The Right to Cultural Integrity was not sufficiently covered during the national inquiry producing no substantive findings. It is an area where continuing process of the human rights inquiries should focus on. I. Background The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) of 2007 has attained universality with the four (4) states who previously voted against its adoption reversing their positions in 2014 at the World Conference in Indigenous Peoples. The UN then adopted a System-Wide Action Plan for the IPs in 2016 and the 2030 Development Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals setting targets and indicators relevant for the IPs. More recently, an IP Policy was approved for accessing the Green Climate Fund. 2 In the Philippines, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) or Republic Act No. 8371 was enacted in 1997, ante-dating the UNDRIP by ten years. It was a product of a collaboration between IPs and civil society organizations when the IPs were threatened by the development thrust of the Arroyo presidency of attracting large-scale foreign investments into open pit mining. The IPRA immediately underwent constitutional challenge before the Philippine Supreme Court and was upheld thereby enriching jurisprudence and legally entrenching native title and the collective rights of IP of the Philippines. 3 It is the policy gaps in IPRA and its implementation by myriad government agencies that bears closer examination after twenty (20) years of effectivity. It bears asking, has the State duty bearers gone any further than issuance of a limited number of certificates of title in the promotion of IP rights? Among the recent hopeful developments in the Philippine IP Situation are: a) The National Land Use Bill has been approved by the lower house of Congress and is now pending before the Senate. The said bill makes mandatory the adoption by all local government units in whose jurisdiction lies Ancestral Domain/s, the ADSDPPs into their Comprehensive Land Use Plans (CLUPs). 4 This effectively enacts a partnership between the LGUs and the IPs in the development of Ancestral Domain; b) President Duterte’s creation of an IP Peace Panel (IPPP) through the Office of the Presidential Adviser for the Peace Process (OPAPP) which has coordinated dialogues between the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) and MIPLA and has drafted an enhanced BBL which proposes the creation of an Independent Mindanao IP Commission. The enhanced BBL has been submitted to Congress and anticipated passage is in May 2018 5; and c) The DENR has banned open pit mining as well as continued the total log ban imposed by the previous administration. 2 UN Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz’s Report to the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, 12 October 2017 3 Cruz vs. Secretary, G.R. No. 135385, December 6, 2000 4 National Land Use Act, a policy brief published by the International Land Coalition, 2017 5 Resolution No. 001 September 1, 2017 of the MIPLA Page | 4