According to some estimates, there are close to 100 indigenous peoples, exclusive of the

Muslim groups, though the exact size of the indigenous population remains unclear: while the
National Commission on Indigenous Peoples estimates that there are approximately 11.3
million indigenous peoples in the Philippines, for example – a figure amounting to around
11- 12 per cent of the population – some civil society estimates suggest they may comprise
between 10 and 20 per cent of the population.

There is a great variety of social organization and cultural expression among these
communities. Some specialize in wood-carving, basket-making and weaving. Others are
known for their embroidery, appliqué and bead-making. They range from the Bontoc and
Ifugaos, who built the renowned rice terraces in the mountainous interior of Luzon, to
indigenous peoples practising shifting cultivation or hunter-gathering.

A significant number of indigenous peoples in central Luzon are Protestant Christians, having
been converted by American missionaries in the early twentieth century and educated in
missionary schools. For others there is a considerable difference in terms of integration with
lowland Christian Filipinos. Some have intermarried. Others have remained isolated. There is
little general agreement on the names and numbers of these indigenous communities.

While some of these indigenous peoples emerged from early waves of Malay or Proto-Malay
migrants, about 27 of them, such as Aeta and Ati, are Negritos that were already long-
established in the Philippines: they are thought to be the descendants of the earliest settlers to
the archipelago, who may have migrated there through land bridges from the Asian mainland
some 30,000 years ago.

A common geographical distinction is often made between Igorot (Tagalog for

‘mountaineer’) on Luzon, and Lumad (‘indigenous’) for those in Mindanao, with others in
Luzon and the Visayas using their collective name, such as the Manobo, Mangyan, etc. Ten
upland tribal groups on Luzon have been identified: Ifugao, Bontoc, Kankanay, Ibaloi,
Kalinga, Tinguian, Isneg, Gaddang, Ilongot and Negrito. Ifugaos of Ifugao province, Bontocs
of Mountain and Kaling-Apayao provinces and Kankanay and Ibaloi of Benguet province
were all wet-rice farmers who have for centuries worked their elaborate rice terraces. Groups
such as the Ibaloi were the most influenced by Spanish and American colonialism and
lowland Filipino culture because of the extensive gold mines in Benguet, the proximity of the
city of Baguio, good roads and schools, and a consumer industry in search of folk art. Other
mountain peoples of Luzon include Kalinga of Kalinga-Apayao province and Tinguian of
Abra province, who employ both wet-rice and dry-rice growing techniques. Isneg of northern
Kalinga-Apayao, Gaddang of the border between Kalinga-Apayao and Isabela provinces, and
Ilongot of Nueva Vizcaya province all practise shifting cultivation. Although Negritos
formerly dominated the highlands, by the early 1980s they were reduced to small groups
living in widely scattered locations, primarily along the eastern ranges.

The other concentration of indigenous communities is in central and southern Philippines.

The Lumad tribal groupings of Mindanao include Ata, Bagobo, Guiangga, Mamanwa,
Magguangan, Mandaya, Banwa-on, Bukidnon, Dulangan, Kalagan, Kulaman, Manobo,
Subanon, Tagabili, Takakaolo, Talandig, and Tiruray or Teduray. The Lumad groups of
Mindanao have faced, and continue to face, long-term displacement and legalized land
dispossession, which is also a threat to other indigenous communities in the Philippines. The
southern Philippine island peoples of Mindanao are resource-rich and were formerly under-
populated compared to the northern island peoples of Luzon. Thus, throughout the twentieth
century, there was a steady migration of Christian lowland Filipinos into areas previously
occupied and dominated by Lumad and Moros. These migrations were initially encouraged
by the American authorities, when the Philippines was under their rule, and were given
further impetus by central government authorities after independence by the development of
plantation agriculture, logging concessions and hydro-electric and geothermal energy
schemes. Lumad are now outnumbered in their ancestral lands.
Historical context

The Spanish crown, by virtue of colonization, claimed rights over the islands and the
authority to dispose of the land. Later, the US authorities institutionalized their legal powers
to dispose of all land and voided all the previous land grants by Moro or Lumad chiefs, as
well as others throughout the Philippines, that had been made without government consent.
Only individuals or corporations could register private claims to land ownership. This left no
room for the concept of ancestral or communal land, which the indigenous Lumad had held to
be sacred and not subject to individual title or ownership.

