In an en banc resolution, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) denounced the use of the term ‘Lumad.’ Lumad is a term for non-Moro indigenous peoples in Mindanao. According to the resolution, “the term lumad was chosen to control the identification of the IPs under the banner of CPP-NDF-NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front-New People’s Army).” This account is disputed by Jimid Mansayagan, chair of the governing council of the Lumad Mindanao Peoples Federation.
LRC has published a video titled The Lumad’s Story, which traces the history of the term and highlights the continuing struggles of indigenous peoples (IPs), which the term helps to surface. IPs, after all, are some of the country’s most ardent defenders of nature.
‘Lumad’ lays bare the web of competing motivations and mandates in which IPs are caught. Moves to delegitimize the term risk losing the shared and storied experiences of IPs. They push IPs further into the background of national life. For the truth is, as anthropologist Oona Paredes says, “IPs may be recognized formally as Filipino citizens today, but in the majority of the population, informal notions of citizenship continue to privilege a homogenized, Catholic’ national’ monoculture to which IPs and other minorities are, at best, quaint addenda.”
Watch the video here.
For more information contact:
Maya Quirino
Advocacy Coordinator, Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC)
Email: mquirino.lrc@gmail.com