MOUNTAIN VIEW COLLEGE

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

General Education Department

PHILIPPINE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

WEEK 2
INTRODUCTION ON THE DIFFERENT ETHNIC GROUPS IN THE PHILIPPINES

ACTIVITY 1
DUE DATE JULY 3, 2022
Send to my email address cggarma@my.mvc.edu.ph
ENCODED Short Bond Paper

ENGAGE

1. Who are considered indigenous people?

For the first time, an ethnic variable was added in the 2010 census. However, no official statistic for
the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines has been released, and it is thought that the country's
indigenous population is between 10% and 20% of the national population, which is now
approximately 102.9 million.

The indigenous people in northern Luzon's highlands are known as Igorot, whereas the ones in
Mindanao's southern island are known as Lumad. In the center islands, there are smaller communities
known as Mangyan, and even smaller and more dispersed groups in the central islands and Luzon,
including many tribes of hunter-gatherers in transition.

2. How do ethnic groups differ from indigenous people?

An ethnic group would be a group of a certain ethnicity in an area, but an indigenous group would
have to have originated from that region.

EXPLORE

1. Watch Matangalwin: The Indigenous People of Mt. Pinatubo, Gretchen Ho meets with the
indigenous people leaving near the Mt. Pinatubo and learns about their way of life.
• share your views and perspectives regarding the video. (REFLECTION)
Not less than 5 sentences
RESOURCE MATERIAL - (7907) The indigenous people of Mt. Pinatubo | Matangalwin - YouTube

According to what I've seen in the video, the residents of the area around Mt. Pinatubo are not just
regular people; they are special. because they have the distinction of being the tiniest people on the
planet and the greatest herbalists and archers in the whole globe. Since their protein source is insects,
they are very resourceful when it comes to food. Additionally, the Katutubong Aeta are physically
healthy and diligent workers.
 2. Read the Research Article and answer the succeeding questions:
• What are the problems and issues confronting the ethnic groups in the country?

In the Philippines, there are major disparities in access to essential services within and across ethnic
groups. Years of education and access to clean water had the greatest levels of inequality (both within
and across groups) among the outcome factors. Within-group disparities are greater among Muslim
ethnic groups, especially indigenous ones, and among a few indigenous non-Muslim ethnic groups.
Nonindigenous/non-Muslim ethnic groups have greater access to education and other basic amenities
in general. However, differences in access to education (literacy) and basic utilities (especially
electricity and sanitary toilet facilities) seem to be diminishing between 2000 and 2010, as shown by
numerous inequality metrics. Mindanao's results are somewhat different in that only disparity in
access to power has improved.

• What should be done to solve these problems?

Through different initiatives, the Philippine government has been working to promote ethnic groups'
access to education. The Indigenous Peoples Education Initiative (IPED) of the Department of
Education (DepEd) is one such program. DepEd implemented the IPED program after adopting the
National Indigenous Peoples Education Policy Framework in 2011. This and similar initiatives must be
reviewed to see if they have been beneficial and may therefore be expanded up.

RESOURCE MATERIAL - Philippine Institute for Development Studies (2017) Celia M. Reyes,
Christian D. Mina and Ronina D. Asis. (I will send a PDF file to the group chat)

3. Based on the topic you have chosen from the last activity: WEEK 1
• why should it be a priority to preserve indigenous cultures (oral
traditions/knowledge & practices/traditional craftmanship).

