Three weeks in the Cordilleras of Luzon and I feel like I have only scratched the surface of experiencing the rich cultures that make up the Igorot people. This is a common trend I have experienced while working on the Katutubong Filipino Project and one reason I hope to extended the project longer term, perhaps for another three years. More time is needed. This is especially true when trying to tell the story of the Igorot people who live in six different provinces with over 20 tribes all speaking different languages, practicing different rituals, and have different beliefs and cultures. Visiting the Cordilleras was like stepping into another country for me, a drastic change in geography and people’s general positive outlook and attitude toward their own way of life. Although I wasn’t able to visit all six provinces that make up the Cordilleras, this trip did provide as an excellent introduction to the area and whetted my appetite to learn and experience more on a return trip.

A Butbut Kalinga Woman looking out of her window one afternoon after inviting us into her home. The tattoos on her arms are used as a form of beautification and identity which is specific to certain Kalinga tribes.

The majestic Cordillera mountains with clouds setting in, Abra Province.

From a historical standpoint, the people of the Cordilleras were never a united people and still to this day there are peace pacts in place to keep order among many of the tribes. The term Igorot is an old Tagalog word meaning “people from the mountains” and is a general term used to include all of the mountain tribes from the Cordilleras. The Spanish adopted this term, but it was generally used in a negative manner referring to savages and backward people of the mountains. However, the Spanish themselves were never able to fully penetrate the Cordilleras during their 300 year colonial period in the Philippines and thus had very little influence on the Igorot people and their way of life. Part of this was likely due to the rugged terrain of the area but also because of the fierce nature of the people, who would not surrender easily to outsiders. It wasn’t until the early 1900′s when the American Episcopal church came into some areas of the Cordilleras and people started to convert to Christianity and get formal education.

Today, the term Igorot is often debated among the people of the Cordilleras as to what the politically correct use should be. Many groups now proudly proclaim themselves as Igorots while other tribes still prefer to be called by their more specific tribal names. After three weeks in the area and hearing time and time again people referring to themselves as Igorots I never got the feeling that it is a negative term to use. I refer to the Igorot people in the most honorable and respectful manner.

Portraits of Lakay Lausan a Tingguian man and Lakay Wa-aw a Kankanaey man. Lakay Lausan is one of the elders in a small village we visited in Abra province. Lakay Wa-aw is one of the older Kankanaey men still around and at 92 he has nine children and over 30 grandchildren. The two water buffalo horns above him are from two of his children's weddings. His necklace is centuries old and has been passed down from generation to generation. It is made of wild bore tusks and crocodile teeth from the Visayas.

Traditional loom weaving provides livelihoods for a number of different communities within the Cordilleras. This is a Kalinga woman in her home where she spends her days making different patterns on her wooden loom. The finished products may be sold locally or sent to Baguio.

One of the unique aspects of life in the Cordilleras is that the Igorot people are essentially a self-contained society running all aspects of life from businesses to politics. Unlike many of the other tribes or indigenous communities in the country who have been extremely marginalized and pushed to small pieces of their original land, the Igorot people, generally have maintained much of their land. There are always ongoing issues with regards to ancestral domain, and from what I have been told the process to actually get declared ancestral domain is almost unimaginable. However, the Igorot people have managed to maintain much of their land excluding outsiders or lowlanders from coming in and setting up shop. This has essentially allowed all development to generate from the people themselves.

Allan, a well-known man from Sagada, Mountain Province, checking his beehives. He harvests the mountain honey and sells his product primarily to visitors staying at his lodging house or passing through his restaurant. All businesses in Sagada are locally owned and run by Igorot people.

With the increase of tourism in the Cordilleras, some local and foreign tourists are looking to find more adventurous hiking treks in the extremely beautiful mountains. Sagada in the Mountain Province in particular is often overwhelmed with people visiting that there are not enough rooms for visitors, especially during holidays. I had to sleep with the cook from the lodging house I was staying for one evening because all the rooms were full with a large tour group. However, most visitors only stay for a couple of days exploring the caves and other attractions closer to Sagada. Local guides and porters (such as shown in this photo) rely on tourism and are very knowledgeable about the area.

Local tourists from Manila watch as Siegrid from Sagada Pottery shows them how to create a clay jar. All the clay used here is local and Siegrid is very passionate about her artwork. Sagada Pottery is one of many businesses/products people visiting the area come to see.

