A law was enacted in 1997 by the Philippine legislature that recognizes, protects and promotes the rights of Indigenous Peoples. This law is otherwise known as the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) or Republic Act 8371.
Under the IPRA, Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples refers to a group of people or homogenous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by others, who have continuously lived as an organized community on communally bounded and defined territory, and who have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial, occupied, possessed customs, tradition and other distinctive cultural traits, or who have, through resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and culture, became historically differentiated from the majority of Filipinos. ICCs/IPs likewise include peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, at the time of conquest or colonization, or at the time of inroads of non-indigenous religions and cultures, or the establishment of present state boundaries, who retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, but who may have been displaced from their traditional domains or who may have resettled outside their ancestral domains.
The rights of the IPs as defined in the relevant provisions of the IPRA law would serve as the framework in this manual for examining the potential adverse impacts of proposed PPP projects on their culture and overall quality of life.