Why do Ifugaos claim they are not Igorots?

Answer 1

The peoples called by outsiders as Igorots consist of two groups. The larger group lives in the south, central and western areas of the Cordillera Region of northern Luzon, while the smaller lives in the east and north. Before the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, the groups now included under the term Igorot did not consider themselves as belonging to one cohesive ethnic group. No doubt some of that separatism survived Spanish and American pressures and is reasserting itself.

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It depends on how you define "Igorot". Igorot is not a designation that the people of the Cordillera region defined for themselves. It was a generic term used by other groups to refer to people of the mountains.

Traditionally, individual tribes referred to themselves from where they originate or to their ethnolinguistic grouping. In these contexts, none of the tribes call themselves "Igorot". But the Igorot word has been used so much in Spanish literature that certain tribes accepted the word as a label of themselves.

The Ifugaos' simply do not accept that external label as their name. It is in the same context why peoples of the countries of South America do not call themselves "American" even if they are part of the Americas.