Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City

FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
Third Regular Session

House Bill No, 5663

Introduced by Honorable Rex Gatchalian

EXPLANATORY NOTE

Our indigenous peoples have suffered historical injustices in the form of
discrimination, deprivation of their ancestral domains and lands, among
many other human rights violations. To put salt in their many wounds,
there have been reported incidences wherein their indigenous knowledge,
dances, designs are being stolen by local and foreign entities, further
marginalizing our indigenous communities and depriving them of their
cultural property, their identity which has been passed on from their
ancestors.

The law protecting indigenous peoples’ rights, namely the Indigenous
Peoples Rights’ Act (RA 8371) does not provide for specific provisions for the
protection of their cultural properties, both intangible and tangible.
Furthermore, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines does not
have the legal mandate nor the expertise or capability to undertake such
protection of our indigenous cultural treasures. It is with the passage of this
bill that this void is sought to be filled.

With the help of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, National
Museum, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and local
government units, this bill shall create a comprehensive cultural archive
which shall organize and make an inventory of all cultural properties of the
different ethno-linguistic groups of the Philippines. This inventory of
cultural properties shall then be submitted to the Commission thru the
National Museum who shall ensure the registration of ownership to the
proper ethno-linguistic group for protection of their intellectual property.
This bill also mandates the payment of royalties for the use of the cultural
property of indigenous groups.

In view of the foregoing considerations, approval
sought.



Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City

FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
‘Third Regular Session

House Bill No. 6668

Introduced by Honorable Rex Gatchalian

AN ACT
SAFEGUARDING THE TRADITIONAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Be it enacted in the Senate and House of Representatives of the
Philippines in the Congress assembled:

SECTION 1. Short Title - This Act shall be known as the “Traditional
Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.”

SECTION 2. Declaration of Principles and Policies ~ It is declared the
policy of the state to protect the traditional cultural heritage of the
indigenous peoples of the Philippines; and safeguard the intrinsic values,
whether tangible or intangible; and to support traditional artists and
artisans in their contributions to their respective ethnic cultures and
national heritage by ensuring that their rights are safeguarded.

SECTION 3. Definition of Terms - For purposes of this Act, the following
terms shall be defined as follows:

a. “Commission” shall refer to the National Commission for Culture and the
Arts (NCCA);

b. ‘Cultural agencies” shall refer to the following national government
agencies with their specific areas of responsibility: National Museum
(cultural property); the National Library (books); National Historical
Institute (Philippine history); National Archives (documents); Cultural
Center of the Philippines (culture and the arts); and Komisyon sa Wikang
Filipino (language).


c. “Cultural heritage” shall refer to the totality of cultural property preserved
and developed through time and passed on to posterity.

d. ‘Cultural property” shall refer to all products of human creativity by
which a people and a nation reveal their identity, including churches,
mosques and other places of religious worship, schools and natural
history specimens and sites, whether public or privately-owned, movable
or immovable, and tangible or intangible.

e. “Intangible cultural heritage” shall refer to the practices, representations,
expressions, knowledge, skills as well as the instruments, objects and
artifacts associated therewith, that communities, groups and individuals
recognize as part of their cultural heritage, such as: (1) oral traditions,
languages and expressions; (2) performing arts; (3) social practices,
rituals and festive events; (4) knowledge and practices concerning nature
and the universe; and (5) traditional craftsmanship;

f, “Intangible cultural property” shall refer to the people’s learned processes
along with the knowledge, skills and creativity that inform and are
developed by them, the products they create and the resources, spaces
and other aspects of social and natural context necessary for their
sustainability.

g. “Registry” shall refer to the Philippine Registry of Cultural Property which
is the registry of all cultural property of the country deemed of significant
importance to our cultural heritage as defined in RA 10066;

h. “Tangible cultural property” shall refer to a cultural property with
historical, archival, anthropological, archeological, artistic and
architectural value, and with exceptional or traditional production,
whether of Philippine origin or not, including antiques and natural
history specimens with significant value.

i. “Tradition” shall refer to the beliefs, customs, practices, industries,
expressions, whether tangible or intangible, maintained and shared
differentially by society, and handed down from generation to generation.
Tradition in this respect is a continuum that change and may arise in
time shall not therefore be subject to time limitation.

