by assuring
maximum ICC/IP participation in the direction of education,
health, as well as other services of ICCs/IPs, in order to render
such services more responsive to the needs and desires of these
communi ties.
Towards these ends, the State shall institute and establish the
necessary mechanisms to enforce and guarantee the realization of these
rights, taking into consideration their customs, traditions, values, beliefs,
interests and institutions, and to adopt and implement measures to protect
their rights to their ancestral domains. 50 (Emphasis supplied)
The 1987 Constitution's attitude toward indigenous peoples, with its
emphasis on preservation, is a marked departure from regimes under the
1935 and 1973 constitutions, which were typified by integration.
Integration, however, was still "like the colonial policy of assimilation
50
Rep. Act No. 8371 (1997), ch. I, sec. 2.
j