The concentration of indigenous communities in the Philippines

The moment we start studying about the indigenous people in the Philippines and their respective culture, we never questioned anything about it, but as historians and archeologist look at the in-depth analyses of how these very indigenous people came about in the Philippines, questions such as, “Are the Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines really are indigenous or not?” and “How Indigenous are Filipino Indigenous People?” caught the attention of many scholars, and it began to be the center of many studies and debate.

Reading the explanation of Dr. Gerona over the matter, he mentioned that in order to understand the questions itself one must first define what indigenous truly means. Because the context of what this word is all about with respect to time will explain the very definition of the word itself. The contextual notion of the word is an integral part in understanding, and setting the borderline on which to consider as indigenous, and which are not.

For centuries, according to history, Philippines is a non-existent land not until it rose above the sea, and house the early migrants or settlers. Meaning to say, the Philippines have no original inhabitants that is indigenous to the land, in a strict sense. But because of the land bridges that has been naturally created by nature, land dwellers from other early civilizations reached the Philippines, and later on formed a civilization of their own --- as the new native folks of the land.

One theory goes by the belief that the Agtas, Indones and Malay have been the first among the civilizations who reached the land, and started occupying the upland, lowland, and shores areas with respect to the whose culture is far dominant, but this theory was debunked when archeologist found out that the Philippines is already occupied by the Tabon Man in Palawan long before the Agtas, Indones and Malay came. But despite being known as the first inhabitants they can’t be regarded as the first indigenous group in the Philippines primarily because they are migrants too who have found home and refuge in the caves of the Philippine Island.

Localizing the context of the matter, the case of the Agtas in Mt. Isarog has been studied as to whether they are originally dwellers of the Isarog mountains or they are from other groups who migrated in the land either from North or South of Luzon. The question of their heritage and culture is still yet to be studied further by local historians and scholars especially in shedding the light between cimaronnes, remontados, malvado or even bagamundos who were all pertaining to the same people, but was differentiated because of typology and linguistic operations that are heavily influenced by foreign culture and colonial nuances that had been built in our own psyche.

Going back to the question we have in the beginning, are the indigenous people of the Philippines really indigenous? The answer is no because as it was explained by Dr. Gerona there were no original inhabitants in the Philippines whom we can historically consider as indigenous of the land, technically speaking, but there are those those that lie in the white area. If we are to contextualize the definition of indigenous as something that is not limited to the heritage and roots of ones own existence, we can say that the there are indigenous people in the Philippines. They are those who have never been tainted by colonial mentality, and chose to preserve the culture that they have on their own regardless if their culture is originally coming from the Philippines or was brought along with their civilization origin. That’s why equating indigenous with the origin will only develop chasm in redefining what indigenous means. Thus, this two, in my opinion, should be treated separately. How Indigenous are Filipino Indigenous People? They are indigenous yet not indigenous. They are indigenous because they are the proof of the Filipino’s resistance to cultural oppression of the foreign people, and that of which they have chosen to stand with their own socio-political belief. On the other hand, they are not indigenous, in terms of origin, because it will all boils down in tracing the roots of how they came about or existed as the occupants of the Philippine Island.