Seeing life in Sagada and other city centers in the Cordilleras being completely run and shaped by locals was really very inspiring to see. I can’t think of another place off hand where this same type of system is in place. It shouldn’t be a surprise though seeing that the Igorot people were able to keep the Spanish away for over 300 years. In more recent times, they were also able to rise up and keep President Marcos from building a huge dam on the Chico River in the late 70′s and early 80′s. If the damn had been built it would have displaced a large number of communities and their rice fields. The people were able to join forces with the communist rebels and stop the damn from being built. Today, there is a plan to put a number of windmills around Sagada and the people are highly skeptical of the plan and the feasibility behind it. I don’t think the plans will push through because the people will not allow it too, one way or the other. It’s cases like this that show the true resolve of the people and how maintaining what is theirs is of vital importance to them.

Away from the city centers life is a little more slow pace with a big portion of time spent farming, preparing food, and tending to the house and family. I was fortunate enough to visit a number of different communities on this trip including one that took two days of rugged hiking to reach. The hike through the mountains was one of the hardest hikes I have done in recent memory, but was worth every step being able to experience mountain life and a community still very much isolated in terms of distance.

A Kalinga man fixing his pig pen, Kalinga Province. Pigs are an important part of life in the Cordilleras, providing a food source and used for a number of different rituals as well. In some communities I think there were more pigs walking around than people.

A Kalinga couple preparing beans for dinner in their home, Kalinga Province.

Eating and socializing is an important time each day for people to talk and build relationships. After eating the men will generally have a few drinks together and the women will continue cleaning up after the meal. Most of our meals were cooked over an open fire and pitch pine (an oily part of the pine tree) is used for light at night instead of kerosene lamps. My most memorable meal on this trip consisted of wild mushroom soup, fresh green ferns, freshly picked avocados, green mangoes with hot pepper salt, and mongo bean and pork soup.

Portrait of a Tingguian woman having a smoke in her home, Abra Province.

Much of the culture and life in the Cordilleras revolves around rice. From planting to harvest each period represents a time that is honored and sacred in its own way. My trip happened to be during a growing period and I was not able to see a lot of people planting or harvesting rice. There is always some activity though as weeding, keeping birds away, drying harvested rice and other tasks are ongoing. Rice is the staple crop for the Igorots and they have built some of the biggest and most advance rice terraces in the world. Traveling through the Cordilleras you will see some amazing terraces that have been around for millennium. To this day many of the tribes still practice thanksgiving rituals before planting and at harvest time. The Begnas ritual for the Kankanaey and the Bumayah for the Ifugao people are two examples of this. These rituals are usually put together very fast and are never scheduled, so witnessing one takes some patience and timing. Perhaps on my next visit I will be able to witness one.

Although uncommon for this time of year, I came across a woman planting rice one morning in Kalinga Province. Stoned rice terraces are very common in the Cordilleras and represent an ancient and sustainable system for communal rice production.

Drying rice in the sun is the most traditional method for reducing moisture content and the only method available in most remote locations.

A Kankanaey woman having coffee with her grandchild during a mid-day break from working in the rice field.

Aside from rice cultivation there are numerous agricultural products grown in the Cordilleras because of the altitude and cool temperature. Coffee is a popular product and most households drink a good amount of the stuff. It wasn’t uncommon to have about 10 cups of coffee a day, but it sure beats the instant coffee I usually drink when out in the field. Vegetables and other produce are grown in abundance and many of them are brought to the lowlands to be sold. Likewise, the forest and mountains themselves are also an important resource for the Igorot people. Hunting and fishing are important parts of culture in the Cordilleras and is often learned at at early age. During my long trek into the mountains I was able to experience a little of this life myself.

The Cordilleras have an unique assortment of habitats that cover the mountains. While hiking you can find yourself in a dry pine forest one minute and then a kilometer down the path entering a wet mossy forest. Eventually you will run into a grassy mountain top or some rices terraces along the way as well. This is a pine forest just after a light rain came down in Abra province.

The forest still provides an abundant source of wild meat for many families. Wild pigs, deer and birds are still commonly caught by hunters. We spent a couple of nights in the forest at different hunter camps and even ran into a wild pig while hiking (unfortunately my guide did not have a gun on him). Here is a collection of wild pig skulls all caught by La-aw who is shown in one of the picture below.

