Isagani Cruz vs Secretary of the DENR GR No.

135385 December 6, 2000

FACTS: Petitioner Isagani Cruz brought this suit for prohibition and Mandamus as Citizens and Taxpayer, assailing the constitutionality of certain provision of R.A. No. 8371, known as the Indigenous People Rights Act of 1997and its implementing rules and regulation.

ISSUE: Whether or not R.A. no. 8731 benefits the indigenous people?

HELD: The indigenous people rights act, grants the indigenous cultural communities or indigenous people the ownership and possession of their ancestral domain and ancestral land, and defines the extent of these lands, their domains, and the ownership given under customary law which traces it origin from its native title.