Education While free public education is purported to be available for everyone, the realities of the indigenous women and girls make it very difficult for them to enjoy this right. There is the issue of distance - students had to walk for hours to get to school. For those who have passable roads, they have to pay big amounts for habal-habal or local transportation. Other expenses incurred for meal allowances, and payment for boarding house rentals is another challenge. These challenges did not disappear, however, with the shift to online and module-based learning during the COVID-19 lockdown. In fact, the new challenges made it more difficult for the indigenous children. The families could not afford the requirements needed for online schooling such as laptop and smartphones, stable internet connection, and electricity. For the module-based learning, it puts extra work and pressure on mothers who are expected to assist their children. This role is expected for a significant number of indigenous mothers, and parents in general, despite the fact that they have not gone to school themselves. The survey results have shown the inability of the educational system of the country to seriously consider and integrate in its planning a more responsive program to the realities of indigenous families and communities. Livelihood Indigenous women and their families rely heavily on farming and agricultural work for their income and livelihood. The respondents are cultivating land for rice, corn, root crops and vegetables for their own consumption with an intended surplus harvests to sell for non-food needs of their families. However, indigenous farming practices way before COVID-19 came already faced numerous challenges. Such challenges include the encroachment of large corporations into the ancestral domains, and the climate crisis. The insufficiency of income from farming have pushed indigenous women to look for other means to earn income such as handicraft making, weaving and becoming a household help or farm laborers specially for those who don’t have their own land to cultivate. With COVID-19 lockdown and strict quarantine protocols, indigenous women were confronted with even graver challenges on how they will make ends meet. Farming has become the only source of livelihood for many indigenous women and their families as other work was no longer available. Furthermore, the lockdowns posed difficulties in selling their farm products due to costly travel requirements. This has caused a significant decrease in the income of the indigenous women and their families. Indigenous Women Human Rights Defenders Work Before and during the pandemic, there was a significant number of indigenous women that identified themselves as indigenous women human rights defenders (IWHRD). A significant number of them point out gender-based violence as the primary issue within their communities. Land conflict and harassment comes second. Issues of harassment and red-tagging that are Page 7 of 206