The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that customary laws of an Indigenous Cultural Community cannot be imposed on a non-member in resolving a dispute, affirming that such cases fall under the jurisdiction of regular courts.
In a decision penned by Associate Justice Henri Jean Paul B. Inting, the SC Third Division dismissed a petition seeking to stop the enforcement of a final judgment ordering a couple to vacate a disputed property in Cebu.
“Subjecting a non-member to the customary laws of an ICC/IP violates the fundamental principles of fair play and due process,” the Court said.
FACTS AND ISSUE
The case stemmed from an unlawful detainer complaint filed in 2014 by Kristoffer R. Co Uy against spouses Elvin Sending and Jocelyn Sending before the 7th Municipal Circuit Trial Court (MCTC) of Liloan-Compostela, Cebu.
Co Uy claimed that he was the registered owner of a property spanning portions of Liloan and Consolacion which the spouses occupied merely through tolerance but refused to vacate despite a demand. The spouses countered that they occupied a different property in Pitogo, Consolacion, which they claimed to have possessed as owners for more than 14 years.
In 2016, the MCTC ruled in favor of Co Uy and ordered the spouses to vacate. The ruling was upheld, with modifications, by the Regional Trial Court and the Court of Appeals (CA), whose decision became final and executory in 2021.
During execution proceedings, the spouses claimed for the first time that they were members of an indigenous cultural community. Citing the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997 (IPRA), they argued that customary laws should govern the dispute and sought to stop enforcement of the judgment.
The MCTC ruled that their jurisdictional challenge could no longer be entertained because the CA decision had become final and immutable. The spouses then filed a petition for mandamus directly with the Supreme Court, seeking to compel the MCTC judge to resolve their jurisdictional motion and set aside the ejectment ruling.
RULING
The SC dismissed the petition, ruling that mandamus was the wrong remedy.
The SC said the spouses went directly to the high court without showing exceptional circumstances to justify bypassing the lower courts. Moreover, the MCTC had already acted on their jurisdictional motion. Mandamus could neither compel an action already taken nor dictate how the judge should rule.
On the jurisdictional question, the Court said Sections 65 and 66 of the IPRA, including the requirement to first exhaust remedies under customary laws, must be read together. Citing Unduran v. Aberasturi, it reiterated that the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) has jurisdiction over claims and disputes involving ICC/IP rights when the parties belong to the same ICC/IP. If they belong to different communities or one party is a non-member, jurisdiction rests with the regular courts.
The spouses claimed membership in an indigenous cultural community, but the records did not show that Co Uy belonged to the same community. The SC held that imposing an ICC/IP’s customary laws on a non-member would violate fair play and due process, even assuming that the disputed property was ancestral land—a fact that had not been conclusively established.
The Court also noted that the spouses invoked their purported indigenous status only during execution proceedings and failed to substantiate their claimed ICC/IP membership. It cited a 2019 NCIP advisory stating that the Lumad KKK-Alimaong Higaonon Tribe was not among the indigenous cultural communities duly validated and recognized by the commission, making their claimed membership “doubtful at best.”
Even if the petition were treated as one for certiorari, the SC said it would still fail because the spouses had not established NCIP jurisdiction or valid grounds to overturn the final judgment.
The SC affirmed the MCTC resolution and ordered the spouses to vacate the property and remove all improvements within 30 days from receipt of the decision.
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