The Supreme Court (SC) yesterday dismissed a petition questioning the constitutionality of the law allowing indigenous cultural communities to legally claim state-owned lands.

Voting 7-7, the High Tribunal failed to decide whether Republic Act 8371 or the Indigenous People's Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA) should for having violated the provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

The justices did not specifically uphold the law either.

The "decision without a decision" as a court justice described the historic ruling, is the first such stalemate in the court of last resort in a long time.

As the votes were equally divided even after a post-voting deliberation, the Rules on Civil Procedure was invoked to automatically dismiss the original petition.

The court also hid the identity of the decision writer, a procedure last done during the Marcos administration.

With the deadlock, and the lack of a firm ruling on the matter, a court source said "nothing prevents the parties prejudiced by the ruling from refiling the case."

In September 1998, retired SC justice Isagani Cruz asked his former colleagues to strike down the IPRA as unconstitutional.

Cruz, with writer Cesar Europa, sought the annulment of parts of RA 8371, which permits minorities to indiscriminately own lands of the public domain, minerals and other natural resources within their ancestral domains.

As owners, they can allow mining and other resource explorers to enter their property with just compensation.

"The provisions directly disregard the constitutional mandate that all these are owned by the state … (and) the exploration, development and utilization of natural resources shall be under its full control and supervision," they said.

The IPRA, signed into law in October 1997, seeks to recognize, protect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples and cultural communities, pursuant to the Constitution.

The law defined the scope of ancestral domain, as applicable to all indigenous groups in the country. Under the IPRA, all ancestral lands, forests, inland waters, coastal areas, and natural resources therein comprise the ancestral domain. The law even included the land for "traditional access" used by the groups for their "subsistence and traditional activities."

Likewise, lands falling within the domain, although owned by the government and private individuals, are included.

A constitutionalist, Cruz said the grant of land under the IPRA is "without limitation as to size or conditions, thus, is a blanket alienation" that clearly violates the charter.

In answer, representatives of 112 affected ethnic groups averred the disputed law does not remove government's full control over the use of natural resources.

The indigenous peoples said the right granted to develop lands and natural resources under the IPRA is consistent with the duty "to uphold it for future generations and to ensure ecological and conservation ends, not commercial gains."

Government lawyers, representing the Environment and Natural Resources and Budget departments and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, took an unorthodox stance by insisting RA 8371 violates the regalian doctrine.

The regalian doctrine provides that all natural resources belong to the State and any person claiming ownership of a portion of the public domain must be able to show a valid title.

Solicitor General Ricardo Galvez said the legislature was too generous with the indigenous peoples when the law unnecessarily expanded the meaning of ancestral domain, to include property other than land.

He said the government cannot easily give up millions and millions of hectares of land and vast water and mineral resources to indigenous cultural communities.

The divided Supreme Court took into consideration all the arguments and in the end, the deliberation dragged on for two years. Six justices wanted to declare the IPRA constitutional. Justice Vicente Mendoza did not take up the issue of consitutionality in his separate opinion, but nonetheless voted to uphold the law as Messrs. Cruz and Europa have no legal standing to question the validity of the law.