THE TAGBANUA are not alone in rediscovering long-suppressed tribal practices. Among the Kankanaey of the Cordillera, the tongtong is a dialogue held to resolve disputes, with the guilty party ending up paying a penalty. Seven cases have been resolved using this system in the Benguet town of Bakun since 1998, when the Kankanaey received their ancestral domain claim certificate.

The Tagakaolo in Sarangani province call their indigenous justice system kasfala, which usually requires a peace offering from the offender. In Kitaotao, Bukidnon, the Matigsalog are using their customary law called gantangan owey palavian to resolve conflicts.

The revival of indigenous knowledge systems and practices has extended to farming, the environment, spirituality, healing methods, and community institutions. In Bakun, for example, community members have taken renewed interest in developing their muyong or clan-owned tree farms. In Kitaotao, which is almost entirely covered by the CADC of the Matigsalog and Manobo tribes, the healing ritual known as panubad accounts for nearly 10 percent of preventive remedies despite the town's proximity to Davao City.

Meanwhile, in Malungon town, community structures such as the traditional system for bartering goods and possessions, called balaw in Tagakaolo and saslang among the B'laan, are regaining wider usage after the tribes' CADC was awarded in 1997.

Outsiders may think the return to such practices and structures are steps backward, but the indigenous peoples know better, and are growing more confident of their rights and abilities. t has helped that before President Fidel Ramos left office in June 1998, the DENR had already issued 181 CADCs covering more than 2.5 million hectares of land and waters in the Philippines. The biggest chunk went to the indigenous communities in the Cordillera region that got back more than half a million hectares of what were once classified as public or government land. But the Tagbanua of Coron island - one of the most popular tourist destinations in Palawan - hold the distinction of getting the first ancestral waters claim ever granted.

When the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the hotly contested Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) last December, the Tagbanua Foundation of Coron Island Inc. also became one of the first recipients of a CADT. The instrument covers 22,284 hectares that include the entire island and a portion of the seas surrounding it. It completes the Tagbanua's legal claim to their territory, and gives the tribe practically the same rights as those enjoyed by private-property owners.

The hopes of the indigenous peoples were boosted on July 23 when President Arroyo, during her State of the Nation Address, promised to award 100 ancestral titles in one year.

In the 1997 IPRA, a native title "refers to pre-Conquest rights to lands and domains which, as far back as memory reaches, have been held under a claim of private ownership by [indigenous peoples], have never been public lands, and are thus indisputably presumed to have been held that way since before the Spanish Conquest."

The law has been hailed for bridging the centuries-old gap between oral tradition and written history, as well as customary land claims and the concept of private property introduced by Spanish and U.S. colonizers to the Philippines. Center for Living Heritage secretary general Elena Damaso, for one, says IPRA is "an attempt to restore the legal status of the archipelago's 'first peoples' to their ancestral homelands, thus, to right 500 years of historical error."

Based on 1997 statistics, the book Guide to IPRA says there are some 12 million indigenous peoples belonging to 110 ethnic groups in the country. Explaining the exclusion of many ethno-linguistic groups from the definition of indigenous peoples, the book's authors, who have worked on tribal rights for years, say: "While all Filipinos are indigenous to the Philippines, current and sharp differentiation occurred from their different responses to western colonization." Hence, the Filipino majority who adopted the laws and practices of colonizers are seen as separate from those who asserted the integrity of their ancestral territories, pre-Hispanic native culture, and justice systems.

LOCAL governments, however, are just now waking up to the reality of empowered indigenous peoples in their midst, and profess surprise whenever tribes like the Tagbanua come up with what some local officials consider as preposterous proposals. One of the Tagbanua's emerging critics, for instance, is no less than Palawan Governor Joel Reyes, who has been dismayed to learn that the tribe now wants to collect a P375-entrance fee to Kayangan Lake, a major tourist destination on Coron island, as well as issue "visas" to visitors.

Coron is Reyes's hometown, and he recalls visiting the lake as a young boy. "I will never agree to that," he says of the proposed fee and visa, adding that affected local governments would submit a joint complaint on the matter to Manila.

