04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly 4. Whether customary laws and traditions of ICCs/IPs should first be applied in the settlements of disputes over their rights and claims 5. Whether the composition and the jurisdiction of the National Commission of Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) violate the due process and equal protection clauses 6. Whether members of the ICCs/IPs may be recruited into the armed forces against their will I believe that the first three of the above collateral issues have been rendered academic or, at least, no longer of "transcendental importance," in view of my contention that the two major IPRA propositions are based on unconstitutional premises. On the other hand, I think that in the case of the last three, it is best to await specific cases filed by those whose rights may have been injured by specific provisions of RA 8371. Epilogue Section 5, Article XII of the Constitution, provides: "SEC. 5. The State, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national development policies and programs, shall protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social, and cultural well being. "The Congress may provide for the applicability of customary laws governing property rights and relations in determining the ownership and extent of ancestral domain." Clearly, there are two parameters that must be observed in the protection of the rights of ICCs/IPs: (1) the provisions of the 1987 Constitution and (2) national development policies and programs. Indigenous peoples may have long been marginalized in Philippine politics and society. This does not, however, give Congress any license to accord them rights that the Constitution withholds from the rest of the Filipino people. I would concede giving them priority in the use, the enjoyment and the preservation of their ancestral lands and domains.[41] But to grant perpetual ownership and control of the nation's substantial wealth to them, to the exclusion of other Filipino citizens who have chosen to live and abide by our previous and present Constitutions, would be not only unjust but also subversive of the rule of law. In giving ICCs/IPs rights in derogation of our fundamental law, Congress is effectively mandating "reverse discrimination." In seeking to improve their lot, it would be doing so at the expense of the majority of the Filipino people. Such shortsighted and misplaced generosity will spread the roots of discontent and, in the long term, fan the fires of turmoil to a conflagration of national proportions. Peace cannot be attained by brazenly and permanently depriving the many in order elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 144/148