j. Community” refers to the congregation of people with social cohesion and
identity organized around common values interacting with intimacy and
reciprocity in a shared circumscribed location in units larger than a



houschold; and has more similarities in the types and forms of their
material goods.

k. “Indigenous peoples” are people, communities and nations who claim a
historical continuity and cultural affinity with societies endemic to their
original territories. They have historically formed and still currently form
the minority/non-dominant sectors within majority-culture societies and
are intentioned towards preserving, reviving, and enhancing the efficacy,
cohesion, and uniqueness of their traditional social values and
customary ties along with a conscientious effort to transmit this
knowledge to future generations.

1. “Derivative work” is one that is primarily a new work but incorporated
some previously published material. This previously published material
makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be
copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the
original to be regarded as a “new work” or must contain a substantial
amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little
substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new
version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and
copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases and format for example, are
not copyrightable.

“Communal ownership” refers to common ownership within a
community.

n, “Royalty” refers to the payment to the holder of a patent or copyright or
resource for the right to use their property.

0. “Craft” describes the family of artistic practices within the decorative arts,
traditionally, is defined by their relationship to functional or utilitarian
products (such as sculptural forms in the vessel tradition) or by their use
of such natural media as wood , clay, glass, textiles and metal.

p. “Social process” refers to the means by which culture and social
organization change or are preserved due to process or practice.

q. “Oral expression” refers to the expression uttered by the mouth; spoken;
oral testimony or transmitted by speech.

r. “Rites” refer to formal or ceremonial acts or procedures prescribed or
customary in religious or other solemn use, or a particular form of
system of religious or other ceremony.

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“Rituals” refer to an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or
other rite, a system or collection of religious or other rites; observance of
set forms in public worship; a prescribed or established rite, ceremony,
proceeding or service: the ritual of the dead; prescribed, established or
ceremonial acts or features collectively, as in religious services; any
practice or pattern of behavior regulating social conduct.

t. “Performance” refers to the acting out of a ceremony, play, piece of music,
etc., the execution or accomplishment of work acts, feats, etc., a
particular action, deed or proceeding the manner in which or the
efficiency with which something reacts or fulfills its intended purpose,
and not necessarily as part of social process.

u. “Ownership” refers to the legal right of possession or proprietorship; the
state, relation, or fact of being an owner; also, the rights or interests of
‘an owner, ownership especially by a single person that is free of any
encumbrances or limitations other than statutory.

v. “Culture” - The UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies (Mexico,
1982) defines culture, in its widest sense, as the whole complex of
distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional features that
characterize a society or a social group. This includes not only the arts
and letters but also modes of life, value systems, traditions and beliefs.
Culture, however, can also be looked at as an aggregate and internally
inconsistent body of knowledge and meanings, unevenly distributed
among individuals of a community, and acquired by these individuals
through their experiences and transactions in everyday life.

SECTION 4. The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCAA)
hereinafter referred to as the Commission, shall implement the provisions of
the Act.

SECTION 5. Traditional cultural property, whether tangible or intangible, of
all the ethno-linguistic groups that make up the people of the Philippines
shall not lapse into public domain after 50 years from creation, and shall
continue indefinitely to be exclusive property of these ethno-linguistic
groups that communally own them. Traditional heritage, both tangible and
intangible are to be held in perpetuity in ethnic memory and considered
valid as ethnic intellectual property.

SECTION 6. Under the guidance of the Commission and National Museum
(NM), or any other pertinent national cultural agency, the Local Government

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Units (LGU) with the assistance of the National Commission for Indigenous
Peoples (NCIP) shall organize inventories of cultural properties of the
different ethno-linguistic groups of the Philippines that are distinctive,
characteristic of or derived from their particular traditional culture, to the
exclusion of those of others and shall; submit these to the Commission thru
the National Museum to establish communal ownership, and to be
registered under the group’s name for protection within existing copyright
law.

