ALTERNATIVES TO ANCESTRAL DOMAIN TITLES

ALTERNATIVES TO ANCESTRAL DOMAIN TITLES There appears to be many indigenous tribes that do not have their own Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) yet, for one reason or another. One reason is that the tribe members could not claim their rights to own the existing places where they are now residing, again for one reason or another. One reason is that they may not have the right connections, or they may not have the resources to pursue their claims. Some of the reasons for not having approved CADTs could be political, some could be financial. The political reason could be that the claims of the tribal members could be defeated or overpowered because of the intervention of business interests, some of whom may not even live in the vicinity of the territories in question. The financial reason could be because some local and national government officials could be bribed to rule against the Indigenous Peoples (IPs). As an alternative to the CADTs that may even be beyond the reach of some IPs, it is about time that we pursue some other alternative options, such as buying back tribal lands that have been titled by private owners, or applying for some other tenurial arrangements, similar to homesteads and concession areas. The idea of buying back tribal lands might sound like a preposterous idea, but has actually been done by some tribes in some countries, using donated funds, or using their own monies that are derived from their private businesses. It may also sound too ambitious, but Local Government Units (LGUs) actually have the legal basis and the financial means to buy private lands to be given away to the IPs, not necessarily their original ancestral domains, but good enough for them to cultivate and build their communities, where they could also preserve their own language and culture, according to their original way of life. No matter how preposterous and ambitious these ideas might sound, let us just remember that these IPs arrived in this country ahead of most of us, even if they did not stake their own proprietary in the lands that they occupied. In other words, to make a long story short, we owe it to them to "pay back" what we have taken from them, even if what we "give back" will never be equal to what we took away from them. IKE SENERES/07-19-2024