Two Tingguian men. Marlon is an expert fisherman and La-aw is a mountain man with a lifetime of hunting experience.

Wild mushrooms like this one are abundant in the forest, especially the morning after a heavy rain. My guide was constantly picking different varieties for our meals. The forest is full of different food from mushrooms to wild berries and edible ants.

Hunting dogs are an important part of getting wild pig, deer and birds. Without a trained dog it would be very difficult to find anything. These particular guns are owned by a few young hunters we came across in the forest. We ended up hiking with them for awhile and one of their guns misfired while walking. Fortunately, no one was hurt but it was a scary situation and everyone was very lucky. I was behind them about 50 meters on the trail when I heard the gun go off. When we got to the top of the mountain we had them unload all of their guns.

Marlon and a young boy from his village looking for fish in the river. Children start to learn how to fish and hunt at an early age. Here they are using a small spear style gun to catch the river fish which are fairly small.

A young fisherman coming back from the river with his catch, Abra Province.

A dying baby carabao on the side of a river. After meeting La-aw we were told that one of his carabaos had been shoot and left to die a day earlier. La-aw hikes for 9 hours to reach the place where he lets his carabos graze for food in the mountains and he was very upset this had happened. The carabao that was killed had a baby which was left by the side of the river to die as well. It would take La-aw two days to hike back to his home and buy milk to try and save the baby carabao and by that time it would have died already. It’s unusual for someone to kill a carabao like this, especially to just leave it there and not take the meat. La-aw was upset and was trying to understand who might have done this.

An abandon village in the mountains of Abra. We slept in this abandon village one night with La-aw, who used to live here in the 80′s. During that time the Philippine military came to this village and slaughtered most of the people living there, “like chickens,” said La-aw. La-aw was able to escape when this happened and the village has been abandon ever since. His brother was one of the innocent killed. The military still to this day has clashes with the communist rebels who stay in the mountains and during this incident they accused all the of civilians of being rebels. There is a lot of history in the area and this is only one of the many crazy stories I was told regarding the military and rebels.

My visit happened to fall during summer time which is one of the wedding seasons in the Cordilleras. Wedding season really means there are a lot of weddings to attend. I thought it may be hard to find one to document, but the day I arrived there was one being prepared for that I was able to visit. The following weekend there were two more. Most of the traditional wedding celebrations in the Cordilleras now integrate a Christian church ceremony as well as the tribal ceremony and rituals. Most traditional weddings last for two to three days and everyone in the community is invited to attend and eat. I have never seen so many pigs killed before all at one time in preparation for an event.

Kankanaey women cutting and preparing vegetables for a traditional wedding. The whole community is invited to the three day celebration which means a lot of food must be prepared.

Men distributing meat to all of the people who helped cook and prepare the wedding food. As a token for their help different size chunks of meat are given out depending on what the persons role was during the preparation (in addition to being fed). I was even given two bags of meat for being there, apparently photographers have an important role as well. I saw more than 20 pigs killed and a carabao (water buffalo) just to give you an idea of the amount of food being prepared and I wasn’t there the whole time.

Many couples now also have a church ceremony as did the couple for this wedding. The ceremony at the Episcopal church was like any other church wedding with all of the traditional tribal aspects happening before or after this ceremony. Each community has different traditional ways of making two people united which are still practiced. Much of this has to do with uniting two families or clans together over time and involves a variety of different food exchanges, animal sacrifices and rituals. For example, I heard that in one particular community (as a final step to unite families) when a woman sleeps over at her mans family’s house and does the dishes in the morning it means the couple is officially married.

People waiting in a long line to visit the home of the bride during lunch time. Everyone from the community is invited to come and get food at the brides home for three days straight. Wedding gatherings are some of the bigger social events held for the Igorot people.

All of the food is cooked in large woks over an open fire. This wedding had four woks which were always full of different recipes being cooked.

Part of the practice for the Kankanaey is that all the guests who come and partake in the celebration and eat should give a small amount of money to the couple. Once you give something your name is written down in a notebook, your money placed in a large basket and you are given a token of appreciation. This couple was giving out small wooden bowls as their token.

