THE CARIO DOCTRINE: WHAT NOW?

Confusion in the Courts: The

Misinterpretation of Cario

By Dante B. Gatmaytan

Introduction

Repeated efforts have been made to point out that the Philippine legal system has long
recognized that indigenous peoples ownership rights over their ancestral domains.
Cario V. Insular Government, the United States Supreme Court, exercising appellate
jurisdiction over the Philippine courts, is a case in point. It stated that lands held since
time immemorial are private lands protected by the Bill of Rights.

This case has generated considerable discussion, but it has also been pointed out that
Cario and its subsequent interpretation by courts in the Philippines and United States. It
will show that the Cario decision haws been continuously misinterpreted in both
jurisdictions.

Cario is significant because the judicial recognition of indigenous peoples ownership of

their ancestral domains is uncommon. Ironically, the United States Supreme Court that
decided Cario has been less than willing to recognize similar rights for the indigenous
peoples of North America. Simply put, that Court has held that neither the discovery of
the New World under international law, nor the resulting English colonial policy, requires
the recognition of Indian title. The United States as a legatee of this policy was,
therefore, not bound to recognize any rights belonging to indigenous peoples. The
judicial doctrines in the United States have been explained as a result of racist attitudes
that prevailed during the settlement of the United States. Many accounts of the
settlement were crafted as the triumph of a people over the challenges of nature.

However, it was mostly a violent, imperialistic process by which the West was wrested
from its original owners. Scholars have traced this attitude to the medieval era when
the crusading theory of practice of the Church produced a highly refined legal tradition
denying non-Christian peoples the rights of self-rule and jurisdictional authority over the
lands they occupied and the property they possessed. This cultural racism was applied
with the same force against any race of peoples, whose religion, civilization, or form of
culture, differed from Christian European norms. This legacy was brought to the New
World by the colonizers and used to support a set of legal privileges that discriminated
against indigenous peoples and denied them rights of self-rule because of their deviation
from European standards.

The westward expansion of the United States did not stop with the adjacent states. By
the end of the nineteenth century, the United States has established itself not only as a
sovereign nation worthy of inclusion into the international community, but had also
asserted itself as a world power. There was agitation for greater glory beyond the
territorial borders of the country, which echoed the same rhetoric used to justify the
conquest to the Native Americans. There were calls for continued westward progress of
the Caucasian race, carrying civilization and blessing in its march.

The stimulus in the United States was to push for the adoption of the expansionists
platform. The Cuban insurrection against Spain had become a central theme in the
debates about whether the

United States should engage in overseas expansion. Inflammatory reports of Spanish

atrocities generated popular sympathy for insurgents, until a policy of non-intervention
was disregarded, and war with Spain was viewed as the sole remedy to the Cuban
situation. To the delight of the expansionists, the United Stated went to war against
Spain. Senator Albert J. Beveridge further spurred his United Stated went to war against
Spain.

Senator Albert J. Beveridge further spurred his fellow Americans by reminding them that
we are conquering race, and that we must obey our blood and occupy new markers and
new lands. He pointed to the Philippines to the United States and delivered rounded by
indigenous people who were never subdued by the Spanish empire.

The indications were that United States law will be used to settle land disputes between
non-

Christian indigenous peoples and the United States President McKinleys Instructions to
the second Philippine Commission headed by William Howard Taft stated that:

In dealing with the uncivilized tribes of the Islands, the Commission should adopt the
same course followed by Congress in allowing the tribes of our North American Indians to
maintain their tribal organization and government, and under which many of these tribes
are now living in peace and contentment, surrounded by a civilization to which they are
unable or willing to confirm. Such tribal governments should, however, be subjected to
wise and firm regulation; and without due and pretty interference constant and active
effort should be exercised without due and petty interference constant and active effort
should be exercised to prevent barbarous practices and introduce civilized customs.

The instructions were not surprising considering that the United States incursion into the
Philippines coincided with the use of reservations and the allotment of lands to control
Indians. But when the issue of ownership of ancestral domains in the Philippines was
raised to the United States Supreme Court, the issue was decided differently. In the next
portion of their paper, we will outline the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court inCario.

