Though evolving from a hunter-gatherer economy to a production economy, the notion of property remains linked to the level of the family. They are still at the mercy of unscrupulous Christian Filipinos. This applies also for fallow. Land can be exchanged, inherited, given as dowry or sold to members of the family or clan. Habitat is sedentary and acquisition of land is a matter of occupying and cultivating a patch of forest.
Property rights belong to the first person who clears and cultivates the land.
This is in contradiction with customary law which states that the land belongs to the ancestral land and is governed by the group's headman. Thus migrants may legally buy land that lies within ancestral land. But the law can also backfire on the migrants who, thinking they have bought the land, have actually only acquired a long lease.