Separate Concurring Opinion 12 GR. No. 224469 By these, the State guarantees that these culture and traditions are recognized, respected, and protected. 48 The complexity of the legal backdrop of indigenous land rights can be attributed to the colonial experience of indigenous populations. 49 Prior to colonization, the sense of community was integral in the concept of ownership and property. Since time immemorial, Filipino tribal groups have occupied and cultivated countless hectares of Philippine soil. They have adopted and practiced their own method of recognizing and acknowledging property rights based upon "kinship, communal affiliation, and local custom[.]" 50 By the time the Spaniards reached our shores, these tribal groups have already developed their own sets of customs, traditions, and laws. These customs and traditions included the practice that everyone within the group should participate in the communal ownership over their land. This denotes a communal ownership grounded upon historical patterns of usage. 51 "Ownership" to the indigenous peoples of the Philippines has been described as the "tribal right to use the land or to territorial control." Ownership in this sense is equivalent to work. Ceasing to work means losing one's claim to ownership. In this paradigm, individuals are considered as mere "secondary owners" or "stewards of the land." Only beings of the spirit world may be the "true and primary or reciprocal owners of the land." On the other hand, "property" refers to things which require the application of labor or those "produced from labor." 52 Indigenous peoples view their lands as communal, which means that it can be used by anybody who is a recognized member of the group. It is regarded as "a collective right to freely use the particular territory." Indigenous peoples also view land in the "concept of 'trusteeship."' They believed that it is "not only the present generation, but also the future ones, which possess the right to the land." 53 48 49 Republic Act No. 83 71 (1997), sec. 29. SECTION 29. Protection of Indigenous Culture, Traditions and Institutions. - The State shall respect, recognize and protect the right of ICCs/IPs to preserve and protect their culture, traditions and institutions. It shall consider these rights in the formulation and application of national plans and policies. See June Prill-Brett, Indigenous Land Rights and legal Pluratism among Philippine Highlanders, 28 LAW AND SOCIETY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 687, 691--692 (1994). 50 Owen James Lynch, Jr., Native Title, Private Right and Tribal Land Law: An Introductory Survey, 57 s, Id. Marvic M.V.F Leonen, Law at Its Margins: Questions of Identity, Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Ancestral Domains and the Diffusion of Law, 83 PHIL. L. J. 787, 807 (2009). Id. PHIL. L. J. 268,272 (1982). 52 53