Acting Chief Justice Antonio T. Carpio | 062318
Second divisive idea: Indigenous people
The second Idea that Divides the Nation is the legal concept of indigenous people under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 or the IPRA Law. Under the IPRA Law, Filipinos who are Christians, and those who have adopted Western customs and practices, constituting the vast majority of Filipinos, are not indigenous people of the Philippines. As a legal, social, and historical concept, indigenous people are the First People or the Native People, inhabiting a territory from the beginning, in contrast to those who settled in, occupied or colonized the territory later. If the Christian Filipinos like me, and almost all of you here, are not indigenous to the Philippines, where did we come – from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, America, or Mars?
“The IPRA Law discriminates against the majority of native Filipinos on the basis of religion, language, customs, and traditions. The worst injustice is that the majority of native Filipinos like you and me are no longer considered indigenous people of the Philippines.”
We are definitely not Europeans, Middle Eastern, Africans, or native Americans. We certainly are not Martians. We are, of course, beyond any shadow of doubt, indigenous to the Philippines. We have the same DNA, belonging to the same Malay race, as the non-Christian Lumads who are called indigenous people under the IPRA Law. The ancestors of Christians Filipinos were Lumads too before they converted to Christianity. Should their descendants now be designated by law non-indigenous to the Philippines just because their ancestors exercised their religious freedom upon the arrival of the Spaniards almost 500 years ago?
The fact that some native inhabitants of the Philippines embraced Christianity, Islam, or any other non-indigenous religion and adopted Western or Middle Eastern customs and practices did not, for sure, make them non-indigenous to the Philippines. But the IPRA Law disqualifies them from being called indigenous people. Under the IPRA Law, Filipino Muslims are also not indigenous people.