Indigenous People in Politics and Governance
Athena Lydia Casambre recognition of the indigenous peoples
I. The Concept of Indigenous Peoples
The UN General Assembly declared 1994 the
International Decade of the World’s Indigenous
Peoples
Goal: Strengthen international cooperation to solve
the indigenous peoples’ problems such as human
rights, the environment, development, education,
and health
Effect: Increased the significance of indigenous
people as political actors
What are indigenous people?
(Martinez Cobo definition)
1. Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations
are those that still consider themselves distinct
despite being preinvaded and having precolonial
societies develop on their territories
2. Presently form non-dominant sectors of
society
3. Determined to preserve, develop, and transmit
their ethnic identities and ancestral territories to
future generations
4. In accordance with their own cultural patterns,
social institutions, and legal systems
Indigenous People in the Philippines
 Account for 18% of the national population
 Are referred to as "ethnic minorities", "tribal
filipinos", and "indigenous cultural communities"
 It is actually important to take note of the
transition of terms because it signifies a
transformation in its academic and political
status
 1The term “indigenous cultural communities”
neither minoritizes nor marginalizes indigenous
peoples and 2signifies the positive political
 The Igorot, Aeta, Mangyan, Badjao, and
Maranao are called minorities because
technically, they are a minority in relation to
the majority
Questions of concern:
1. Minority in terms of number or status?
2. How did this minority-majority condition
come about?
Answer: “The Creation of a Cultural Minority” by
William Henry Scott
 Initially, there would be a group of dissimilar
people who would then be acculturated and
assimilated. The group who submitted to the
colonial ruler would become the majority while
those who resisted became the minority.
II. Understanding the Role of Indigenous People
in Philippine Politics and Governance
1. What is the main political issue raised by
indigenous peoples?
2. How have they pursued their advocacy?
3. What have been some of the results of the
advocacy and activism of the IP social
movement in the Philippines?
LAND OWNERSHIP AND INDIGENOUS
PEOPLES
 Main issue of indigenous peoples in the
Philippines, as well as other countries
 Rooted on their radically different views on
land ownership
 IP’s concept of land ownership conflicts with the
concept held by the state, which is based on the
Regalian Doctrine
 State claims ownership and control over
public domain
 Retained during the American rule through
the 1935 Constitution, and ratified during Martial
Law
  Declared all land 18% in slope or more, as
permanent forests or forest reserves
 Made IP’s feel like “squatters in their own
land”
 Currently, this land issue is no longer salient,
but is only recognizable under two (2)
conditions:
1. Land ownership is “subject to the provision
of the Constitution and national
development policies and programs”
2. The applicability of customary laws
governing property rights is determined by
the legislature as, “Congress may provide”
 The state claim to national patrimony accords
with the principle that territory is an essential
part of the state. This has taken the form of two
(2) rationales that are seen to curtail IP
rights:
1. National Development
2. National Security
 In the state pursuit of economic
development, extractive activities like logging,
mining, and large-scale agricultural cultivation
have been licensed, often to disregard of
indigenous communities’ claims to prior
occupation of the affected lands
 In all instances, the IP’s demand for respect,
recognition, and protection of their ancestral
domain
THEORIES OF IP RIGHTS ADVOCACIES
 New social movements or NSM's have been
recognized in academic scholarship as one of
the sources of challenges to the state in the late
20th century.
 These social movements have caused new
issues to rise, and the attention given to these
advocacies has lead to an extensive body of
literature, which includes theorizing and case
studies of new social movements.
 Thanks to these new studies, the practice of
indigenous people rights advocacy in the
Philippines benefitted greatly.
 Explanatory Frameworks
These are the frameworks used in order to form an
explanatory account of the role and participation of
indigenous people in the Philippines. Every
framework has a question it suggests:
1. Individual-Psychological Variables
Do the individuals involved – e.g., activists,
participants, sympathizers, have individual
personality characteristics and/or attitudes that
explain their propensity for involvement?
2. Resource Mobilization
What resources (e.g., funds organization,
leadership, time, etc.) were available and
successfully mobilized by the government?
3. Social Psychological Variables
What is the influence of political attitudes – like
grievance, political efficacy, trust in government
and interpersonal trust in the successful
mobilization on the particular issue?
4. Political Opportunity Structures
Focuses on the opportunity structures (political,
cultural) that may have served as positive
environmental factors for the social movement
 Opportunity structures must be successfully
utilized as opportunities
 Pseudo-success: incorrect attribution of a
social movement’s success to the efforts —
i.e., utilization of opportunity structures— by
the movement
 Pseudo-failure: incorrect attribution of a
social movement’s failure to the presence or
absence of negative or positive
opportunities
 POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES AND
THE IP SOCIAL MOVEMENT IN THE
PHILIPPINES
As a form of rejecting autocracy, Pres. Aquino
opened up to all social forces repressed by the
state during Marcos' authoritarian regime. And her
first order of business is the drafting of a new
constitution.

 CPA (Cordillera Peoples Alliance) is an alliance

of 27 groups that had just joined forces in order
to hold the first Congress of the CPA.

 Discussed issues on the violations of Igorot

rights by the past regime and programs to
remove the structures that promoted them

Sent a delegate to Malacañang to meet with

Pres. Cory Aquino, and were very much
impressed by her sincerity. Unfortunately, the
CPA nominees to the Constitutional Convention
were non-appointed

 Continued their advocacy for Igorot rights by

lobbying the Constitutional Convention for the
regional autonomy

 Undertook the project of "ethnicity

entrepreneurship" and constructed
KAIGOROTAN in order to push for this.
However, this failed to efface the reality of
diversity among Igorot peoples