Ethnic groups in the Philippines

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The Philippines is inhabited by more than 182 ethnolinguistic groups,^[1]: 5 many of which are classified as "Indigenous Peoples" under the country's Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997. Traditionally-Muslim peoples from the southernmost island group of Mindanao are usually categorized together as Moro peoples, whether they are classified as Indigenous peoples or not. About 142 are classified as non-Muslim Indigenous people groups, and about 19 ethnolinguistic groups are classified as neither Indigenous nor Moro.^[1]: 6 Various migrant groups have also had a significant presence throughout the country's history.

The Muslim-majority ethnic groups ethnolinguistic groups of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan are collectively referred to as the Moro people,^[2] a broad category that includes some Indigenous people groups and some non-Indigenous people groups.^[1]: 6 With a population of over 5 million people, they comprise about 5% of the country's total population.^[3][4] The Spanish called them Moros after the Moors, despite no resemblance or cultural ties to them apart from their religion.

About 142 of the Philippines' Indigenous people groups are not classified as Moro peoples.^[1]: 6 Some of these people groups are commonly grouped together due to their strong association with a shared geographic area, although these broad categorizations are not always welcomed by the ethnic groups themselves.^[5][6][7] For example, the Indigenous peoples of the Cordillera Mountain Range in northern Luzon are often referred to using the exonym^[5] "Igorot people," or more recently, as the Cordilleran peoples.^[5] Meanwhile, the non-Moro peoples of Mindanao are collectively referred to as the Lumad, a collective autonym conceived in 1986 as a way to distinguish them from their neighboring Indigenous Moro and Visayan neighbors.^[8] Small Indigenous ethnic communities remain marginalized, and often poorer than the rest of society.^[9]

About 86 to 87 percent of the Philippine population belong to the 19 ethnolinguistic groups are classified as neither Indigenous nor Moro.^[1]: 6 These groups are sometimes collectively referred to as "Lowland Christianized groups," to distinguish them from the other ethnolinguistic groups.^[10] The most populous of these groups, with populations exceeding a million individuals, are the Ilocano, the Pangasinense, the Kapampangan, the Tagalog, the Bicolano, and the Visayans (including the Cebuano, the Boholano, the Hiligaynon/Ilonggo, and the Waray).^[1]: 16 Many of these groups converted to Christianity,^{[citation needed]} particularly both the native and migrant lowland-coastal groups,^[11] and adopted foreign elements of culture throughout the country's history.^{[citation needed]}

Due to the past history of the Philippines since the Spanish colonial era, there are also some historical migrant heritage groups such as the Chinese Filipinos and Spanish Filipinos, both of whom intermixed with the above lowland Austronesian-speaking ethnic groups, which produced Filipino Mestizos. These groups also comprise and contribute a considerable proportion of the country's population,^[12] especially its bourgeois,^[13] and economy^{[13][14][15][16]} and were integral to the establishment of the country,^[11] from the rise of Filipino nationalism by the Ilustrado intelligentsia to the Philippine Revolution.^[17] Other peoples of migrant and/or mixed descent include American Filipinos, Indian Filipinos,^[18] and Japanese Filipinos.^[19]

Aside from migrant groups which speak their own languages, most Filipinos speak languages classified under the Austronesian language family, including the various Negrito peoples of the archipelago, which are genetically and phenotypically distinct from the other ethnic groups of the Philippines.^[20] While these groups have maintained a culture and identity distinct from neighboring ethnic groups, they have long adapted their neighbors' Austronesian languages.^[21] Traditionally subcategorized geographically as the Ati people of Visayas and Mindanao, and the Aeta of Luzon, the Negrito population was estimated at 31,000 as of 2004.^[22]