Consolatrix College of Toledo City, Inc.

6038 Magsaysay Hills, Poblacion, Toledo City

Augustinian Recollect Sisters – Philippines

GE 12 – Philippine Indigenous Community

LESSON 3
Ethnic Group vs. Indigenous People
Objectives
1. determine the issues and historical aspects surrounding indigenous people in the
Philippines;
2. propose measures to increase awareness and advocacies benefiting ethnic groups and
indigenous people; and
3. do a research on ethnic group and indigenous people.

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

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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

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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

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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.

Source: https://minorityrights.org/minorities/indigenous-peoples-6/#:~:text=According
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