kidnapped then passed on to employers, or end up in the streets. Scheduled caste members who do manage to secure gainful employment in the public or private sector face discrimination. Philippines There are 110 major indigenous groups in the Philippines, most of which depend on traditional swidden agriculture utilizing available upland areas. However, most of these traditional cultivation sites and fallow areas have now been degraded and are further threatened by the influx of migrant farmers who have introduced unsustainable lowland commercial farming practices. Indigenous peoples’ settlements are remote, without access to basic services, and are characterized by a high incidence of morbidity, mortality and malnutrition. The IPs remain one of the most under-represented sectors in the governance of the Philippines. Without the necessary wherewithal, the sector has not been able to actively participate in the political exercises and as such merely settle for token representation in the legislature and other elective posts in Government. Available opportunities for participation in policy making are limited by the sector’s capacity to engage the bureaucracy and the ruling political elite. Domain Title (CADT) is issued to a community, while a Certificate of Ancestral Land Title (CALT) is awarded to clan or family claimants. The first ECOZONES in the country were established in ancestral domains – overruling the rights and ownership of the IPs over such areas. As in the case of the Mining Act, new and more powerful governance structures and planning modalities were put in place, which supplanted the existing traditional leadership structures and resource management arrangements of the affected indigenous communities. Currently, the Philippines has several active national coalitions of IP communities, the Katutubong Samahan ng Pilipinas (KASAPI), the Kalipunan ng Mamayang Pilipino (KAMP) and the National Coalition of Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines (NCIPP). Under these national aggrupations are several layers of regional, provincial as well as local indigenous peoples organizations (IPOs) all over the Philippines. While the IPOs still need to build their capacity, most civil society groups working with the sector now have IP community members among their ranks. In fact in some groups, the majority of the staff and officers of the organization come from the ranks of indigenous communities. n Even so, the Philippines holds the distinction of being the first country in Southeast Asia to enact a law recognizing the traditional rights of indigenous peoples over ancestral domains with the passage of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. Under the IPRA, the disposition of ancestral domains can either be communal ownership or through clan or family ownership. As such, a Certificate of Ancestral Lok Niti 13