Challenges in having good laws and policies implemented

RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP

IV. EXPERIENCES AND LESSONS LEARNED

A. Actual Exercise of Land-resource Rights Within the Exising Government Frame- work

Case study 1. Ancestral domain titling in the Philippines In the Philippines, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act IPRA or Republic Act 8371 recognizes the right of indigenous peoples to obtain paper titles to their ancestral do- mains. The official document issued in recognition of the collective land rights of indig- enous communities is called Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title CADT. As of June 2008, 71 CADTs have been approved, covering 1.6 million hectares and over 300,000 beneficiaries. Gaps Analysis UNDRIP NATIONAL OR GAPS CONSIDERATIONS OPTIONS PROVISIONS ON LOCAL LAWS IMPLICATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS LAND, TERRITORY OR POLICIES RESOURCES Paragraph or Specific laws, Specific laws, Can current laws, What needs to be Article number policies policies NOT policies be used to done? How? By conforming conforming support indigenous whom? Where? with UNDRIP with UNDRIP peoples’ positions When? For how or interests? Are long? there loopholes in the law that can be used for or against indigenous peoples? Should the matter be approached legally? Or politically? Laws And Policies Articles 25 26, 8 10, 27 Adjudication Articles 27 Redress Articles 28 Governance Articles 20 29 FPIC Articles 19 90 Module-4 RIGHTS AIPP AIPP Regional Capacity Building Program - Training Manual on the UNDRIP The law defines indigenous territories as ancestral domains AD. However, this is something that must be demonstrated; therefore it requires proofs: ethnography of the people, genealogies spanning at least six generations, a census, and a geographical re- construction based on indigenous toponyms. With all this information, people from the communities included in an AD develop a process of self-delineation, which serves as a basis for the official survey and monumenting process. What follows are administra- tive procedures which end with the production of a claim book that includes all the documents of the process, the scrutiny of the claim book and survey maps by the Na- tional Commission on Indigenous Peoples NCIP, whose seven commissioners have to be present in at least three meetings. This leads to the formal approval and, eventually, the awarding of the CADT by the NCIP. The process to obtain a CADT takes a long time because of the large amount of proofs required. On average, this process can take between two and three years. In many cases in the Cordillera Administrative Region, the process has already gone on for more than ten years yet remains uncompleted. And the process is expensive. The NCIP has only a limited budget for processing CADT applications, and it has been estimated that about 500 are still pending. There are no limits to the size of a CADT or the number of communities that can jointly apply. Only in a few cases has an indigenous people decided to apply for a CATD covering its entire territory. These include the Matigsalug in Mindanao 102,324 hect- ares and the Buhid in Mindoro 90,000 hectares. In most cases, several CADTs have been issued or are being applied for by one particular indigenous people, covering be- tween a few thousand to a few ten-thousand hectares. In many cases, the communities applying for a CADT face considerable problems arising from conflicts between different government agencies, in particular the NCIP and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources DENR, regarding, for ex- ample, protected areas overlapping with AD claims, opposition from local governments and companies due to commercial interests, and the collusion of the NCIP with such in- terest groups instead of living up to its mandate to support the indigenous communities. Even when communities possess a CADT, they are often faced with pressure result- ing from corporate interests in accessing natural resources within their AD. The NCIP has often supported companies in obtaining the Certificates of Free, Prior and Informed Consent FPIC that they need to start exploiting the natural resources, rather than help- ing the communities in critically assessing the requests of these companies. Nevertheless, many indigenous communities all over the Philippines consider the IPRA an advancement since it allows them to secure their territorial rights. They also find that the lengthy and complicated proof-building procedure has in the end been valuable because it has allowed them to recover elements of their culture. And they ap- preciate having defined clear and exact boundaries of their AD with the help of sophisti- cated methods and technologies like GPS global positioning satellite. Communities possessing a CADT are, however, also well aware that a title is not enough, that they need to have their own development plans for their ADs and strength- en their traditional or newly formed institutions to confront the challenges they are faced with. 91 Module-4