Indigenous peoples of the Philippines

Last updated

A map showing the traditional homelands of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines by province TribalPhilippinesTraditionalRange.png
A map showing the traditional homelands of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines by province

The indigenous peoples of the Philippines are ethnolinguistic groups or subgroups that maintain partial isolation or independence throughout the colonial era, and have retained much of their traditional pre-colonial culture and practices. [1]

Contents

The Philippines has 110 enthnolinguistic groups comprising the Philippines' indigenous peoples; as of 2010, these groups numbered at around 14–17 million persons. [2] Austronesians make up the overwhelming majority, while full or partial Negritos scattered throughout the archipelago. The highland Austronesians and Negrito have co-existed with their lowland Austronesian kin and neighbor groups for thousands of years in the Philippine archipelago.

Culturally-indigenous peoples of northern Philippine highlands can be grouped into the Igorot (comprising many different groups) and singular Bugkalot groups, while the non-Muslim culturally-indigenous groups of mainland Mindanao are collectively called Lumad . Australo-Melanesian groups throughout the archipelago are termed Aeta , Ita, Ati, Dumagat, among others. Numerous culturally-indigenous groups also live outside these two indigenous corridors. [3] In addition to these labels, groups and individuals sometimes identify with the Tagalog term katutubo, which denotes any person of indigenous origin. [4] [5] [6]

According to the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, there are 135 recognized local indigenous Austronesian languages in the Philippines, of which one (Tagalog) is vehicular and each of the remaining 134 is vernacular.[ citation needed ]

Terminology

Chapter II, Section 3h of the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997 defines "indigenous peoples" (IPs) and "indigenous cultural communities" (ICCs) as:

A group of people or homogenous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by others, who have continuously lived as organized community on communally bounded and defined territory, and who have, under claims of ownership since time immemorial, occupied, possessed and utilized such territories, sharing common bonds of language, customs, traditions and other distinctive cultural traits, or who have, through resistance to political, social and cultural inroads of colonization, non-indigenous religions and cultures, became historically differentiated from the majority of Filipinos.

ICCs/IPs shall likewise include peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the populations which inhabited the country, at the time of conquest or colonization, or at the time of inroads of non-indigenous religions and cultures, or the establishment of present state boundaries, who retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions, but who may have been displaced from their traditional domains or who may have resettled outside their ancestral domains;

— Republic Act No. 8371 (October 29, 1997), The Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997, archived from the original on July 20, 2017, retrieved April 1, 2023– via Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

Demographics

In the 1990s, there were more than 100 highland tribal groups constituting approximately 3% of the population. The upland tribal groups were a blend in ethnic origin, like those in lowland areas of the country, although the upland tribal groups do not interact nor intermingle with the latter.

Because they displayed a variety of social organization, cultural expression and artistic skills. They showed a high degree of creativity, usually employed to embellish utilitarian objects, such as bowls, baskets, clothing, weapons and spoons. The tribal groups of the Philippines are known for their carved wooden figures, baskets, weaving, pottery and weapons.

Ethnic groups

Northern Philippines

Traditional Kalinga dancers Traditional Kalinga dancers.JPG
Traditional Kalinga dancers

Indigenous peoples in Northern Luzon are found mostly in the Cordillera Administrative Region, where various Igorot groups such as Bontoc, Ibaloi, Ifugao, Isneg, Kalinga, Kankanaey, Tinguian, Karao, and Kalanguya exist. Other indigenous groups living in the Cordillera's adjacent regions are the Gaddang of Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela; Ilongot of Nueva Vizcaya and Nueva Ecija, and Aurora; Isinay, primarily of Nueva Vizcaya; Aeta of Zambales, Tarlac, Pampanga, Bataan, Nueva Ecija; and the Ivatan of Batanes. [7] Many of these indigenous groups cover a wide spectrum in terms of their integration and acculturation with lowland Christian Filipinos. Native groups such as the Bukidnon in Mindanao, had intermarried with lowlanders for almost a century. Other groups such as the Kalinga in Luzon have remained isolated from lowland influence.

There were several upland groups living in the Cordillera Central of Luzon in 1990. At one time it was employed by lowland Filipinos in a pejorative sense, but in recent years it came to be used with pride by native groups in the mountain region as a positive expression of their ethnic identity. The Ifugao of Ifugao province, the Bontoc, Kalinga, Tinguian, Kankanaey and Ibaloi were all farmers who constructed the rice terraces for many centuries.