Particular population to their effective environment both physical and natural, have led to the
evolution of at least 77 major Ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippine archipelago. These groups are
compounded by their own respective subgroups numbering about 244 with their own variation of the
central cultures ecotonal areas have also given rise to marginal populations where culture change is
much more accelerated than the core area. The diversification is not only dispersed horizontally in the
various regions but also vertically, with respect to the different elevations of the habitation areas of
the groups. This has become so since changes in elevations in the topography produce differences in
climatologically affected flora and fauna. Various parts of the country, too, are affected differentially
by the wind currents that flow over the archipelago seasonally, principal among which are the
southwest monsoon, the northeast monsoon, the southeast, and the Siberian current. Those that are
affected directly by the monsoons exhibit distinctive flora; others that are affected directly by the
monsoons exhibit distinctive flora; others that are not so affected developed differently. Ecological
zones, too, differ in terms of elevations. The edge of the sea develops mangrove forests. Dipterocarp
forests cover vast tracts of land. Higher up are the mountain forests characterized by tropical oaks.
Beyond these are the temperate zone forests where the temperatures are brought down by the
increased elevation. And much higher still are the mossy forest. Societies change since cultures adapt
to the vagaries of the physical environment, adjusting their subsistence patterns to the relevant
features of the environment. In all these, differentially developed ecosystems are niches where ethnic
groups coevolved correspondingly different culture complexes.
Due to the generally homogeneous forms of ecosystems prevalent in some broad areas, and the
relatively more increased interaction between ethnic groups that inhabit proximate areas, some
patterning of culture may be seen in certain regions in the Philippines. Thus, the mountain regions of
the Cordilleras of Northern Luzon have peoples that appear to be related in general aspects of their
culture as the Ifugao, Bontoc, Kalinga, Ibaloy, Kankanaey, Apayao, Itneg, and Gaddang. In the Cagayan
Valley, between the Cordilleras and the Sierra Madre Mountain, adaptation is again specialized giving
the rise to the cultures of the Ibanag, Itawis, and Yogad.

• What are the major threats they (your assigned topic) are facing today?

Although most indigenous communities live in isolated rural areas, a growing number are migrating to
cities in search of better livelihoods and social services. Many are driven from their traditional lands by
militarization, tribal conflicts, and the expansion of large-scale development projects, which frequently
bring little or no benefits to local communities, particularly women: many indigenous women, are unable
to secure employment with the mining companies and leave to find work in urban areas, suffering extreme
poverty in cities like the northern city of Baguio or the capital city, Manila. They often face poverty and
exclusion as a result of their limited formal education and the fact that their skills may not be suited to an
urban context. In Baguio where indigenous people make up over 60 percent of the population, it is
estimated that some 65 percent of indigenous migrants suffer from extreme poverty. Many of them are
migrant women working as vendors in the city streets, where they are regularly pestered by police as part
of the government’s anti-peddling drive.

• Discuss the different issues that they are confronted today with reference.

Land rights remain an ongoing issue for indigenous communities, many of whom still lack official
recognition of their ancestral land. Under the 1997 Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act, 221 ‘Certificates of
Ancestral Domain Title’ (CADT’s) had been issued by March 2018, covering over 5.4 million hectares.
While this may sound impressive, the process has involved the land rights of indigenous communities
totalling only 1.2 million people. Besides this, the process to obtain a title remains difficult and
lengthy: in 2012, an additional procedure was added in the attempt to address jurisdictional issues
between agencies, but it has slowed the process even further. After the titles are issued, they must be
registered with the Land Registration Authority, to make the titles more robust against land incursion.
Less than 50 of the 182 CADT’s issued by September 2016 had been registered.

https://minorityrights.org/minorities/indigenous-peoples-6/

RESOURCE MATERIAL - Pinagmulan: Enumeration From The Philippine Inventory Of Intangible

Cultural Heritage By: Jesus T. Peralta (I will send a PDF copy of the Resource Material in the group
chat)
 4. Given the chance to live with them for 1 year, imagine what would it be like and what could
be your challenges and fears? And how are you going to overcome them. Make your
narrative clear and understandable.

More than 300 million indigenous people live in almost every corner of the globe, including the tribes
of Luzon. Given the opportunity to live with them is a wonderful pleasure, despite the huge difference
among Indigenous Peoples groups, each of which has its own particular culture, language, history, and
way of life. As a result, the obstacles and worries that I will face will be misunderstood since we speak
different languages. To survive, I need to learn their language. Despite these differences, Indigenous
Peoples throughout the world have certain fundamental values, which originate in part from a
realization that their lives are inextricably linked to the natural environment.