The facts of Cario v. Insular Government were brief:

The applicant and plaintiff in error is an Igorot of the Province of Benguet, where the land
lies. For more than fifty years before the Treaty of Paris, April 11, 1989 (30 Stat. At L.,
1754), as far back as the findings go, the plaintiff and his ancestors had held the land as
owners. His grandfather had lived upon it, and had maintained fences efficient for the
holding of cattle, according to the custom of the country, with some of the fences, it
seems, having been of much earlier date. His father had cultivated parts and had used
parts for pasturing cattle, and he had used it as a pasture in his turn. They all had been
recognized as owners by the Igorots, and he had inherited or received the land from his
father, in accordance with Igorot custom. No document of title, however, had issued from
the Spanish Crown, and although, in 1893-1894, and again in 1869-1879, he applied for
one under the royal decrees then in force, nothing seems to have come of it, unless
perhaps, information that lands in Benguet could not be conceded until those to be
occupied for sanitarium, etc., had been designated-a purpose carried out by the
Philippine government and the United States. In 1901 the plaintiff filed a petition,
alleging ownership, under the mortgage law, and the lands were registered to him, that
process, establishing only a possessory title, it said.

The issue according to Justice Holmes was whether the claimant, an Igorot, owned the
land. The United States government contented that Spain had title to all the lands in the
Philippines, except so far as it saw fit to permit private titles to be acquired. It
maintained that no prescription can be claimed against Spanish empire and even if that
was possible, a decree in 1880 had set a deadline for the registration of these titles. No
title would be recognized as valid beyond that date. Since the land in question was not
registered, the government contended that it had become public (if it was already
public). When the United States succeeded to the title of Spain, Cario had no right
which it was bound to respect. The Court disagreed with the United States in a decision
that has remained as obscure as it is significant.

The Court admitted that Spain had embraced the universal feudal theory that all lands
were held by the Crown. However, Justice Holmes, who spoke for the Court, said that in
practice sovereignty may vary in degree. How far a new sovereign shall insist upon the
theoretical relation of the subjects to the head in the past, and how far it shall recognize
actual facts, are matters for it to decide.

The Igorots were never brought under the control of the Spaniards. The Court quipped
that it would be almost certain that Spain would not have granted registration of the
property that would not have made title valid. Regardless of Spains position about
technical subtleties, this did not mean that under the dominion of the United States,
Cario had lost all his rights. He was not a mere trespasser when the government
succeeded as the new sovereign. A contrary position, would amount to denial of native
titles throughout an important part of the Island of Luzon, at least for the want of
ceremonies which the Spaniards would not have permitted and had not the power to
enforce.

The Court explained that the cases involving the land claims of Native Americans were
inapplicable in this situation because the acquisition of the Philippines was not like the
settlement of the white race in the United States. Whatever consideration may have
been shown to the North American Indians, the dominant purpose of the whites in
America was to occupy the land. Evidently, however stated, the reason for our taking
over the Philippines was different. No one, we suppose would deny that, so far consistent
with paramount necessities, our first object in the internal administration of the islands is
to do justice to the natives, not to exploit their country for private gain. By the Organic
Act of July 1, 1902 all the property and rights acquired there by the United States are
to be administered for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof.

In the Courts view, the United States had bound itself to administer the islands for the
benefit of the inhabitants, and not to exploit it for profit. However, the decision did not
stop there. It pointed out that the Philippine Bill of 1902 included a Bill of rights that
extended those safeguards to all the inhabitants of the Philippines. The Court found it
hard to believe that the United States interpreted the due process clause not to apply to
the inhabitants of Benguet. The property under the organic act protected only that
which had become such by ceremonies of which presumably a large part of the
inhabitants never heard, and that it proposed to treat as public land what they, by native
custom and by long association one of the profoundest factors in human thought-
regarded as their own.

While the government of the Philippines was empowered to enact rules for perfecting
titles to public lands and to issue patents to natives, the Court held that this power was
confined to lands which were admittedly public. It had not continued for such a length
of time and under such circumstances as to give rise to the understanding that the
occupants were owners. The Court refused to believe that there was an intent to declare
every native who had not a paper title a trespasser. This set the claims of all the wilder
tribes afloat. The Court further held that there must be a presumption against the
government when a private individual claims property as his or her own. It went so far as
to say that the lands will be deemed private absent contrary proof. In what is probably
the most potent statement ever made on this subject by any Court, it held:

Whatever the law upon these points may beevery presumption is and ought to be
against the government in a case like the present. It might be proper and sufficient to
say that when as far back as testimony or memory goes, the land has been held by
individuals under a claim of private ownership, it will be presumed to have been held in
the same way even before Spanish conquest, and never to have been public land.

