04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly Respondent NCIP claims that IPRA does not violate the Constitution, because it does not grant ownership of public domains and natural resources to ICCs/IPs. "Rather, it recognizes and mandates respect for the rights of indigenous peoples over their ancestral lands and domains that had never been lands of the public domain."[16] I say, however, that such claim finds no legal support. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a provision that exempts such lands and domains from its coverage. Quite the contrary, it declares that all lands of the public domain and natural resources "are owned by the State"; and "with the exception of agricultural lands, all other natural resources shall not be alienated." As early as Oh Cho v. Director of Lands,[17] the Court declared as belonging to the public domain all lands not acquired from the government, either by purchase or by grant under laws, orders or decrees promulgated by the Spanish government; or by possessory information under Act 496 (Mortgage Law). On the other hand, Intervenors Flavier et al.[18] differentiate the concept of ownership of ICCs/IPs from that which is defined in Articles 427 and 428 of the Civil Code. They maintain that "[t]here are variations among ethnolinguistic groups in the Cordillera, but a fair synthesis of these refers to `x x x the tribal right to use the land or to territorial control x x x, a collective right to freely use the particular territory x x x [in] the concept of trusteeship.'" In other words, the "owner" is not an individual. Rather, it is a tribal community that preserves the property for the common but nonetheless exclusive and perpetual benefit of its members, without the attributes of alienation or disposition. This concept, however, still perpetually withdraws such property from the control of the State and from its enjoyment by other citizens of the Republic. The perpetual and exclusive character of private respondents' claims simply makes them repugnant to basic fairness and equality. Private respondents and intervenors trace their "ownership" of ancestral domains and lands to the pre-Spanish conquest. I should say that, at the time, their claims to such lands and domains was limited to the surfaces thereof since their ancestors were agriculture-based. This must be the continuing scope of the indigenous groups' ownership claims: limited to land, excluding the natural resources found within. In any event, if all that the ICCs/IPs demand is preferential use -- not ownership -of ancestral domains, then I have no disagreement. Indeed, consistent with the Constitution is IPRA's Section 57[19]-- without the too-broad definitions under Section 3 (a) and (b) -- insofar as it grants them priority rights in harvesting, extracting, developing or exploiting natural resources within ancestral domains. The concerted effort to malign the Regalian Doctrine as a vestige of the colonial past must fail. Our Constitution vests the ownership of natural resources, not in colonial masters, but in all the Filipino people. As the protector of the Constitution, this Court has the sworn duty to uphold the tenets of that Constitution -- not to dilute, circumvent or create exceptions to them. Cariño v. Insular Government Was Modified by the Constitution elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 139/148