04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly and lands no longer occupied exclusively by indigenous cultural communities but to which they had traditional access, particularly the home ranges of indigenous cultural communities who are still nomadic or shifting cultivators. Ancestral domains also include inland waters, coastal areas and natural resources therein.[63] Again, the same are required to have been "held under a claim of ownership, occupied or possessed by ICCs/IPs, by themselves or through their ancestors, communally or individually since time immemorial, continuously to the present".[64] Under Section 56, property rights within the ancestral domains already existing and/or vested upon effectivity of said law "shall be recognized and respected." Ownership is the crux of the issue of whether the provisions of IPRA pertaining to ancestral lands, ancestral domains, and natural resources are unconstitutional. The fundamental question is, who, between the State and the indigenous peoples, are the rightful owners of these properties? It bears stressing that a statute should be construed in harmony with, and not in violation, of the fundamental law.[65] The reason is that the legislature, in enacting a statute, is assumed to have acted within its authority and adhered to the constitutional limitations. Accordingly, courts should presume that it was the intention of the legislature to enact a valid, sensible, and just law and one which operates no further than may be necessary to effectuate the specific purpose of the law.[66] A. The provisions of IPRA recognizing the ownership of indigenous peoples over the ancestral lands and ancestral domains are not unconstitutional. In support of their theory that ancestral lands and ancestral domains are part of the public domain and, thus, owned by the State, pursuant to Section 2, Article XII of the Constitution, petitioners and the Solicitor General advance the following arguments: First, according to petitioners, the King of Spain under international law acquired exclusive dominion over the Philippines by virtue of discovery and conquest. They contend that the Spanish King under the theory of jura regalia, which was introduced into Philippine law upon Spanish conquest in 1521, acquired title to all the lands in the archipelago. Second, petitioners and the Solicitor General submit that ancestral lands and ancestral domains are owned by the State. They invoke the theory of jura regalia which imputes to the State the ownership of all lands and makes the State the original source of all private titles. They argue that the Philippine State, as successor to Spain and the United States, is the source of any asserted right of ownership in land. Third, petitioners and the Solicitor General concede that the Cariño doctrine exists. However, petitioners maintain that the doctrine merely states that title to lands of the public domain may be acquired by prescription. The Solicitor General, for his part, argues that the doctrine elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 86/148