Indigenous games

Traditional Filipino Games or Indigenous games in the Philippines (Tagalog: Laro ng Lahi) are games commonly played by children, usually using native materials or instruments. In the Philippines, due to limited resources of toys for Filipino children, they usually invent games without the need of anything but the players themselves. Their games' complexity arises from their flexibility to think and act.

Laro ng Lahi was coined and popularized by the Samahang Makasining (Artist Club), Inc. (commonly known "Makasining") with the help of National Commission for Culture and the Arts and being used by the other Philippine Local Government Unit, other organizations and other institution. Imparting of these Filipino games to the youth is one of the main objectives of the organization. The Makasining also created time based scoring for five selected games (Patintero, Syatong, Dama, Lusalos and Holen).

Dickie Aguado, Executive Director of Magna Kultura Foundation (a Philippine NGO for Arts and Culture), confirms that the Traditional Filipino Games are "very much alive in the Philippines". Despite what some say about Filipino Street Games vanishing in Philippine society due to computers and technology, that is not actually true. In many urban and rural areas, a great majority of Filipino children still play outdoor street games, as most of them are still unable to own technology. Games such as Patintero, Tumbang Preso, Piko, Sipa, Turumpo, and many others, are still played daily in neighborhoods. One of the main reasons why some children stop playing Filipino games is because Western sports activities (i.e., basketball or volleyball) are more prominently organized in local Barangays and in schools. With lack of organized sports activities for Filipino street games, Filipino children can only adapt to modern society by quitting their childhood games.

There are over thirty-eight known Filipino games, and many of these are as challenging and competitive as Western-style games. A non-exhaustive list of Traditional Filipino Games include the following:

...
Wikipedia