Separate Concurring Opinion 23 G.R. No. 224469 "A member of the national cultural minorities who has continuously occupied and cultivated, either by himself or through his predecessors-in-interest, a tract or tracts of land, whether disposable or not since July 4, 1955, shall be entitled to ,,,the :eight granted in the preceding paragraph of this section: Provided, That at the time he files his free patent application he is not the owner of any real property secured or disposable under this provision of the Public Land Law." SECTION 2. A new sub-section (c) is hereby added to Section 48 of the same Act to read as follows: "( c) Members of the national cultural minorities who by themselves or through their predecessors-in-interest have been in open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession and occupation of lands of the public domain suitable to agriculture, whether disposable or not, under a bona fide claim of ownership for at least 30 years shall be entitled to the rights granted in sub-section (b) hereof." (Underscoring supplied) Led by Senator Manuel Manahan, then-Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Minorities, the amendments' objective was to address the cultural minorities' continuing loss of their ancestral homes by reason of the "grant of pasture leases or permits to the more aggressive Christians[.]" It was "to give Tribal Filipinos 'a fair chance and equal opportunity' to acquire title to public lands." 115 The Manahan amendments had the effect of creating "a distinction between applications for judicial confirmation of imperfect titles by members of national cultural minorities and applications by other qualified persons in general[,]" 116 thus: Members of cultural minorities may apply for confirmation of their title to lands of the public domain, whether disposable or not; they may therefore apply for public lands even though such lands are legally forest lands or mineral lands of the public domain, so long as such lands are in fact suitable for agriculture. The rest of the community, however, "Christians" or members of mainstream society may apply only in respect of "agricultural lands of the public domain," that is, "disposable lands of the public domain" which would of course exclude lands embraced within forest reservations or mineral land reservations. 117 (Emphasis in the original.) 115 116 111 Owen James Lynch, Jr., Native Title, Private Right and Tribal Land Law: An Introductory Survey, 57 PHIL. L. J. 268, 290 (1982). Republic v. Court ofAppeals, 278 Phil. 1, 15 (1991)[Per J. Feliciano, Third Division]. Id.