Beyond Conflicting Resource Tenure and Property Rights: State Policy and Continuing Issues on the Land and Moro Autonomy Question in the Southern Philippines

Abstract

"Examples of dramatic reductions of indigenous peoples ancestral domains and access to land and resources continue to be portrayed in post-colonial narratives on property rights in the Philippine countryside. Among the Southern Philippines Moro and Lumad peoples, land is both sacred, cultural space and exploitable resource handed down by the communitys forebears. Pre-existing notions of resource use, landholding, and production, based on indigenous knowledge and community access rules, have been substantially undercut by the intrusion of capitalist property concepts by the colonial governments efforts to institute land laws and other statecentric policies reproduced in the post-independence regimes. This paper also revisits and unpack once more the Mindanao indigenous peoples pre-existing resource tenure practices and governance, to understand the questions related to the Bangsamoro historical claim to ancestral domain and ongoing quest for special autonomy status as important to an improved commons management and protection agenda."