04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly 8371 defines ancestral domains as including the natural resources found therein and further states that ICCs/IPs own these ancestral domains, then it means that ICCs/IPs can own natural resources. In fact, Intervenors Flavier et al. submit that everything above and below these ancestral domains, with no specific limits, likewise belongs to ICCs/IPs. I say that this theory directly contravenes the Constitution. Such outlandish contention further disregards international law which, by constitutional fiat, has been adopted as part of the law of the land.[31] No Land Area Limits Are Specified by RA 8371 Under Section 3, Article XII of the Constitution, Filipino citizens may acquire no more than 12 hectares of alienable public land, whether by purchase, homestead or grant. More than that, but not exceeding 500 hectares, they may hold by lease only. RA 8371, however, speaks of no area or term limits to ancestral lands and domains. In fact, by their mere definitions, they could cover vast tracts of the nation's territory. The properties under the assailed law cover everything held, occupied or possessed "by themselves or through their ancestors, communally or individually since time immemorial." It also includes all "lands which may no longer be exclusively occupied by [them] but from which they traditionally had access to for their subsistence and traditional activities, particularly the home ranges of ICCs/IPs who are still nomadic and/or shifting cultivators." Nomadic groups have no fixed area within which they hunt or forage for food. As soon as they have used up the resources of a certain area, they move to another place or go back to one they used to occupy. From year to year, a growing tribe could occupy and use enormous areas, to which they could claim to have had "traditional access." If nomadic ICCs/IPs succeed in acquiring title to their enlarging ancestral domain or land, several thousands of hectares of land may yet be additionally delineated as their private property. Similarly, the Bangsa Moro people's claim to their ancestral land is not based on compounded or consolidated title, but "on a collective stake to the right to claim what their forefathers secured for them when they first set foot on our country."[32] They trace their right to occupy what they deem to be their ancestral land way back to their ancient sultans and datus, who had settled in many islands that have become part of Mindanao. This long history of occupation is the basis of their claim to their ancestral lands.[33] Already, as of June 1998, over 2.5 million hectares have been claimed by various ICCs/IPs as ancestral domains; and over 10 thousand hectares, as ancestral lands. [34] Based on ethnographic surveys, the solicitor general estimates that ancestral domains cover 80 percent of our mineral resources and between 8 and 10 million of the 30 million hectares of land in the country.[35] This means that four fifths of its natural resources and one third of the country's land will be concentrated among 12 million Filipinos constituting 110 ICCs,[36] while over 60 million other Filipinos constituting the overwhelming majority will have to share the remaining. These elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 142/148