Dissenting Opinion
G.R. No. 224469
mentions of the rights of IPs to claim ownership over areas traditionally and
actually occupied by them, to manage and conserve natural resources within the
ancestral domains, the right to cultural integrity, or such other rights which every
indigenous person should enjoy under the law, there is no mention of any
exemption from the licensing requirement as far as the cutting, gathering,
collecting, or removing of timber or other forest products is concerned. This Court
cannot simply expand the implications of the provisions of IPRA to carve out an
exception in favor of indigenous people, when such has not been clearly
established to be the intent of the legislature. To do so would run counter to the
well-established rule of strict interpretation against exceptions.
In Samson v. CA, 5 we ruled that "under the rules of statutory construction,
exceptions, as a general rqle, should be strictly, but reasonably construed; they
extend only so far as their language fairly warrants, and all doubts should be
resolved in favor of the general provisions rather than the exception. Where a
general rule is established by statute with exceptions, the court will not curtail the
former nor add to the latter by implication." 6
Notably, the IPRA provides an exemption from taxes in favor of ancestral
domains owned by indigenous people, to wit:
SEC. 60. Exemption from Taxes. - All lands certified to be ancestral
domains shall be exempt from real property taxes, special levies, and other forms
of exaction except such portion of the ancestral domains as are actually used for
large-scale agriculture, commercial forest plantation and residential purposes or
upon titling by private persons: Provided, That all exactions shall be used to
facilitate the development and improvement of the ancestral domains.
Had it been the intent of the legislature to consider the IPRA as an additional
authority for indigenous people to cut, gather, collect, remove timber or other
forest products within the ancestral domain as an exception to the penal provisions
of the Revised Forestry Code, it would have simply expressed so, similar to the
clear import to exempt ancestral domains from real property taxes and other forms
of state exaction. The fact that no such import was provided under the IPRA is a
testament to the proposition that the IPRA was never intended as an exception to
the requirement of a permit, license, agreement, or such other authority as may be
applicable.
I maintain my submission that the IPs do not possess the right to cut forest
products free from state regulation. There is no indication that they are excluded
from the coverage of PD No. 705. This can be gleaned from a scrutiny of both the
literal text and the legislative intent behind PD No. 705, IPRA, and other pertinent
regulations.
5
6
230 Phil. 59 (1986).
Id. at 64, citing Francisco, Statutory Construction, p. 304, citing 69 CJ., Section 643, pp. 1092-1093