04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly [146] Third paragraph, Section 2, Article XII, Constitution - The Congress may, by law, allow small scale-utilization of natural resources by Filipino citizens, as well as cooperative fish farming, with priority to subsistence fishermen and fishworkers in rivers, lakes, bays, and lagoons. [147] Section 6, Article XIII, Constitution - The State shall apply the principles of agrarian reform or stewardship, whenever applicable in accordance with law, in the disposition and utilization of other natural resources, including lands of the public domain under lease or concession suitable to agriculture, subject to prior rights, homestead rights of small settlers, and the rights of the indigenous communities to their ancestral lands. The State may resettle landless farmers and farmworkers in its own agricultural estates which shall be distributed to them in the manner provided by law. [148] Section 7, Article XIII, Constitution - The State shall protect the rights of subsistence fishermen, especially of local communities, to the preferential use of the communal marine and fishing resources, both inland and offshore. It shall provide support to such fishermen through appropriate technology and research, adequate financial, production, and marketing assistance, and other services. The State shall also protect, develop, and conserve such resources. The protection shall extend to offshore fishing grounds of subsistence fishermen against foreign intrusion. Fishworkers shall receive a just share from their labor in the utilization of marine and fishing resources. [149] Bower v. Big Horn Canal Assn. (Wyo) 307 P2d 593, cited in 16 Am Jur 2d Constitutional Law, § 100. [150] Republic Act No. 7076 (the Small-Scale Mining Act of 1991), Republic Act No. 7942 (the Philippine Mining Act of 1995). [151] Section 3(b) of R.A. 7076 defines "small-scale mining" as referring to mining activities which rely heavily on manual labor using simple implements and methods and do not use explosives or heavy mining equipment. [152] Section 7, R.A. 7076 provides: Ancestral lands. - No ancestral land may be declared as a people's smallscale mining area without the prior consent of the cultural communities concerned: Provided, That, if ancestral lands are declared as peole's small-scale mining areas, the members of the cultural communities therein shall be given priority for the awarding of a people's small-scale mining contract. elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 126/148