The Court proceeded to explain that the case would have been similarly resolved had the
case tried by the laws of Spain. After examining the pertinent laws, the Court held that
We do not discover such clear proof that it was bad by that [Spanish] law as to satisfy us
that he does not own the land. To begin with, the older decrees and laws cited by the
counsel for the plaintiff in error seem to suggest pretty clearly that the natives were
recognized as owing some lands, irrespective of any royal grant. In other words, Spain
did not assume to convert all the native inhabitants of the Philippines into trespassers or
even tenants at will.

The Court pointed out that the Recopilacion de Leyes de Las Indias (that body of edicts,
decrees and orders that set out Spains laws for her colonies) allowed confirmation of
title through prescription, and that title was admitted to exist that owed nothing to the
power of Spain beyond this recognition in their books. The Court further explained that
Spanish law was not that stringent in requiring proof, ancient possession being sufficient.

As prescription, even against Crown lands, was recognized by the laws of Spain, we see
no sufficient reason for hesitating to admit the title was recognized in the Philippines in
regard to lands over which Spain had only a paper sovereignty.

Clearly, the reference to Spanish law was inconsequential. Justice Holmes discussed the
issue only to clarify that Carios claim would have also prevailed, (this time under
prescription) had the Court resorted to Spanish laws. This part of the discussion was
surplusage because the lands claimed by Cario were already held to be private.

In concluding, Holmes wrote that law and justice require that the applicant should be
granted what he seeks, and should not be deprived of what, by the practice and belief of
those among whom he lived, was his property, through a refined interpretation of an
almost forgotten law of Spain.

In the following portion of the paper, we analyze the Courts decision.

Cario did not rely on precedent. Justice Holmes said that whatever theories justified
claims over discovered lands, the truth was that conquerors were never able to see,
much less secure most of these areas. The fact that the Igorots had never been
assimilated or defeated by the Spaniards must surely have been a substantial
consideration. The court said that title will not be extinguished simply because a territory
is occupied by an alien force.

Holmess language stripped the veneer of nobility that has often been used to justify the
dispossession of the Native Americans. The experience in America was exposed as
nothing more than an ignoble, colossal capitalist venture meant to take lands at the
Indians expense. Cario made no explicit reference here to either superior culture or
religion.

The Court then noted the second obstacles to the United States claim: the United States
had not asserted a claim over the entire country. When Congress enacted the Philippine
bill of 1902, it extended the Bill of Rights to the territory. The United States had stretched
its protection, particularly the due process clause, to all the inhabitants of the
Philippines. Ata this point, the Court had already characterized the ancestral domain of
the Igorots (and by extension, those of other native peoples) as private. It should be
noted that the property here was private not because of recognition of title by any
sovereign. This was the result of the Igorots custom and long association and practice
and belief.

The Court also mocked Spains claims over the entire territory of the Philippines. Such
claims could not defeat the claim of Cario based on laws that Spain had not the power
to enforce, or Cario, living as he did with his unconquered folk, had no reason to heed.
The resolution of the case was guided more by the Courts determination to do justice
rather than to apply obscure laws. This explains Holmes refusal to rely upon established
doctrines and his liberal interpretation of the Philippine Bill. No weight was ever placed
upon theories of conquest or alien laws that could not have been known to or understood
by a people so removed from the potentates game of global takeover. Thus, unlike in
North America, the Court refused to deprive the Indian of his rights by resorting to the
laws of nations within the exclusive sphere of a mere handful of nations. It would not
construe laws to deny the Igorots claim, and the executive and legislative acts in any
way that would amount to a denial of native titles.

It might be suggested that there is a difference between the claims in Cario and those
of the North American Indians because the former involved the assertion of an
individuals private right consistent with western property schemes against those
asserted by an entire community. But there is no evidence of this difference in Holmes
language.

Neither can the differences in the result can be justified on the ground that the Court
viewed the claimants as a civilized westernized people. The claimants in Cario were
also considered inferior peoples, if subtly. The court made conscious efforts to waive
technicalities because the claimants were Igorots, and were referred to as wilder
tribes.

But while they were, from the western legal perspective, considered savage and
uncivilized, the Court still found it unfair to refuse recognition of their title.

