Section 3. Definition of Terms.

- For purposes of this Act, the following terms shall mean: Native title refers to ICCs/IPs preconquest rights to lands and domains held under a claim of
(i) Indigenous peoples/Indigenous cultural communities. - 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.
Indigenous peoples 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 x x x.
Indigenous Cultural Communities or Indigenous Peoples refer to a group of people or
homogeneous societies who have continuously lived as an organized community on communally
bounded and defined territory. These groups of people have actually occupied, possessed and
utilized their territories under claim of ownership since time immemorial. They share common
bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, or, they, by their
resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and
cultures, became historically differentiated from the Filipino majority. ICCs/IPs also include
descendants of ICCs/IPs who inhabited the country at the time of conquest or colonization, who
retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions but who may have
been displaced from their traditional territories or who may have resettled outside their ancestral
domains.
private ownership as far back as memory reaches. These lands are deemed never to have been
public lands and are indisputably presumed to have been held that way since before the Spanish
Conquest. The rights of ICCs/IPs to their ancestral domains (which also include ancestral lands)
by virtue of native title shall be recognized and respected (Section 11, IPRA). Formal recognition,
when solicited by ICCs/IPs concerned, shall be embodied in a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title
(CADT), which shall recognize the title of the concerned ICCs/IPs over the territories identified and
delineated.
Like a torrens title, a CADT is evidence of private ownership of land by native title. Native title,
however, is a right of private ownership peculiarly granted to ICCs/IPs over their ancestral lands
and domains. The IPRA categorically declares ancestral lands and domains held by native title as
never to have been public land. Domains and lands held under native title are, therefore,
indisputably presumed to have never been public lands and are private.
The concept of native title in the IPRA was taken from the 1909 case of Carino v. Insular
Government (41 Phil. 935 [1909], 212 U.S. 449, 53 L. Ed. 594). Carino firmly established a
concept of private land title that existed irrespective of any royal grant from the State.
"[a]ll lands that were not acquired from the Government either by purchase or by grant, belong to
the public domain, but [a]n exception to the rule would be any land that should have been in the
possession of an occupant and of his predecessors in interest since time immemorial, for such
possession would justify the presumption that the land had never been part of the public domain or
that it had been private property even before the Spanish conquest.

ncestral domains and ancestral lands are the private property of indigenous peoples and do not
constitute part of the land of the public domain.

The IPRA grants to ICCs/IPs a distinct kind of ownership over ancestral domains and ancestral
lands. Ancestral lands are not the same as ancestral domains. These are defined in Section 3(a)
and (b) of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act x x x.

Ancestral domains are all areas belonging to ICCs/IPs held under a claim of ownership, occupied
or possessed by ICCs/IPs by themselves or through their ancestors, communally or individually
since time immemorial, continuously until the present, except when interrupted by war, force
majeure or displacement by force, deceit, stealth or as a consequence of government projects or
any other voluntary dealings with government and/or private individuals or corporations. Ancestral
domains comprise lands, inland waters, coastal areas, and natural resources therein and includes
ancestral lands, forests, pasture, residential, agricultural, and other lands individually owned
whether alienable or not, hunting grounds, burial grounds, worship areas, bodies of water, mineral
and other natural resources. They also include lands which may no longer be exclusively
occupied by ICCs/IPs but from which they traditionally had access to for their subsistence and
traditional activities, particularly the home ranges of ICCs/IPs who are still nomadic and/or shifting
cultivators (Section 3[a], IPRA).

Ancestral lands are lands held by the ICCs/IPs under the same conditions as ancestral domains
except that these are limited to lands and that these lands are not merely occupied and possessed
but are also utilized by the ICCs/IPs under claims of individual or traditional group ownership.
These lands include but are not limited to residential lots, rice terraces or paddies, private forests,
swidden farms and tree lots (Section 3[b], IPRA).

The rights of the ICCs/IPs to their ancestral domains and ancestral lands may be acquired in two
modes: (1) by native title over both ancestral lands and domains; or (2) by torrens title under the
Public Land Act and the Land Registration Act with respect to ancestral lands only.