Further that these registries of the tangible and intangible cultural
properties thus accomplished shall be incorporated in the Philippines
Registry of Cultural Property (PRECUP) as established by Republic Act
10066 and administered to by the Commission.

SECTION 7. While recognizing that traditions change through time, the
rights of the ethno-linguistic groups to their intellectual property changing
in continuum shall retain original rights to these properties.

SECTION 8. The infusion of personal or individual variations on a
traditional object would result in a derivative work or craft which is one that
is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published
material. A derivative work must be different enough from the original to be
regarded as a “new work” or must contain a substantial amount of new
material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a pre-
existing work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright
purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself.

SECTION 9. However, the rights of an ethno-linguistic group to a traditional
item will lapse into public domain in 50 years, if after such period, it is no
longer in production or used in cultural context within the society.

SECTION 10. Pursuant to the above, the Commission will create an office
within its structure to coordinate all efforts of government and private
agencies that have forms of tangible and intangible cultural heritage in
making the above-mentioned registry; and to undertake the safeguarding of
national cultural heritage stipulated therein that are viable.

SECTION 11. Reorganization - With the approval of the Board, the
Commission shall have the authority to reorganize its structure and staffing
pattern in order to carry out its functions. The incumbents in the leadership
structure of the existing Commission shall automatically be upgraded to
these analogous positions, with respect to the rest of the personnel.


SECTION 12. Deposit and Notice. - Moral rights would vest upon creation;
hence, authorship would have to be established to avail of moral rights such
as right of attribution. Moral rights to ownership of newly created items by
members of an ethno-linguistic group should be registered with the
commission for protection under copyright law. Copyright vests from the
moment of creation; and registration is one of the ways to prove authorship,
although this is not exclusive.

a. The Commission thru the relevant government cultural agency,
shall assist in identifying works and attributing authorship, and
further shall be responsible for maintaining and populating this
registry;

b. The Commission shall assist claimants and relevant government
agencies in resolving conflicts of ownership and attribution who will
give permission to people who wish to use the work upon discovery of
the same in the database;

c. The Commission shall assist relevant government agencies in the
prosecution of unauthorized use of intellectual property of indigenous
peoples.

SECTION 13. Free, Prior and Informed Consent. - Free, prior and
informed consent for the use of indigenous peoples’ intellectual property
should be articulated by a defined authority that is provided with a
circumscribed jurisdiction, associated with the culture of an ethno-linguistic
group. The corresponding elected official, as the case may be, assisted by
cultural experts, shall dispense the required free, prior and informed
consent for the item(s) in question for the concerned intellectual property
owners.

SECTION 14. Indigenous communal copyright (intellectual property) owners
may designate a society with legal personality to act in their behalf to
enforce their economic and moral rights;

SECTION 15. Royalties. - Indigenous communal copyright (intellectual
property) owners shall be compensated for the use of their work. The
amount, process of collecting and distributing this royalty and other
pertinent details will be determined by the Commission.

SECTION 16. Appropriations. — For the initial implementation of this Act,
the amount of fifty million pesos (Php 50,000,000) is hereby appropriated
and shall be sourced from the President’s Contingent Fund.

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SECTION 17. Implementing Rules and Regulations. - The Commission,
in consultation with other relevant government cultural agencies mentioned
in this Act, shall promulgate the implementing rules and regulations within
ninety (90) days after the effectivity of this Act.

SECTION 18. Penalties - In addition to the penalties under existing laws,
any person found guilty of violating any provision of this Act shall be
imprisoned for a term not exceeding ten (10) years or a fine not exceeding
one hundred thousand pesos (P100,000.00) or both such imprisonment and
fine at the discretion of the court.

SECTION 19. Repealing Clause - The provisions of Philippine copyright law
and other related laws to the extent that they are inconsistent with this Act,
are hereby repealed or amended accordingly.

SECTION 20. Separability Clause - If, for any reason, any part or provision
of this Act is declared invalid or unconstitutional, the parts or provisions not
affected thereby shall remain in full force and effect.

SECTION 21. Effectivity Clause - This Act shall take effect fifteen (15)
days following its publication in the Official Gazette or in two (2) newspapers

of general circulation, whichever comes first.

Approved,