Cario has been consistently upheld by the Philippine Supreme Court. And while it
originally involved the claim of an individual under a claim of private ownership the
Philippine Supreme Court later expanded the doctrine to include lands held by a
community, and lands that are unoccupied and unimproved. Unfortunately, some
confusion has attended the application of doctrine.Cario has been cited as authority for
the Public Land Act which allows registration of public lands as private possession if the
claimant has been in open, continuous, exclusive and notorious possession of the said
lands for thirty years. The error is obvious. Cario involved lands which had never been
public. The prescriptive remedy under the Public Land Act admits that the land was
initially public. However, it becomes private (and therefore may be titled) after the lapse
of the prescriptive period.

Confusion in the Court had surfaced as early as 1931 in De Palas v. Saito and Madrazo.In
that case, the Supreme Court held that the sale of property made by a member of the
Bagobo tribe without the approval of the Director of the Non-Christian tribes was null and
void. While the Bagobos retained their land, the decision showed the Court was confused
about its character. Justice Johnson in the lone dissent explained that: There is absolutely
no analogy between the relations of the non-Christian people of the Philippine Islands to
the Philippine Government as compared with the relation of the American Indians to the
American government.
A citizen of the Philippine Islands, whether non-Christian or Christian, has a perfect right
to dispose of his private property freely without the necessity of securing the consent of
any person of the GovernmentHundreds and thousands of the non-Christian people of
the Philippine Islands have, through their industry and intelligence, become the absolute
owners of private property (Cario vs. Insular Government, 7 Phil. 132; Cario vs.
Insular Government, 212 U.S. 449; 53 Law.Ed. 549; 41 Phil., 935).

In the United States the government distributed lands freely to the American Indians and
the dispose of the same without the consent of the Secretary of the Interior. The
Government, having given the Indian his land without cost, it had a perfect right to
impose such condition upon the disposition of the same as the Government might deem
wise. In the Philippine Islands, however, the non-Christian people have never been given
land by the government. They are therefore under no obligation to the Government
concerning the land they acquire.

Admittedly, the dissents interpretation of the jurisprudence on Native American land

rights leaves much to be desired. However, its use of the Cario doctrine was faithful to
Holmes dictum. Because of this confusion, there are presently two streams of cases in
the Philippines, both as prominent, as they are glaringly contradictory. In one line, lands
held since time immemorial are recognized as private. It has even been held that
subsequent reclassification of land cannot impair the rights of long-term occupants. In
the other line, public agricultural lands become private lands and could therefore be
titled. This is if the claimant can show that there has been continuous possession thereof
for at least thirty years. Cario has been cited as authority for both. A recent case
cited both lines of cases without the Court observing any incongruity.

Some earlier cases did manage to make a distinction between the two claims. In these
cases, the Court would first check if the land is private under the Cario doctrine, and
then examine if it has become private under the Public Land Act. While
the Cariodoctrine may be in jurisprudential limbo, the case does surface periodically in
the discussions of the other branches of government.

Courts in the United States had several occasions to apply the Cario decision. As will be
shown, however, these courts had, for the most part, also misinterpreted the doctrine.
These cases may be divided into those that involved lands in its territories, and those
involving claims within the continental United States.

In the Territories

The first claims involved lands in Mexico. In Pueblo de Sta. Rosa v. Fall, the claimants
filed a bill in equity in the Supreme Court in the District of Columbia to restrain the
Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office from opening
its lands to sale, entry, and settlement as public lands of the United States. The plaintiffs
alleged that the lands were granted and conceded to the pueblo of Sta. Rosa by the laws
and customs of the Indians, antedating the Spanish discovery of America and the laws of
Spain and Mexico. The lands were part of the territory ceded by Mexico to United States
under the Gadsden Treaty.

In resolving the issue, the Court explained that the title of the Indian inhabitants of a
pueblo in Mexico has been recognized not only by the Mexican, but also by Spanish laws.
Such recognition rests not upon title by grant or charter from the crown, but it may be
established and was frequently established by prescription. It cited Cario to stress that
prescription against the Crown was recognized by Spanish laws. It said, [t]here can be
no question, we think that prior to the cession under the Gadsden Treaty the Papago
Indians had acquired a title which was subject to recognition by the government of
Mexico. It concluded that, had the record title been established in Mexico to which this
pueblo was clearly entitled, it could not be divested by the sort of evidence adduced in
this case. This would have been the proper case to cite Cario because the claim was
premised upon the laws and customs of Indians that antedated the Spanish discovery of
America. The land was ceded by Spain to the United States. No grant was relied upon,
and there was an assertion that both Spanish and Mexican laws relied upon, and there
was an assertion that both Spanish and Mexican laws recognized such Indian title.
Unfortunately, the courts reliance upon Cario was merely to recognize the right of the
claimant through prescription, and not to reaffirm the rule that lands held since time-
immemorial are private lands.

