88 Tadem Government assistance came late—a month after the lockdown announcement— but only in sparse amounts and benefited a tiny percentage of the population, that is, only six percent in one village. The Department of Agriculture (DA) initiated a communal farming program which the Aytas considered ironic since they have been practicing this system all along. Hygiene kits from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) were distributed but only for 70 residents or six percent of the population. The Ayta Mag-indi, however, refused to be rendered helpless by the dire situation and initiated their own self-help measures and tried to maximize and distribute equally whatever outside assistance they receive while at the same time paying special attention to the more vulnerable members of their communities. This assistance included donated funds as well as food aid. As a fallback, they also relied on their mountainous ancestral domain lands and resources to provide them with food security and physical safety from the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite generally complying with lockdown and quarantine rules, the Aytas consider these concepts alienating and strange to their culture and traditional practices. Instead, they adhere to and uphold principles of solidarity and caring for one another—constantly engaging in community-wide discussions to assess their needs and address them despite their scant resources. The next case study in this report concerns the Lumad Bakwit Schools for indigenous children and youth in Mindanao. The term “Lumad” refers to the 35 indigenous non-Islamic tribal peoples living in upland Mindanao areas while “bakwit,” is a localized version of “evacuate”—referring to communities or families dislocated by conflict situations. As with other indigenous populations in other parts of the country, the Lumads of Mindanao are often neglected and marginalized and public services such as basic education, health, and other basic services are wanting. To address the lack of educational and health facilities, the Lumads established community schools and clinics in their ancestral lands using prescribed basic education curricula mandated by the Department of Education (DepEd). In addition, more relevant and practical subjects such as agriculture and health are added—distilled from their indigenous cultures and ecological knowledge systems. In recent years, however, this ideal setup has been disrupted by military incursions in the Lumads’ areas as part of the government’s counter-insurgency campaigns. The Lumad school network has been targeted by a rising number of military and para-military operations forcing the closure of many of the schools and causing the evacuation of about 4,000 Lumad schoolchildren from their ancestral lands. The Bakwit School was thus created—a makeshift and mobile learning environment, some of which came to be relocated to Metro Manila. At the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City, about 70 Lumad children and youth make up one of the region’s Bakwit schools.