Other mountain peoples of Luzon such as the Isnag of Apayao, the Gaddang of the border between Kalinga and Isabela provinces, and the Ilongot Nueva Vizcaya and Caraballo Mountains all developed hunting and gathering, farming cultivation and headhunting. Other groups such as the Negritos formerly dominated the highlands throughout the islands for thousands of years, but have been reduced to a small population, living in widely scattered locations, primarily along the eastern ranges of the mountains.

Central Philippines

Mangyan people acting out in dance a farming lore The story of Planting.png
Mangyan people acting out in dance a farming lore

Upland and lowland indigenous groups are concentrated on western Visayas, although there are several upland groups such as the Mangyan living in Mindoro.

Palawan, the largest province in the Philippines, is home to several indigenous ethnolinguistic groups namely, the Kagayanen, Tagbanwa, Palawano, Taaw't Bato, Molbog, and Batak tribes. [8] They live in remote villages in the mountains and coastal areas. [8] [9]

Southern Philippines

Bagobo people during the 2016 Kadayawan Festival in Davao City Bagobo people in the Kadayawan Festival 2016, Philippines.jpg
Bagobo people during the 2016 Kadayawan Festival in Davao City

Among the most important indigenous groups in Mindanao are collectively called the Lumad. These include the Manobo; the Talaandig, Higaonon and Bukidnon people of Bukidnon; the Bagobo, Mandaya, Mansaka, Tagakaulo of the Davao Region who inhabit the mountains bordering Davao Gulf; the Kalagan people who live in lowland areas and seashores of Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley, Davao Oriental and some seashores in Davao del Sur; the Subanon of upland areas in Zamboanga; the Mamanwa in the Agusan-Surigao border region; and the B'laan, Teduray and Tboli of the region of Cotabato. [10] [11]

The Manobo is a large ethnographic group and includes the Ata-Manobo and the Matigsalug of Davao City, Davao del Norte and Bukidnon; the Langilan-Manobo in Davao del Norte; the Agusan-Manobo in Agusan del Sur and southern parts of Agusan del Norte; the Pulanguiyon-Manobo of Bukidnon; the Ubo-Manobo in southwestern parts of Davao City, and northern parts of Cotabato; the Arumanen-Manobo of Carmen, Cotabato; and the Dulangan-Manobo in Sultan Kudarat. [10]

The Yakan is the major indigenous peoples of the Sulu Archipelago and live primarily in the hinterlands of Basilan. The Sama Banguingui live in the lowlands of Sulu, while the nomadic Luwa'an live in coastal areas. The Sama or the Sinama and the Jama Mapun are the indigenous peoples of Tawi-Tawi. [11] [10]

Ancestral domain

In the Philippines, the term is used to refer to indigenous peoples' land rights in law. [12] Ancestral lands are referred to in the Philippines Constitution. Article XII, Section 5 says: "The State, subject to the provisions of this Constitution and national development policies and programs, shall protect the rights of indigenous cultural communities to their ancestral lands to ensure their economic, social, and cultural well-being." [13]

The Indigenous People's Rights Act of 1997 recognizes the right of Indigenous peoples to manage their ancestral domains. [14] The law defines ancestral domain to include lands, inland waters, coastal areas, and natural resources owned or occupied by Indigenous peoples, by themselves or through their ancestors. [15]

The Food and Agriculture Organization's research on forest land ownership in the Philippines found conflicts in institutional mandates among the Local Government Code, mining law and the National Integrated Protected Areas Act, and recommended exclusive resource use rights to community-based forest management communities. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mindanao</span> Island in the Philippines

Mindanao is the second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the island is part of an island group of the same name that also includes its adjacent islands, notably the Sulu Archipelago. According to the 2020 census, Mindanao had a population of 26,252,442, while the entire island group had an estimated population of 27,021,036.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bukidnon</span> Province in Northern Mindanao, Philippines

Bukidnon, officially the Province of Bukidnon, is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Northern Mindanao region. Its capital is the city of Malaybalay while Valencia is the largest city. The province borders, clockwise from the north, Misamis Oriental, Agusan del Sur, Davao del Norte, Cotabato, Lanao del Sur, and Lanao del Norte. According to the 2020 census, the province is inhabited by 1,541,308 residents. The province is composed of 2 component cities and 20 municipalities. It is the third largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction behind Palawan and Isabela respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nueva Vizcaya</span> Province in Cagayan Valley, Philippines