The second case came some twenty years later. Playa de Flor Land and Improvement
CO. v. United States involved lands in Panama. The complainants, an unincorporated
association, alleged that they had acquired title and rights of ownership to specific real
property based on prescription under the name of Playa del Flor Land and Improvement
Co., their predecessors in interest, and those who had been and were in the actual, open,
notorious, and adverse possession, use, and cultivation of the lands for more than forty
years before the Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Panama. They
also alleged that they were forcibly and unlawfully evicted and dispossessed of the lands
and improvements by the United States and that the joint owners had not been paid for
the property taken from them.

The Court held that all of the collective facts necessary to prove adverse possession are
shown in the record; there was actual possession; it was open, notorious, and visible; it
was selfish and exclusive; it was hostile, even against the whole world, and it was a
definite possession marked by the descriptions in documentary evidence, which were of
color of title. The Court summarized the rulings of similar and analogous cases
regarding the validity of land titles acquired under a former sovereign. It also
cited Cario, quoting that statement that recognized the private nature of lands held
since time immemorial.

The Court touched upon the most important part of the decision stating that [t]he
principles announced [in these cases] are plain, simple, and easily understood. They are
grounded on common honesty, right and justice, and they had received the approval of
the executive and legislative branches of the government for more than a hundred
years. The Court understood the theme of the decision, and associated the ownership of
land to the concept of human rights. It said:

Since we are so freely expressing our opinions to all questions herein, we might suggest
that, despite all the argument undertaking to distinguish property rights and human
rights, there never was a country and never will there be a country where, if property
rights are ignored, human rights will be respected.

The decision followed the reasoning of the Holmes decisions. It anticipated, and sought
to prevent the present situation in many countries where the refusal to recognize native
title had crushed the essence of Indian identity. While technically, the case did not
involve Indian lands,

the jurisprudence cited to support the courts conclusion did.

Finally, the United States Supreme Court itself cited Cario approvingly in United Statesv.
Fullard-Leo. That case was an action to quiet title to the Palmyra Island in Hawaii. AT the
time of the annexation of the Island by the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1862, the monarchy
possessed a system of land ownership and land laws adequate to establish titles which
were maintained by a proper record.

The facts of this case were clearly inconsistent with those in Cario. The claimants in this
case were alleging the issuance of a grant they were unable to produce. Predictably,
therefore, the Court turned to the doctrine of the presumption of a lost grant. The Court
explained the doctrine thus: it may be safely said that by the weight of authority, as
well as the preponderance of opinion, it is the general rule of American law that a grant
will be presumed upon proof of an adverse, exclusive, and uninterrupted possession for
20 years, and that such rule will be applied as a presumption juris et de jure, wherever,
by possibility, aright may be acquired in any manner known to the law. See United States
v. Pendell, 185 U.S. 189, 200-201, 22 S. Ct. 624, 628, 629, 46 L. Ed. 866.

The Court quoted Cario saying that land held by individuals under a claim of private
ownership since time immemorial are presumed to be private. There was never an
intimation that the title of Cario was founded on a grant. He had attempted to secure a
grant but his efforts had not amounted to anything. This was not the case in Fullard.

The use of in Cario these cases was not always proper. Pueblo was tailor-made for the
doctrine. Unfortunately, it used the doctrine to uphold a prescriptive right, something for
which was Cario never designed to be authority. Playa relied on the Cario decision to
state that title will not be denied for failure of the claimant to produce title. If nothing
else, it seemed to find support in natural law, a position not previously unexplored by the
United States Supreme Court. Fullard-Leo was not analogous to Cario. The claimant in
that case had relied upon a previous grant destroyed in a fire. Cario was never given
title by the Spanish government, although it was not for want of trying.
In the United States There have been two attempts to cite in Cario cases involving
Native Americans. Both efforts, however, failed. In 1995, Tee-Hit-Ton Indians cited the
case to bolter their claim that the U.S. governments taking of timber from Indian-
occupied lands was compensable. The Supreme Court, however, not only
distinguishedCario from the Alaskan controversy, but also attempted to belittle it. The
Court stated that it is well-settled that in all the States of the Union the tribes who
inhabited the islands of the States held claim to such lands after the coming of the white
man, under what is sometimes termed original Indian title or permission from the whites
to occupy. The Court explained that that meant mere possession not specially
recognized as ownership by Congress.

