Separate Opinion 4 G.R. No. 224469 Here, the Information states: The undersigned Prosecutor, under oath, accuses DIOSDADO SAMA y HINUPAS, DEMETRlO MASANGLA Y y ACEVEDA, BANDY MASANGLA Y y ACEVEDA, residents of Barangay Baras, Baco, Oriental Mindoro with the crime of Violation of Presidential Decree No. 705 as amended, committed as follows: That on or about the 15th day of March 2005, at Barangay Calangatan, Municipality of San Teodoro, Province of Oriental Mindoro, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the abovenamed accused, without any authority as required under existing forest laws and regulations and for unlawful purpose, conspiring, confederating, and mutually helping one another did and then ·and there willfully, unlawfully, feloniously and knowingly cut with the use of unregistered power chainsaw, a Dita tree, a forest product, with an aggregate volume of 500 board feet and with a corresponding value of TWENTY THOUSAND (Php 20,000.00) PESOS, Philippine Currency. Contrary to law. 4 Indubitably, petitioners were charged with the first offense - namely, the cutting of a dita tree "without any authority." 5 Thus, to be convicted under this charge, the following elements must first be proven: ( 1) Act of cutting, gathering, collecting, or removing i. Timber or forest products from any forest land, or ii. Timber from alienable or disposable public land, or from private land; and (2) Absence of any authority to do such act. Finding both elements to be present, the lower courts convicted petitioners. Contrary to the foregoing, I submit that petitioners did not violate any of the punishable acts under P.D. 705, Sec. 77. Otherwise stated, the elements of the offense charged are not present in this case. First, since the dita tree was located within the petitioners' ancestral domain, the offense did not take place in any of the locations contemplated in Sec. 77. In other words, P.D. 705, Sec. 77 is no longer applicable, especially with the enactment of the IPRA. Second, even assuming that P.D. 705, Sec. 77 is still applicable to ancestral domains, the absence of a permit from the DENR does not mean that petitioners are guilty of the charge, as they, under the IPRA, already possessed the required "authority" to cut the dita tree. • Rollo, pp. 48-49. Id.