Through the efforts of the Lumad of Mindanao, and their supporters among the lowland
Christian Filipino community, two important provisions were written into the 1987
Constitution. Article XII (5) obliges the state to ‘protect the rights of indigenous cultural
communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social and cultural wellbeing’,
while Article XIV (17) commits the state to ‘recognize, respect and protect the rights of
indigenous cultural communities to preserve and develop their cultures, traditions and
institutions’.

However, the state also continued to maintain rights to land, and national development
policies continued to be shaped by powerful economic interests and political forces. Lumad
continued to seek the return of lands taken from them through harassment and illegal
manipulation and seek the revocation of all plantation permits and logging concessions. They
sought self-government within their ancestral lands with their customary laws, and the
preservation of their indigenous cultures. In all these matters, Lumad faced an up-hill battle.

Greater democracy after the end of the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos led to a number
of favourable changes. In the same year, the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (1997) was
adopted, with a National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) established under this
legislation. The former recognized indigenous peoples’ native title to land and their (limited)
rights of self-determination and free exercise of culture. It also offered an option of applying
for a ‘Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title’.

However, these positive steps in relation to indigenous peoples’ rights have not proved as
effective in their activities as might have been hoped. This was partly due to legal challenges
as to the constitutionality of both, which was not resolved favourably by the Supreme Court
of the Philippines until 2002. In addition, the full recognition and implementation of the
rights of indigenous peoples that are contained in the 1997 Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act
still faced many hurdles: there have been criticisms that the 2004 removal of the NCIP from
the President’s Office to the Department of Agriculture, for example, weakened its position
and influence, while the disbandment of Task Force 63 (a body and mechanism which
promotes inter-agency cooperation on indigenous peoples’ issues) indicated the low priority
that state authorities were actually giving to the rights of indigenous peoples.

Following recommendations by the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous

peoples that the NCIP call for a ‘National Consultative Assembly’ (with the objective of
including indigenous peoples and organizations in the planning and implementation of the
Commission’s activities), the NCIP convened a National Forum in November 2006. This led
to the establishment of the Indigenous Peoples’ Consultative Body (IPCB), operating at a
national, regional and provincial level. The composition of IPCB is tripartite, including
representatives of NCIP, indigenous peoples’ organizations and NGOs. Despite criticism
concerning their membership, the establishment of these bodies was seen as a positive
development towards enhanced participation by indigenous peoples in the making and
implementation of NCIP policies.

While indigenous peoples have in theory a right to mother tongue education under the
Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997, this right is still unimplemented. An Institute for
Indigenous Peoples’ Education set up a handful of ‘pilot schools’ to respond in a more
receptive way to the culture and traditions of indigenous peoples, but teaching in indigenous
languages is not part of the official state curriculum. Privately established indigenous schools,
which occasionally teach in local community languages, continue to meet obstacles from
Department of Education authorities in the registration process and in recent years have been
attacked by armed groups, many of whom are suspected to be linked with security forces, due
to suspicions that the schools are promoting support for the communist insurgency.
Current Issues

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, 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 per cent of the
population – it is estimated that some 65 per cent 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.

