[1] Usage of the term was accepted in Philippine jurisprudence when President Corazon Aquino signed into law Republic Act 6734, where the word was used in Art.

[3] The name Lumad grew out of the political awakening among tribes during the martial law regime of President Ferdinand Marcos.

Lumad-Mindanao's main objective was to achieve self-determination for their member-tribes or, put more concretely, self-governance within their ancestral domain in accordance with their culture and customary laws.

The resolution stated that elders, leaders, and members of different ICCs and IPs in Mindanao requested that they not be called "lumad", and instead want to be referred to by their respective ethnolinguistic group names.

Like all Negritos, the Mamanwas are phenotypically distinct from the lowlanders and the upland Manobos, exhibiting curly hair and much darker skin tones.

[23] However, recent genomic evidence suggests that the Mamanwa were one of the first populations to leave Africa along with peoples in New Guinea and Australia, and that they diverged from a common origin about 36,000 years ago.

The Mamanwa have been exposed to many of the modernities mainstream agricultural populations possess and use, such as cell phones, televisions, radio, and processed foods.

[26] They believe in a collection of spirits, governed by the supreme deity Magbabaya, although it appears that their contact with monotheist communities and populations has made a considerable impact on the Mamanwa's religious practices.

[31] The total current Manobo population is not known, although they occupy core areas from Sarangani island into the Mindanao mainland in the regions of Agusan, Davao, Bukidnon, Surigao, Misamis, and Cotabato.

[31] Part of what makes the classification more difficult is that a dialectical subgroup's membership within a supergroup can shift depending on specific points of view regarding linguistics.

Their traditional territories is in Davao del Sur and the Sarangani Province particularly in the localities of Malalag, Lais, Talaguton Rivers, Sta.

They later attracted attention in the 1980s when it was reported that their discovery had in fact been an elaborate hoax, and doubt was raised both about their status as isolated from other societies and even about the reality of their existence as a separate ethnic group.

Coastal Tedurays are mostly farmers, hunters, fishermen, and basket weavers; those living in the mountains engage in dry field agriculture, supplemented by hunting and the gathering of forest products.

While many have adopted the cultures of neighboring Muslims and Christians people, a high percentage of their population still believe and practice their indigenous customs and rituals.

Their whereabouts and identity are to some extent confused in the literature; some publications present the Teboli and the Tagabilil as distinct peoples; some locate the Tbolis to the vicinity of the Buluan Lake in the Cotabato Basin or in Agusan del Norte.

The T'boli, then, reside on the mountain slopes on either side of the upper Allah Valley and the coastal area of Maitum, Maasim, and Kiamba.

However, much of their land has already been registered in the name of multinational corporations, logging companies, and other wealthy Filipinos, many of whom are, relatively speaking, recent settlers to Mindanao.

Mai Tuan, a T'boli leader explains, "Now that there is a peace agreement for the MNLF, we are happy because we are given food assistance like rice... we also feel sad because we no longer have the pots to cook it with.

Caught in the conflict, the Lumad people's education, property, and security are endangered by the increasing amount of violent confrontations by the armed parties.

[68] In Surigao del Sur, a barangay was evacuated to shelter sites in Tandag City because of increasing military and NPA activity.

[71] Human rights watchdogs, Indigenous peoples groups, and environmentalists claim that Lumad territories were being militarized by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and that community leaders and teachers were being detained by the military on suspicion of being rebels.

[75] The Philippines Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has been investigating the 2015 murder of Lumad leaders and a school official by paramilitary group Magahat-Bagani[76] (in line with the idea of CAFGU) created by the AFP to hunt for NPA members.

Shortly after, Lumad people themselves realized they needed to have an umbrella organization through which advocates from around the world could work together, leading to the creation of the Liyang Network.

[83] Liyang Network organizes forums, webinars, and educational discussions on current sociopolitical issues and their root causes—mainly the needs of Lumad and rural communities.

More than 40,000 Indigenous peoples—whole communities whose social, political, and economic life had been obstructed—had no choice but to evacuate because their schools were attacked or their leaders had been murdered or incarcerated.

[85][86] A pro-AFP and pro-mining datu[87] of the Langilan Manobo people in Davao del Norte, during an AFP-sponsored press conference, claimed that the NPA were responsible for the killings and that none of the alleged "militarization" was actually happening.

[93][94] In 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to shut down or destroy NGO-funded community schools because of suspicions that they radicalize Lumad students into joining the NPA communist rebels.

[100] In August 2019, after spending time in refugee camps, Lumad evacuees in Surigao del Sur formally returned to their home after army soldiers left their communities.

[100] In a Bakwit school in Cebu, 22 students, 2 teachers and 2 tribe elders were arrested without a warrant on 15 February 2021, in what was labeled as a "rescue operation".

[110] Local officials claimed the operation aimed to reunite the children with their parents[111] while human rights groups condemned the raid as part of a pattern of harassment of Indigenous peoples.