1 in 4 Filipinos Is Ethnically Tagalog. Here's a Breakdown of Ethnicities in the Philippines

About 28.2 million Filipinos, or about a quarter of the country’s total household population of 108.6 million, claim to be ethnically Tagalog, according to a new report by the Philippine Statistics Authority. 

A census of population and housing conducted in 2020, but whose results were only released by the PSA on Monday (July3), revealed that 26 percent of the country’s total household population reported Tagalog as their ethnicity. While many people know Tagalog as one of the major languages of the Philippines, the word also refers to the ethnic group native to Metro Manila and surrounding provinces, including CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon), as well as Bulacan, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, and other areas in Central and Southern Luzon. 

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After the Tagalogs, the second-largest ethnic group in the Philippines are the Bisaya or Binisaya, numbering 15.5 million or 14.3 percent of the total household population. Bisaya people are native to the Visayan islands in the central Philippines, such as Panay Island, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Samar, and Leyte, but can also be found across a vast swath of southern Luzon and Northern Mindanao, from Bicol and Palawan to Bukidnon, to the Agusan and Davao provinces.

Tied at third place at about eight percent of the total household population are the Ilocanos and Cebuanos, both at roughly 8.7 million people, respectively. The Ilocanos mostly reside in the northwest of Luzon island and spread out in the Ilocos provinces, La Union, and Pangasinan, although migration have taken the Ilocano people all over the country and even overseas, with many living in the US states of California and Hawaii.

Cebuanos, meanwhile, mostly come from the island of Cebu but can be found in large numbers in other places in the country, including Siquijor, Bohol, the Negros provinces, southwestern Leyte, Western Samar, Masbate, and parts of Mindanao.

Ilonggo people, found mostly in the provinces in Panay Island (Iloilo, Antique, Aklan, and Capiz) and Guimaras, follow close behind, at 8.6 million, or 7.9 percent of the population, while Bicol (or Bikol) people, mostly from the region in Southeastern Luzon, number about seven million, or 6.5 percent.

The rest of the rankings of ethnic populations in the country include the Warays (4.1 million, 3.8 percent), the Kapampangans (3.2 million, 3 percent), and Maguindanao and Pangasinan (both at 2 million, 1.9 percent).

About 20.1 million (18.5 percent) were lumped under “other local ethnicities,” which include Tausug, Maranao, Manobo, Subanen (or Subanon), Kankaney, Ibaloy, Mandaya, and many others, while foreign ethnicities living in the Philippines numbered around 231,000 (0.2 percent).

The PSA census also reported that a huge majority—93.09 million or about 85.7 percent—were classified as non-Indigenous Peoples (non-IPs), while the remaining 15.56 million household population were IPs identified by National Commission on Indigenous People (NCIP) at 8.21 million (7.6 percent), Muslim tribes identified by National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF) with 5.48 million (5.0 percent), and IPs and Muslim tribes identified by both NCIP and NCMF with 1.63 million persons (1.5 percent).

A total of 9.84 million or 9.1 percent of the 108.67 million household population were identified as IPs by the NCIP comprised. The top 10 IP groups in the Philippines accounted for about 48.3 percent of the total IP population, with Subanens (Subanons) ranked first (758,499 persons, 7.7 percent), Manobos (644,904 persons, 6.6 percent), and Mandayas (523,475 persons, 5.3 percent).

One other interesting tidbit that the PSA census found is that, of the 231,000 people with foreign ethnicity in the country in 2020, those who identified as Chinese ranked first at 102,577 persons (44.4 percent of the total population with foreign ethnicity), Indians at 23,464 persons (10.2 percent), and Americans and Swiss tied with 13,946 persons and 13,777 (6.0 percent), respectively.

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