Abstract: The contestations involving identities and territories in the light of fully emancipating the Muslim Filipinos of Mindanao reveal an array of legal, political, cultural, and ethical polemics. They expose the serial disenfranchisement of the ‘Lumad’ in the past Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and potentially in the future given the current articulations of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL). In order to secure their future, the ‘Lumad’ of Mindanao and their supporters have postured themselves to engage in a dialogue for inclusive peace. This consequently produces compounded and multi-layered interests that need to be balanced and arbitrated by the state in the ongoing peace deal vis-à-vis the Bangsamoro problem. This paper shall therefore attempt to advance a ‘neutral’ Philippine state framed from the lens of social justice and the tri-people notion of a nation in the hope of avoiding the perils of second-ordering the ‘Lumad’ in the powers of the Bangsamoro or ultimately, of the state.