The Court explained that: [a]fter conquest they were permitted to occupy portions of the
territory over which they had previously exercised sovereignty as we use that term.
This is not a property right but amounts to a right of occupancy that the sovereign grants
and protects against intrusion by third parties where right of occupancy may be
terminated and such lands fully disposed of by the sovereign itself without legally
enforceable obligation to compensate the Indians.

In a footnote, the Court dismissed the applicability of the Cario doctrine: The basis of
the Courts decision [in Cario] however, distinguishes it from applicability to the Tee-Hit-
Ton claim. The court chiefly upon the purpose of our acquisition of the Philippines as
revealed by the Organic Act of July 1, 1902, which was to administer property and rights
for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof This purpose in acquisition and its effect on
land held by the natives was distinguished from the settlement of the white race in the
United States where the dominant purpose was to occupy the land. 212 U.S., at page
458, 29 S. Ct. at page 336. The Court further found that the Spanish law and exercise of
Spanish sovereignty over the islands tended to support rather than defeat a prescriptive
right. Since this was no communal claim to a vast uncultivated area, it was natural to
apply the law of prescription rather than a rule of sovereign ownership of
dominion.Cario claim was to a 370-acre farm that his grandfather had fenced some fifty
years before and was used by three generations as a pasture for livestock and some
cultivation of vegetable and grain. The case bears closer analogy to the ordinary
prescriptive rights situation rather than to a recognition by this court of any aboriginal
use and possession amounting to fee simple ownership.

The second attempt by Alaskan tribes to use Cario also failed. In , Aleut Community of
St. Paul Island v. United States the Indians claimed that under Russian Law, they had a
right to an accounting of funds allegedly misspent. The United States had failed in its
obligation to deal with the tribe in fairness and honor. The Indian Claims Commission
dismissed the claim on the governments motion, and the plaintiffs appealed.

The Court of Claims held that the Indians title was no more than aboriginal in nature and
did not have attributes of fee simple title. Again, the reference to Cario was dismissed
because in that case, the Supreme Court found fee simple title of certain land had been
established by the plaintiff via prescription. Said the Court:
The case is of little aid to appellants at bar, however, because the Court in Cario held
that the plaintiff there had met the requirements of prescription as set out in the Spanish
Civil Code, and that under the circumstances of the American occupation of the
Philippines that title had to be protected. As pointed out above, the appellants at bar
have failed to prove that they achieved the undisturbed possession necessary under
Russian law to obtain title by prescription. Without a showing that they had obtained title
by prescription under Russian law, appellants have no grounds upon which to ask that
appellee respect their proprietary rights.

Further, the Court Held that, The title, if any of Aleutian natives to St. Pauls Island, or
other islands involved in this proceeding, was no more than aboriginal in nature and did
not have the attributes of fee simple title, at the time of the Treaty of Cession. No
recognition of such title by our government, then or later, is shown, and therefore no
acts or our Government can be construed as taking such title. Since it is related to
aboriginal title claims, it follows that appellants have not shown reversible error as to just
compensation portion of their petitions.

These decisions failed to appreciate the significance of Cario. Both decisions were
written with the understanding that the recognition of title in Cario was based upon
prescription against the crown. As pointed out, however, it was more in consonance with
the idea of fairness that the Supreme Court ruled in Cario favor.

Cario was decided in favor of the claimant not only because of the explicit provision in
the Philippine Bill of 1902 directing the United States government to administer the
Philippines for the benefit of its inhabitants. The underlying theme in the entire decision
is the inherent fairness in recognizing the title of indigenous peoples against the claims
of a succeeding sovereign. Justice Holmes rejected the position that both Spain and the
United States had title to all lands in their territories as they had in the American
continents simply by asserting sovereignty, and without actual occupation of these
lands.

Unfortunately, neither the Supreme Courts of the Philippines and the United States
properly appreciate the doctrines of the case. With few exceptions, subsequent cases in
both countries have misapplied the case as authority for a prescriptive right against the
government.

At the very least, Cario has not been overruled in either country. It would be
inconceivable to do so in the Philippines where the recognition of native title was held to
be protected by the due process clause. The Bill of Rights that was initially introduced
through the Philippine Bill of 1902 has remained intact in all the Constitutions of the
Republic of the Philippines. A reversal of the Cario doctrine can only be done as an
express repudiation of the equal status of indigenous peoples. (Reprinted from Philippine
Natural Resources Law Journal, Volume 7 Number 2)