settled down to the five predominantly Muslim provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.
they generally acquired their lands through legitimate means, following the laws of the land. Further, they would like the government to observe democratic processes in dealing with the ancestral domain claims of both the Bangsamoro and the Lumad.
With the resumption of the Bangsamoro struggle by the MILF and the entry of ancestral domain into the agenda of the GRPMILF negotiations, the term came to include not only the traditional lands of the various Moro ethnolinguistic groups but also portions of those territories which used to be encompassed within the political domain of the sultanates. Among other things, the MILF negotiating panel expressed the Bangsamoro desire to settle disputes or claims over those lands Moros lost by force majeure from 1968 onward.
General Implications of Moro and Lumad Struggles for Self-Determination A number of issues were surfaced by MNLF’s political position. One, it questions the very foundation of the Republic of the Philippines - that of one country, one territory, one people. Formed from the sovereign states of the Sulu and Maguindanao sultanates and the Pat a Pongampong ko Ranao, the Bangsamoro is said to have been appended to the Philippines through the Treaty of Paris, and later in the formation of the Republic of the Philippines, without their plebiscitary consent. They are Bangsamoro, not Filipino. The good part of this position is that the proponents, MNLF and MILF, open themselves to negotiation and compromise.
Lumad Self-Determination The Lumad struggle for self-determination is less complex. Lumad is their collective identity; they have their own right to self-determination; and they wish to govern their own lives using their customary laws within their own ancestral domains – within the national territory and under the sovereignty of the republic of the Philippines.
Two, the Lumad communities, threatened by this political stand, later came forward with their own assertion of selfdetermination. They express respect for the Bangsamoro identity and the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination but they assert that they are Lumad; they too have their own right to self-determination, and they have their own respective ancestral domains distinct from that of the Bangsamoro. Besides, their ancestors and those of the Bangsamoro entered into agreements (variously called safa, pakang, dyandi, khandugo, tampuda hu balagon) on territory (read: border agreements); these agreements are still in effect and they would like these recognized by the present generation of Bangsamoro. A renewal
In response to Bangsamoro claims that the Lumad communities form part of the Bangsamoro and their ancestral territories form part of Bangsamoro ancestral domain, Lumad leaders have repeatedly made manifest their official position in several written statements. More on this is shared below.
Settlers’ Proprietary Claims The general position of the settlers is that they are aware that they migrated from outside Mindanao, mostly from the northern and central Philippines; they resettled in Mindanao, but that 15
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Land Tenure Stories in Central Mindanao
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