The long running conflict between the military and the New People’s Army (NPA) in the
mountains of Mindanao – lasting some 50 years and with a total death toll of more than
40,000 lives since it began – has had particularly devastating impacts on the Lumad people, a
cluster of 18 indigenous communities in Mindanao. Many Lumad civilians have been caught
in the conflict, subjected to militarization within their communities or targeted with
extrajudicial killings and torture. Thousands have been displaced while fleeing violence by
security forces. According to a joint stakeholders’ report to the UN Universal Periodic
Review on the Philippines in September 2016 submitted by KATRIBU National Alliance of
Indigenous Peoples, 102 extrajudicial killings of indigenous peoples were committed by the
previous Aquino administration. Since President Rodrigo Duterte took power, these murders
– despite making calls for an end to the killings of Lumad – have continued, with military,
vigilantes and private security forces suspected of carrying out the attacks. Many of the
victims have been notable opponents of mining, oil palm plantations, corruption and
government abuses.

A peace roadmap that was approved in 2016 included plans for negotiations with the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). After over 40 rounds of talks under five
different Philippine governments, the two parties met again in August 2016 in Oslo, Norway,
for the first formal peace talks in five years. The NDFP is an umbrella group of communist
organizations, representing the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed
wing, the NPA, in the negotiations. The 2016 formal talks in Oslo included a timeline for
negotiations, initiating a ceasefire, negotiating immunity for NDFP members, and an amnesty
for detained political prisoners, the latter of which brought negotiations to a standstill with
the previous government. The two parties agreed to an open-ended ceasefire, which managed
to maintain a fragile peace throughout the year, despite not yet being able to agree to the
terms of an official bilateral ceasefire agreement. The negotations subsequently collaped,
with Duterte claiming in July 2017 that he planned to resume fighting against the NPA due to
their failure to respect the terms of the ceasefire. While he offered to resume talks in early
2018, uncertainty has persisted. There have, however, been localized peace talks leading to
some 8,000 people surrendering by the end of 2018.

Alongside the communist rebellion, an Islamist insurgency has also contributed to

widespread insecurity in Mindanao: while agreement was reached in 2018 with the largest
group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), to hold a plebiscite in January 2019 on the
creation of a larger autonomous Muslim region known as Bangsamoro, a large number of
ISIS-affiliated extremist groups continue to operate outside the framework of any peace
agreement.

Lumad communities have often been caught in the crossfire of the protracted civil conflict in
the southern Philippines, and regularly accused of harbouring communist sympathies.
Alternative education has become the target of particular scrutiny and distrust, with the
military accusing indigenous schools of promoting communist propaganda. State officials
have drawn outrage for recommending the introduction of new schools run by the military.
The Save Our Schools Network has accused the army and pro-government militias of staging
premeditated attacks on alternative education institutes in order to marginalize indigenous
land and cultural rights: local estimates suggest that there were 95 attacks on Lumad schools
in the southern Philippines between September 2014 and 2015, an average of eight cases per
month.

One of the most notorious incidents took place in September 2015, when a troop of armed
men stormed an alternative Lumad school in the southern Philippines. Teachers and students
were dragged from their dormitories and rounded up, together with hundreds of other
civilians, in the small village of Diatagon in Lianga, Surigao del Sur. Two indigenous leaders
– known for their work protecting the community’s ancestral lands against encroachments
from mining companies – were hauled in front of the crowd and executed at point-blank
range. One of the victims in particular, Dionel Campos, was the chairperson for Mapasu, an
indigenous organisation striving for ancestral land rights. The head of the alternative school,
Emerito Samarca, was later found in one of his classrooms, with his throat cut and two
gunshot wounds in his abdomen. Samarca, who was slain at Lianga, was also a vocal
campaigner against large-scale development projects that fuel violence and displacement in
the southern Philippines. The government denied any involvement in Samarca’s murder,
claiming the attackers merely dressed up in army fatigues that matched the insignia of the
nearest battalion. Approximately 3,000 Lumad indigenous people were forced to flee in the
wake of this incident, resulting in an extended period of displacement.
This treatment, driven by the belief that Lumads are supporting the NPA insurgency, has
resulted in indiscriminate killings and widespread displacement of indigenous communities.
There has been limited change since Duterte took power: in 2017, for instance, he accused
indigenous schools of supporting the rebellion and threatened to bomb them. This situation
creates further barriers for Lumads, who have some of the lowest educational levels in the
Philippines, in accessing schooling. Part of the problem is the entrenched discrimination
towards indigenous youths within the centrally managed school system, which often treats
them as outsiders and second-class citizens. The time and cost of travelling long distances to
reach public schools also place insurmountable burdens on many Lumad families. Indigenous
activists in the southern Philippines insist that the right to a free and culturally tailored
education is fundamental to defending indigenous heritage and rights, which are often
intimately tied to the protection of ancestral lands and resources. The government’s failure to
investigate crimes against Lumad schools has left the communities more vulnerable to further
attacks and encroachments.

