Philippines T he National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) estimates the population of indigenous peoples in the Philippines at between 12 and 15 million distributed into approximately 110 different ethno-linguistic groups or ‘cultural communities’ (Pedragosa, 2012). However, there is no detailed breakdown of disaggregation of data from the Government as of 2015 (Molintas, 2004). Condensed from The Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines: A Background by Dave de Vera and Shirley Libre of Philippine Association for Intercultural Development (PAFID). For more details of the case, contact: devera.dave@gmail.com or balayluwad@ yahoo.com. 96 Indigenous peoples are defined by the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act (IPRA) of 1997 as “a group of people or homogeneous societies identified by self-ascription and ascription by others, who have continually lived as organized communities on community-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, become historically differentiated from the majority of Filipinos. ICCs/IPs (Indigenous Cultural Communities/indigenous peoples) shall likewise include peoples who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from 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, Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC)