The Philippines has been lauded at the national and international community as the only country in Asia (and one of the few in the world) that has recognized the rights of Indigenous Peoples through a landmark national law, the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997. Among the bundle of rights that IPRA promises to uphold is the Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their ancestral domain (AD) and ancestral land (AL) (cite specific section in the law). Through this law, the Philippine State has designated the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) as a major duty bearer of Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

One of the historical injustices endured by Indigenous Peoples (IPs) of the Philippines is their invisibility and voicelessness in State institutions, from the national down to the most basic unit of national polity—the barangay. As a consequence of this, their particular and collective interests have been generally neglected, and most IPs felt detached, isolated and lived outside of the nation-state (Scott, 2009). The Philippine State vowed to rectify this condition through the 1987 Constitution and the 1997 Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA).

The educational system that was introduced by the Spanish and American colonial regimes, and was essentially maintained by post-colonial regimes under Filipino elite rule has been instrumental in the “othering” or marginalization of Indigenous Peoples (Veneracion 1990; Rodil 1994; Constantino 1975).

As a cultural apparatus of the State, the educational system, which includes its structure, processes and, most significantly, its content, served to consolidate the colonial and post-colonial State. In the process, it created and reinforced ethnic differentiation. It privileged the ethnic groups that lived—forcibly or otherwise, while it simultaneously “othered” (demonized) or marginalized those ethnic groups that resisted colonial assimilation (Rodil 1994; Salazar 1997; Veneracion 1990; Rovillos 2009). Spanish colonial education dismissed indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing as “vain genealogies” (Salazar 1997) or sheer superstitious, pagan beliefs that had to be forgotten and reject ed.

The notion of "poverty" of/among Indigenous Peoples (IPs) is contentious for some rea-sons. For one, IPs themselves resent the label attached to their identity as IPs because it connotes the need for "development" programs and projects that they supposedly need, but are usually planned/conceptualized for them by outsiders (eg. government and non-government organizations). Moreover, some indicators of poverty, like the type or housing (materials used), clothing and other material things are deemed insensitive and inappropriate to their context and culture. IPs assert that they are not poor, espe cially as long as they are in their ancestral domains where natural resources are usually bountiful.

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) is an autonomous region located in southern Philippines. It replaced the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), when its basic law, the Bangsamoro Organic Law, was ratified after a two-legally binding plebiscite in Western Mindanao on January 21 and February 6, 2019.

BARMM retained the five provinces that were already part of ARMM, namely Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao, located in mainland Mindanao, and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi which are collectively known as BASULTA.

In the 1990s, the academic literature on indigenous women, particularly in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), had reached a consensus that the western feminist thesis of the “triple burden” (i.e., productive, reproductive and community roles) does not generally apply in the region’s IP communities (Casambre et al. 1992; Jeffremovas, 1992; Mackay 1993; Rovillos, 1996). This means that, except in the realm of community politics, indigenous men and women share the “burdens” in production and reproduction. This body of work also agree that women in the Cordillera are not hindered by any societal and cultural norms from having access to and control over the resources and benefits in doing productive and reproductive roles. These studies implied that where indigenous customary laws and socio-political institutions are still intact and are relatively strong, women’s oppression, discrimination based on gender or gender inequality are not evident.