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.

Even land recognized as indigenous under these certificates can still be lost to development
projects, since mining and other projects can be pursued if a certificate of ‘Free, Prior and
Informed Consent’ (FPIC) is obtained from affected indigenous communities. A number of
indigenous peoples have repeatedly reported that they have been deceived, threatened and
even seen some of their people assassinated, in order for companies to receive these FPICs.
Many claim that a string of murders of indigenous leaders have been linked mainly to their
defence of their ancestral lands. Development projects being undertaken, such as mining, the
Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway and various eco-tourism projects have caused the indigenous
Aetas to leave the area around Mount Pinatubo. Indigenous land also continues to be
redistributed directly to non-indigenous settlers by the Department of Agrarian Reform,
through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.
What is the difference between indigenous group and ethnic group?

“Indigenous people are people defined in international or national legislation as having a set
of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory, and their cultural or
historical distinctiveness from other populations that are often politically dominant. The
concept of indigenous people defines these groups as particularly vulnerable to exploitation,
marginalization and oppression by nation states that may still be formed from the colonising
populations, or by politically dominant ethnic groups. As a result, a special set of political
rights in accordance with international law have been set forth by international organizations
such as the United Nations.”

-Indigenous Peoples

“Ethnicity: An ethnic group or ethnicity is a population group whose members identify with
each other on the basis of common nationality or shared cultural traditions. Ethnicity
connotes shared cultural traits and a shared group history. Some ethnic groups also share
linguistic or religious traits, while others share a common group history but not a common
language or religion. Ethnicity is defined in terms of shared genealogy, whether actual or
presumed. Typically, if people believe they descend from a particular group, and they want to
be associated with that group, then they are in fact members of that group. Ethnic groups
distinguish themselves differently from one time period to another. They typically seek to
define themselves but also are defined by the stereotypes of dominant groups. “

-Ethnicity vs Race - Difference and Comparison

Simplified: Indiginous peoples are ethnic groups of the first people to inhabit a land and to
develop their identity in relation to the land they initially inhabited. Ethnicities are people
genetically related and sharing a common culture, language, history and often religion.

All indigenous people will be of some ethnicity, but not all ethnicities are indigenous. For
example Cherokee are an ethnicity and an indigenous people to the US; whilst Arabs are an
ethnicity throughout the Middle East, they are indigenous to the Arabian peninsula. All
ethnicities would have been an indigenous group of people in one particular place and time at
some point; for example, all Irish originated in Ireland although more Irish live in diaspora
around the world than in Ireland itself

-Chris Hughes, Social Studies Teacher

How are indigenous people different?

They have distinct social, economic or political systems. They have a distinct language,
culture and beliefs. They are marginalised and discriminated against by the state. They
maintain and develop their ancestral environments and systems as distinct peoples.

What qualifies as indigenous?

“peoples in independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent
from the populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the
country belongs, at the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of present state
boundaries and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social,
economic, cultural and political institutions.”

-https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/indigenous-peoples-and-minorities/Sami-people/
midtspalte/What-Defines-an-Indigenous-People/id451320/#:~:text=%E2%80%9Cpeoples
%20in%20independent%20countries%20who,and%20who%2C%20irrespective%20of
%20their

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