Case # 25

Cruz vs. Secretary

G.R. No. 135385 December 6, 2000

FACTS:

Petitioners Isagani Cruz and Cesar Europa filed a suit for prohibition and mandamus
as citizens and taxpayers, assailing the constitutionality of certain provisions of Republic Act No. 8371,
otherwise known as the Indigenous People’s Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA) and its implementing rules and
regulations (IRR). The petitioners assail certain provisions of the IPRA and its IRR on the ground that
these amount to an unlawful deprivation of the State’s ownership over lands of the public domain as well
as minerals and other natural resources therein, in violation of the regalian doctrine embodied in section
2, Article XII of the Constitution.

ISSUE:

Whether or not IPRA which grants indigenous cultural communities or indigenous peoples
(ICCs/IPs) the right to have native title and possession of their ancestral domains and ancestral lands
since time immemorial violates the regalian doctrine embodied in the Constitution.

RULING:

No, because ancestral lands and ancestral domains are not part of the lands of the public
domain. They are private lands and belong to the ICCs/IPs by native title, which is a concept of private
land title that existed irrespective of any royal grant from the State. The ownership given to the ICCs/IPs
is the indigenous concept of ownership under customary law which traces its origin to native title. The
rights of ICCs/IPs to their ancestral lands and domains by virtue of native title shall be recognized and
respected. Like a Torrens title, a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) is an evidence of private
ownership of land by native title. Hence, domains and lands held under native title are presumed to have
never been public lands and are private.