04/02/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly their posterity."[10] The delegates to the 1934 Constitutional Convention were of the unanimous view that the "policy on natural resources, being fundamental to the nation's survival should not be left to the changing mood of the lawmaking body." [11] The 1987 Constitution, like the precursor provisions in the 1935 and 1973 Constitutions, thus expresses this regalian doctrine of the old, and the domainial doctrine of the new, that all lands and natural resources belong to the state other than those which it recognizes to be of private ownership. Except for agricultural lands of the public domain which alone may be alienated, forest or timber, and mineral lands, as well as all other natural resources, of the country must remain with the state, the exploration, development and utilization of which shall be subject to its full control and supervision albeit allowing it to enter into co-production, joint venture or production-sharing agreements, or into agreements with foreign-owned corporations involving technical or financial assistance for large-scale exploration, development and utilization.[12] The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Cariño vs. Insular Government, [13] holding that a parcel of land held since time immemorial by individuals under a claim of private ownership is presumed never to have been public land and cited to downgrade the application of the regalian doctrine, cannot override the collective will of the people expressed in the Constitution. It is in them that sovereignty resides and from them that all government authority emanates.[14] It is not then for a court ruling or any piece of legislation to be conformed to by the fundamental law, but it is for the former to adapt to the latter, and it is the sovereign act that must, between them, stand inviolate. The second paragraph of Section 5 of Article XII of the Constitution allows Congress to provide "for the applicability of customary laws governing property rights or relations in determining the ownership and extent of ancestral domains." I do not see this statement as saying that Congress may enact a law that would simply express that "customary laws shall govern" and end it there. Had it been so, the Constitution could have itself easily provided without having to still commission Congress to do it. Mr. Chief Justice Davide has explained this authority of Congress, during the deliberations of the 1986 Constitutional Convention, thus: "Mr. Davide. x x x Insofar as the application of the customary laws governing property rights or relations in determining the ownership and extent of the ancestral domain is concerned, it is respectfully submitted that the particular matter must be submitted to Congress. I understand that the idea of Comm. Bennagen is for the possibility of the codification of these customary laws. So before these are codified, we cannot now mandate that the same must immediately be applicable. We leave it to Congress to determine the extent of the ancestral domain and the ownership thereof in relation to whatever may have been codified earlier. So, in short, let us not put the cart ahead of the horse."[15] The constitutional aim, it seems to me, is to get Congress to look closely into the customary laws and, with specificity and by proper recitals, to hew elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/36882 74/148