Nueva Vizcaya, officially the Province of Nueva Vizcaya, is a landlocked province in the Philippines located in the Cagayan Valley region in Luzon. Its capital and largest town is Bayombong. It is bordered by Benguet to the west, Ifugao to the north, Isabela to the northeast, Quirino to the east, Aurora to the southeast, Nueva Ecija to the south, and Pangasinan to the southwest. Quirino province was created from Nueva Vizcaya in 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cordillera Administrative Region</span> Administrative region of the Philippines

The Cordillera Administrative Region, also known as the Cordillera Region and Cordillera, is an administrative region in the Philippines, situated within the island of Luzon. It is the only landlocked region in the insular country, bordered by the Ilocos Region to the west and southwest, and by the Cagayan Valley Region to the north, east, and southeast. It is the least populous region in the Philippines, with a population less than that of the city of Manila.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cordillera Central (Luzon)</span> Mountain range in Luzon, Philippines

The Cordillera Central or Cordillera Range is a massive mountain range 320 kilometres (200 mi) long north–south and 118 kilometres (73 mi) east-west situated in the north-central part of the island of Luzon, in the Philippines. The mountain range encompasses all provinces of the Cordillera Administrative Region, as well as portions of eastern Ilocos Norte, eastern Ilocos Sur, eastern La Union, northeastern Pangasinan, western Nueva Vizcaya, and western Cagayan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igorot people</span> Ethnic group in the Philippines

The indigenous peoples of the Cordillera in northern Luzon, Philippines, often referred to by the exonym Igorot people, or more recently, as the Cordilleran peoples, are an ethnic group composed of nine main ethnolinguistic groups whose domains are in the Cordillera Mountain Range, altogether numbering about 1.8 million people in the early 21st century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippine languages</span> Proposed branch of the Austronesian language family

The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw and the Molbog language—and form a subfamily of Austronesian languages. Although the Philippines is near the center of Austronesian expansion from Taiwan, there is little linguistic diversity among the approximately 150 Philippine languages, suggesting that earlier diversity has been erased by the spread of the ancestor of the modern Philippine languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic groups in the Philippines</span>

The Philippines is inhabited by more than 182 ethnolinguistic groups, many of which are classified as "Indigenous Peoples" under the country's Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997. Traditionally-Muslim peoples from the southernmost island group of Mindanao are usually categorized together as Moro peoples, whether they are classified as Indigenous peoples or not. About 142 are classified as non-Muslim Indigenous people groups, and about 19 ethnolinguistic groups are classified as neither Indigenous nor Moro. Various migrant groups have also had a significant presence throughout the country's history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lumad</span> Group of Austronesian indigenous people

The Lumad are a group of Austronesian indigenous peoples in the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for Katawhang Lumad, the autonym officially adopted by the delegates of the Lumad Mindanao Peoples Federation (LMPF) founding assembly on 26 June 1986 at the Guadalupe Formation Center, Balindog, Kidapawan, Cotabato. Usage of the term was accepted in Philippine jurisprudence when President Corazon Aquino signed into law Republic Act 6734, where the word was used in Art. XIII sec. 8(2) to distinguish Lumad ethnic communities from the islands of Mindanao.

The Pangasinan people, also known as Pangasinense, are an ethnolinguistic group native to the Philippines. Numbering 1,823,865 in 2010, they are the tenth largest ethnolinguistic group in the country. They live mainly in their native province of Pangasinan and the adjacent provinces of La Union and Tarlac, as well as Benguet, Nueva Ecija, Zambales, and Nueva Vizcaya. Smaller groups are found elsewhere in the Philippines and worldwide in the Filipino diaspora.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippine Rice Research Institute</span>

Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is a government corporate entity attached to the Department of Agriculture created through Executive Order 1061 on November 5, 1985 to help develop high-yielding and cost-reducing technologies for farmers.

The Interim Batasang Pambansa was the legislature of the Republic of the Philippines from its inauguration on June 12, 1978, to June 5, 1984. It served as a transitional legislative body mandated by the 1973 Constitution as the Philippines shifted from a presidential to a semi-presidential form of government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of the Philippines</span> Overview of and topical guide to the Philippines

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Philippines:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manobo languages</span> Subgroup of the Austronesian language family

The Manobo languages are a group of languages spoken in the Philippines. Their speakers are primarily located around Northern Mindanao, Central Mindanao and Caraga regions where they are natively spoken. Some outlying groups make Manobo geographically discontiguous as other speakers can be located as far as the southern peninsula of Davao Oriental, most of Davao Occidental and coastal areas of Sultan Kudarat. The Kagayanen speakers are the most extremely remote and can be found in certain portions of Palawan.

