What are the different kind of people in Mindanao?

Answer 1

Particular to Mindanao is the existence of three types of people: the Lumads (indigenous people), the Filipinos (Christians) and the Moros (Islamised Lumads). Almost equally, they comprise 25% of the 65 million national population with the Filipino settlers as the more predominant.

The emergence of these types goes back to the Spanish colonisation period. Mindanao was, then, predominantly Muslim, who resisted the former Spanish colonisers.

In the late forties and the fifties the government opened up the island for homesteads. The influx of Filipinos from the other regions of Luzon and the Visayas pushed back the Lumads to the mountains and opened hostilities between the Moros and settlers. Finally, the Moros organised themselves into revolutionary groups like the MNLF and MILF. However, the MNLF signed a peace agreement with the government in 1996.

The poverty level in Mindanao is very serious, here there are 14 out of the 20 poorest provinces in the country.

A yardstick of the region's poverty is the departure of 2.4 million migrant workers to different parts of the world to work as domestic helpers. This figure continues to increase annually.

Regions predominantly occupied by the Lumads and Moros have a relatively lower literacy rate compared to that of areas dominated by Filipino settlers.

Fifty-four percent of the 400 municipalities have no doctors and 73% of the over 16 million population need safe drinking water. Yet, of the 19% national budget for social services, only 22% goes to Mindanao. (pp. 3-4)

The Lumads

Not considering the Moros, who are Islamised Lumads, there are 17 Lumad ethnic groups spread out in 19 provinces (according to the Lumad Development Center Inc). Of the 17, six have a population of 200,000 to 300,000. (Table below).

Lumad Ethnic Group Population:

1. Subanen 311,000

2. Mandaya/Mansaka 300,000

3. Manuvu 250,000

4. B'laan 250,000

5. T'Boli 227,955

6. Teduray 204,080

Since the Spanish colonisation, the Lumads of Mindanao played host to 226 development-generating projects that exploited all major resources of what the Lumads claim as their ancestral domain.

Considering 1980 records, there were 110 logging concessions, 92 grazing projects, eight mining concessions, four plantation corporations, four industrial tree plantations, four government reservations and four power generating plants. The Lumad Development Center Inc further claim that over 1,179 million hectares of Lumad ancestral domains have been converted to development projects. In sum, this covers about 11.6% of Mindanao's total land area. This excludes 31 projects and concessions of American and Filipino groups in Davao City that are of unknown coverage.

More ancestral lands have opened up to local and foreign investors in the logging and mining industries. Recently, the government released 50,000 hectares of forest land to private investors through the Industrial Forest Management Agreement and another 86,000 hectares to Timber Licensing Agreement. (p.4)