In truth, while there have been examples of harmonious relationships between local governments and indigenous peoples elsewhere in the Philippines, many tribes, particularly those here in Palawan, seem to have a tough time dealing with local officials and sometimes even with national government agencies. Much of the conflicts stem from lack of communication among contending parties and weak information dissemination in the government. A case in point is Coron island, where the Tagbanua have been managing their CADC for the last three years. Yet tour operators there were given an orientation about the four-year-old IPRA and its implications only on August 7.

Part of the problem is that under the Estrada administration, the IPRA was rendered useless due to lack of government support and the filing of a case in the Supreme Court questioning its constitutionality. Budget for the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), which is charged with converting the 181 CADCs issued during the Ramos administration into titles, was withheld. As a result, there was no movement in the CADC applications. It was only after the high court's decision last December in favor of IPRA and the newly created Office of the Presidential Assistant for Indigenous Peoples, headed by the highly regarded Howard Dee, under the Arroyo administration, that the law gained second wind.

That, however, will not make the law easier to swallow for local officials in places like Palawan, where what are at stake are considerable in value. Before Ramos's term ended, the environment department had granted six CADCs covering 56,519 hectares all over this province. But some local governments protested, such as that of Puerto Princesa City, where then Mayor Edward Hagedorn rejected the awarding of ancestral territory to the Tagbanua in upland Irawan, citing its importance as watershed area.

Still, such setbacks have not deterred other tribes from filing claims. More than 50 CADC applications are pending with the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Offices. These threaten to carve up Palawan's public land, which makes up a large part of the province's 1.5 million-hectare land area.

Aside from territory, local governments stand to lose substantial revenues as ancestral domains are exempted from real property taxes and special levies. Coron municipal assessor Genario Labrador says more than half the town's 68,910-hectare land area are covered by tax declarations, meaning there are claimants who pay taxes for them after getting DENR certification that these are classified as forest land. One example is Dimakya island, where the upscale resort Club Paradise is located, says Labrador.

In contrast, since they got their CADC, the Tagbanua have stopped paying taxes for their land and even for the birds' nests they gather from limestone cliffs. A kilo of first class birds' nest costs P150,000 these days; the Tagbanua used to pay P10 a year for each cave.

While the Tagbanua reap greater benefits from higher earnings, an upset Labrador thinks the CADC is a threat to the municipality. He grumbles, "If more ancestral domain titles are granted, nothing will be left for us and my office will become useless."

Supporters of indigenous peoples believe another reason why many resent the granting of native titles is the power it gives to the tribes. Says Bernardino: "They are furious that with all their influence, they were not able to acquire large tracts of land while indigenous peoples who are seen as powerless were able to get titles. It's just greed, plain and simple."

But the question most NGOs avoid answering is whether indigenous peoples are strong enough to manage their vast ancestral domains by themselves. From the start, many communities have relied on outside help to facilitate their claims.

Among the ancestral domains visited for this story, the more successful ones are those that received assistance to implement their management plan such as Bakun, Kitaotao, and Malungon. Tribal leaders also observe that it has been easier to maintain harmony in places with a largely homogenous population like Bakun, where there are few non-Kankanaey, rather than places with a large number of migrants like Kitaotao.

In addition, reconciling the interests of local governments and the private sector with that of indigenous peoples obviously make things easier for tribes to manage their territory and maintain order. In Bakun, the local government even had a hand in getting the entire town declared as ancestral domain. Some officials serve in the community organization that implements the management plan. In 1999, the local government also adopted the ancestral-domain management plan of Bakun as part of the municipal development plan.

Down south, local governments recognized the ancestral-domain rights of the Tagakaolo and B'laan in Malungon town. In Sarangani, the provincial government ordered barangays to provide a kasfala or tribal justice hall if they have indigenous communities. All government projects in the ancestral domain, such as the donation of land for a school and the operation of a palm oil plantation, get clearance from the Malungon Tribal Congress.