j)
Community Intellectual Rights. Refer to the rights of ICCs/IPs to own, control, develop and
protect: (a) the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as but not
limited to, archeological and historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies,
visual and performing arts and literature as well as religious and spiritual properties; (b)
science and technology including, but not limited to, human and other genetic resources,
seeds, medicine, health practices, vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals, indigenous
knowledge systems and practices, resource management systems, agricultural technologies,
knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, designs, scientific discoveries;
and, (c) language, script, histories, oral traditions and teaching and learning systems.
k) Free and Prior Informed Consent. As used in the Act, shall mean the consensus of all
members of the ICCs/IPs to be determined in accordance with their respective customary
laws and practices, free from any external manipulation, interference and coercion, and
obtained after fully disclosing the intent and scope of an activity, in a language and process
understandable to the community.
l)
Indigenous Cultural Communities/ Indigenous Peoples (ICCs/IPs). Refer to a group of
people or homogenous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by others, who
have continuously lived as organized community on communally bounded and defined
territory, and who have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial, occupied,
possessed and utilized such territories, sharing common bonds of language, customs,
traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, or who have, through resistance to political,
social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and cultures, became
historically differentiated from the majority of Filipinos. ICCs/IPs shall, likewise include
peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations
which inhabited the country, at the time of conquest or colonization or at the time of inroads
of non-indigenous religions and cultures or the establishment of present state boundaries who
retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, but who
may have been displaced from their traditional domains or who may have resettled outside
their ancestral domains.
m) Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) or Act. Heretofore, the Act shall refer to Republic
Act No. 8371.
n) Indigenous Political Structures. Refer to organizational and cultural leadership systems,
institutions, relationships, patterns and processes for decision making and participation
identified by ICCs/ IPs such as, but not limited to, Council of Elders, Council of Timuay,
Bodong Holders, or any other tribunal or body of similar nature.
o) Individual Claims. Refer to claims on land and rights thereon which have been devolved to
individuals, families and clans including, but not limited to, residential lots, rice terraces or
paddies and tree lots.
p) Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices. Refer to systems, institutions, mechanisms,
and technologies comprising a unique body of knowledge evolved through time that embody
patterns of relationships between and among peoples and between peoples, their lands and
resource environment, including such spheres of relationships which may include social,
political, cultural, economic, religious spheres, and which are the direct outcome of the
indigenous peoples, responses to certain needs consisting of adaptive mechanisms which
have allowed indigenous peoples to survive and thrive within their given socio-cultural and
biophysical conditions.
q) Large Scale Agriculture. Refers to any commercial or profit making business activity or
enterprise, involving the cultivation of soil, planting of crops, growing of trees, raising of
livestock, poultry fish or aquaculture production including the harvesting of such farm
products, and other farm activities and practices performed in conjunction with such farming
operations, agribusiness or services, by natural or juridical persons whether single
proprietorship, cooperative, partnership or corporation.
r) National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP). Refers to the office created under the
Act, which shall be under the Office of the President, and which shall be the primary
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