04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly As a rule, Indian lands are not included in the term "public lands," which is ordinarily used to designate such lands as are subject to sale or other disposal under general laws.[178] Indian land which has been abandoned is deemed to fall into the public domain.[179] On the other hand, an Indian reservation is a part of the public domain set apart for the use and occupation of a tribe of Indians.[180] Once set apart by proper authority, the reservation ceases to be public land, and until the Indian title is extinguished, no one but Congress can initiate any preferential right on, or restrict the nation's power to dispose of, them.[181] The American judiciary struggled for more than 200 years with the ancestral land claims of indigenous Americans.[182] And two things are clear. First, aboriginal title is recognized. Second, indigenous property systems are also recognized. From a legal point of view, certain benefits can be drawn from a comparison of Philippine IPs to native Americans.[183] Despite the similarities between native title and aboriginal title, however, there are at present some misgivings on whether jurisprudence on American Indians may be cited authoritatively in the Philippines. The U.S. recognizes the possessory rights of the Indians over their land; title to the land, however, is deemed to have passed to the U.S. as successor of the discoverer. The aboriginal title of ownership is not specifically recognized as ownership by action authorized by Congress.[184] The protection of aboriginal title merely guards against encroachment by persons other than the Federal Government.[185] Although there are criticisms against the refusal to recognize the native Americans' ownership of these lands,[186] the power of the State to extinguish these titles has remained firmly entrenched.[187] Under the IPRA, the Philippine State is not barred form asserting sovereignty over the ancestral domains and ancestral lands.[188] The IPRA, however, is still in its infancy and any similarities between its application in the Philippines vis-à-vis American Jurisprudence on aboriginal title will depend on the peculiar facts of each case. (c) Why the Cariño doctrine is unique In the Philippines, the concept of native title first upheld in Cariño and enshrined in the IPRA grants ownership, albeit in limited form, of the land to the ICCs/IPs. Native title presumes that the land is private and was never public. Cariño is the only case that specifically and categorically recognizes native title. The long line of cases citing Cariño did not touch on native title and the private character of ancestral domains and lands. Cariño was cited by the succeeding cases to support the concept of acquisitive prescription under the Public Land Act which is a different matter altogether. Under the Public Land Act, land sought to be registered must be public agricultural land. When the conditions specified in Section 48 [b] of the Public Land Act are complied with, the possessor of the land is deemed to have acquired, by operation of law, a right to a grant of the land.[189] The land ceases to be part of the public domain,[190] ipso jure,[191] and is converted to private property by the mere lapse or completion of the prescribed statutory elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 38/148