04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly alien to them. Inherently colonial in origin, our national land laws and governmental policies frown upon indigenous claims to ancestral lands. Communal ownership is looked upon as inferior, if not inexistent.[106] III. THE IPRA IS A NOVEL PIECE OF LEGISLATION. A. The Legislative History of the IPRA It was to address the centuries-old neglect of the Philippine indigenous peoples that the Tenth Congress of the Philippines, by their joint efforts, passed and approved R.A. No. 8371, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. The law was a consolidation of two Bills-- Senate Bill No. 1728 and House Bill No. 9125. Principally sponsored by Senator Juan M. Flavier,[107] Senate Bill No. 1728 was a consolidation of four proposed measures referred to the Committees on Cultural Communities, Environment and Natural Resources, Ways and Means, as well as Finance. It adopted almost en toto the comprehensive version of Senate Bill Nos. 1476 and 1486 which was a result of six regional consultations and one national consultation with indigenous peoples nationwide.[108] At the Second Regular Session of the Tenth Congress, Senator Flavier, in his sponsorship speech, gave a background on the situation of indigenous peoples in the Philippines, to wit: "The Indigenous Cultural Communities, including the Bangsa Moro, have long suffered from the dominance and neglect of government controlled by the majority. Massive migration of their Christian brothers to their homeland shrunk their territory and many of the tribal Filipinos were pushed to the hinterlands. Resisting the intrusion, dispossessed of their ancestral land and with the massive exploitation of their natural resources by the elite among the migrant population, they became marginalized. And the government has been an indispensable party to this insidious conspiracy against the Indigenous Cultural Communities (ICCs). It organized and supported the resettlement of people to their ancestral land, which was massive during the Commonwealth and early years of the Philippine Republic. Pursuant to the Regalian Doctrine first introduced to our system by Spain through the Royal Decree of 13 February 1894 or the Maura Law, the government passed laws to legitimize the wholesale landgrabbing and provide for easy titling or grant of lands to migrant homesteaders within the traditional areas of the ICCs."[109] Senator Flavier further declared: "The IPs are the offsprings and heirs of the peoples who have first inhabited and cared for the land long before any central government was established. Their ancestors had territories over which they ruled themselves and related with other tribes. These territories- the landinclude people, their dwelling, the mountains, the water, the air, plants, elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 24/148