The Manobo are an indigenous peoples from Mindanao in the Philippines, whose core lands cover most of the Mindanao island group, from Sarangani island into the Mindanao mainland in the regions of Agusan, Davao, Bukidnon, Surigao, Misamis, and Cotabato. The Manobo are considered the most diverse among the many indigenous peoples of the Philippines, with the largest number of subgroups within its family of languages. The Philippine Statistics Authority listed 644,904 persons as Manobo in its 2020 Census of Population and Housing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pantaron Mountain Range</span> Mountain range in Mindanao, Philippines

The Pantaron Mountain Range, also called the Central Cordillera of Mindanao, Philippines straddles across the provinces of Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon, Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Davao del Norte and Davao del Sur. The range contains one of the last remaining old growth or primary forest blocks in Mindanao. Major rivers on the island also have their headwaters on the mountain range, including Mindanao River, Pulangi River, Davao River, Tagoloan River and major tributaries of Agusan River.

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) includes traditions and living expressions that are passed down from generation to generation within a particular community.

Bai Bibyaon Ligkayan Bigkay was a Filipino Lumad leader and environmentalist. She was the first and only female chieftain in the history of the Manobo people and has been described as "Mother of the Lumads". She was an advocate of indigenous peoples' rights and had been a defender of Manobo ancestral lands and the Pantaron Mountain Range from 1994.

Local elections in the Philippines took place on May 9, 2022. These were conducted together with the 2022 general election for national positions. All elected positions above the barangay (village) level but below the regional level were disputed. The following 18,180 positions will be disputed:

References

  1. ↑ "Philippines". International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs . Archived from the original on March 24, 2023. Retrieved April 1, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Fast Facts: Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines" (PDF). United Nations Development Programme . February 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 25, 2023. Retrieved February 25, 2023.
  3. ↑ National Commission on Indigenous Peoples Archived October 28, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Accessed November 15, 2013.
  4. ↑ Martinez, Angel (April 28, 2022). "Senatorial candidates campaigning from the margins". CNN Philippines. Archived from the original on April 29, 2022. Retrieved July 4, 2022.
  5. ↑ Eder, James F. (September 1990). "Katutubo, Muslim, Kristyano: Palawan, 1621–1901". Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 21 (2): 449–450. doi:10.1017/s0022463400003416. ISSN   0022-4634.
  6. ↑ Ruanto-Ramirez, J. A. (June 7, 2022), Bonus, Rick; Tiongson, Antonio (eds.), "Twenty-seven. Why I Don't (Really) Consider Myself a Filipinx: Complicating "Filipinxness" from a Katutubo Intervention", Filipinx American Studies, Fordham University Press, pp. 298–307, doi:10.1515/9780823299607-028, ISBN   978-0-8232-9960-7 , retrieved July 4, 2023
  7. ↑ Clariza, Elena. "Research Guides: Philippines: Indigenous Peoples of Luzon/The Cordilleras". University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library. Archived from the original on August 4, 2022. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
  8. 1 2 "Palawan Culture". Palawan Tourism Council. Archived from the original on July 31, 2008. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
  9. ↑ "Calamian Group and its Tribes". Camperspoint. Archived from the original on July 7, 2009. Retrieved August 28, 2008.
  10. 1 2 3 2012 DepED-ARMM Orthography for MTB-MLE
  11. 1 2 Clariza, Elena. "Research Guides: Philippines: Indigenous Peoples in Mindanao". University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library. Archived from the original on July 30, 2021. Retrieved March 31, 2023.
  12. ↑ Romualdo, Arlyn; Palisoc, VCD. "Protecting IPs' Rights to Ancestral Domains and Lands". University of the Philippines. Archived from the original on 16 October 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  13. ↑ Bernas, Joaquin. "Ancestral domain vs regalian doctrine (2)". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved October 10, 2013.
  14. ↑ "Fast Facts: Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines | UNDP in Philippines". UNDP. 2013. Retrieved April 12, 2021.
  15. ↑ "Republic Act No. 8371". Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines. October 29, 1997. Retrieved April 12, 2021.
  16. ↑ "Trends in forest ownership, forest resources tenure and institutional arrangements: are they contributing to better forest management and poverty reduction?" (PDF). FAO. Retrieved October 10, 2013.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.