SON GABRIEL J.

UY 02/08/2022

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND THE LAW

While going over the videos and listening to the lecturers, there were
three concepts that came to my mind with regard to the application and/or
purpose of Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA). These concepts are
preservation, management, and empowerment. As a way social legislation,
the IPRA law tends to preserve those that were left to the Indigenous Cultural
Communities (ICC). May these properties be tangible such as lands and other
natural resources, or intangible such as customs and traditions. Social
legislation is achieved by preservation because it seeks to prevent the
diminishing of rights and privileges due to the marginalized sectors, in this
case the ICC’s. Secondly, IPRA is also about management of right and
properties of Indigenous Peoples (IP), of course, not by random people but by
the IP’s themselves. This is the reason why Self-Governance is provided for
under IPRA law. This, probably, is anchored, in the idea that the IP’s knows
what’s best for them and to the community as a whole. Lastly, the concept of
empowerment, in furtherance of social legislation, which seeks to achieve
equity among sectors. This is done by improving and adding to the ICC’s
what was lost due to historical injustice; improving what the law preserves
and letting the IP’s decide, manage and govern their own rights and
properties for general welfare.

In sum, these were all consequences of social legislation coming from the
minds behind the IPRA law which only seeks for the good not just only for the
IP’s but to general welfare as it will eventually have positive consequences to
those who are affected by the law.