Will IPRA Law Continue To Shield IP's Rights?

By: Ivy Leomen B. Codilla

The Indigenous People's Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 or R.A. 8371 endeavors to shelter the indigenous peoples in their time-immemorial rights over their ancestral domains. Its passage was hailed as one of the country's most important social legislations.

However, with the recent developments in the local mining scene, the IPRA's very existence has suddenly been thrown into limbo. Now, large scale mining companies are invading the domains of indigenous peoples as if the IPRA law were not there.

The legal basis for this renewed exploration and utilization of our country's mineral resources is the reversal by the Supreme Court of its earlier decision in the La Bugal B'laan Tribal Association, Inc. vs. Western Mining Corp. case in December 2004.
The controversial decision upheld the constitutionality of R.A. 7942, otherwise known as the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.This in effect threw open the country's doors to large-scale mining companies; and these companies now operate mostly in Indigenous Cultural Communities (ICCs).

The La Bugal case started in 1997 where B'laans from Colombio, Sultan Kudarat asked the courts to kick out the Western Mining Corp. from their land and to have the mining act declared unconstitutional.

The B'laan's said they were not surprised by the SC's about face on the issue for according to them, the case was doomed the moment the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made it a policy to encourage mining explorations in the country.

With the SC decision, the road is now clear for mining. And the IPRA law appears to have been swept away from that road too, along with the other barriers to mining. But not to worry, the government says, the rebirth of the Philippine Mining Industry would create 244,000 job opportunities plus the mining companies had promised hat they will practice sustainable mining and implement zero environmental damage.

In reality, however, what is happening is the intensified rape of our natural resources, disintegration of culture, and the violation of human rights-all the evils that the IPRA law supposed to protect the ICC's.

After surviving challenges to its constitutionality in the past, the IPRA law, like a tribal warrior from the olden days, at the time he is called upon to protect his people from spears and arrows raining down on them, suddenly realizes that he has lost his shield.

(This article was published by Nexus – Official Publication of MSU-College of Law Iligan Extension in 2007 issue)