Indigenous Peoples and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learning, Preparedness, Challenges and the Way Forward

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), in 2007 and the Philippines’ Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (1997) both recognize that access to education is a key component of Indigenous self-determination. Rushed responses in the early onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have, however, illuminated the tensions between contemporary statecraft and these ostensibly inalienable human rights. Employing quantitative and qualitative research methods, this study assesses the degree to which Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and Indigenous Cultural Communities (ICCs) in the Nueva Ecija region of the Philippines considered themselves prepared for the technologically dependent learning modalities that dominate the post-COVID educational landscape. While we recommend that government bodies and educational institutions work with IPs/ICCs to address longstanding inequalities, we also draw attention to how Indigenous knowledge contains key insights into contending with ongoing and future pandemics along with other existential crises of universal concern.