Playing of gongs (Ganza) and dancing is a fun and typical part of the wedding celebration. Any group of people can pick up the gongs and get a dance going and it is all very spontaneous. The elders all they way to the youth enjoy playing the gongs and dancing.

In the village of Buscalan, Kalinga there are still remnants of the one thousand year old ancient art of tattooing (batek) once commonly practiced in Kalinga. Men traditionally got tattooed as a rite of being a warrior or taking a head which was fairly common place up until the time of about WWII. Thus, it is difficult to find men who still have tattoos and younger men don’t especially feel right about getting one to show their identity (because of the meaning it carries). Women on the other hand would get tattoos to beautify themselves, but more so to signify acceptance and the different stages of their life. There are a number of research articles online describing in-depth the meaning of these tattoos and the purposes for getting them if you are interested in learning more. Today, there are still numerous older women in Buscalan that can be found with the tattoos.

The art is slowly fading away, but Fang-od (Whang Od), the last remaining traditional Kalinga tattoo artist has helped bring a lot of attention back to the craft. At 93 years old Fang-od is a lively and very entertaining person who has the energy level of about a 50 year old. In 2010 she was featured on the Discovery Channel television show “Tattoo Hunter” which helped set the stage for other shows and documentaries all bringing a lot of recognition to the art. This sparked a huge amount of interest and today people from all over the Philippines and the world come to visit her and get a tattoo. Fang-od does not have any children, but one of her nieces is now starting to learn the craft. It’s hard to know what will happen after Fang-od passes on, but hopefully the traditional tattooing will somehow continue.

Two tattooed women from Buscalan, Kalinga. Ghan-nao, who is Fang-od's younger sister is on the left and has one of the more elaborate tattoos that can be seen in the village.

Fang-od giving a tattoo to a local tourist from Manila. She uses a thorn from a pomelo tree which is attached to a piece of bamboo. The bamboo that the thorn is attached to is then hit with a piece of wood to drive the ink into the skin. The ink she uses is the soot that collects on the bottom of the cooking pans she uses at home.

Another local tourist getting a tattoo from Fang-od. I was in Buscalan for four days and Fang-od gave tattoos each day I was there. One day she gave six of them. Everyday new visitors would arrive to have some of her art placed on their body.

Fang-od cooking breakfast in her home. I wanted to show her doing something with fire as that is really her element. It’s fire that allows her to make the soot used to create her tattoos and cooking is something I saw her doing everyday as well.

A blind Kalina woman in front of her home. Most of the older women in Buscalan have been tattooed.

A Butbut Kalinga woman walking back to her home, Buscalan, Kalinga.

My short visit to the Cordilleras was filled with memorable moments highlighted by the people I was able to meet along the way. My guides became friends and the communities where I stayed became familiar places. Although three weeks is not nearly enough time to see six provinces and experience the depth of cultures in the Cordilleras it was certainly one of my more memorable trips. Part of that was because I had new experiences with hiking in the mountains and pushed myself to physical extremes. Another part was because the people were so welcoming and open to sharing their ideas and thoughts with me. A lot of my time was spent waiting and hanging out in different communities, something that I have become very comfortable and patient with over the course of doing this project. I am someone who really likes to be on the move and get things done and it’s always refreshing to spend some time in a place where I can reverse that a little. I am hopeful that the Katutubong Filipino Project will be able to continue as I will be focusing now on finding more funding sources to extend this well received project. For those of you who follow the progress of the project I will be doing an update soon about what’s next and future happens that are currently in the works. Stayed tuned.

Men playing chess one afternoon in Buscalan, Kalinga.

Tingguian children playing games in one of the villages I stayed, Abra Province.

An elder cooking for a sponsored political event. The election is now over, but during my trip campaigning and politics even reached remote locations. Candidates will come into a community and sponsor a pig or two which is cooked for the entire community.

I ended up talking with this woman for some time one afternoon while she was sorting beans. Simple interactions like this one are some of the most memorable for me.

Portrait of a Tingguian child in her home. I don’t usually post photos of smiling children, but this one I could not pass up. Her smile just radiates.

Some of the many rice terraces seen in the Cordilleras. Even if it is not planting or harvest season there seems to always be some activity happening in the terraces.

Another image of an Igorot woman with her grandchild while taking a break from working in the fields.

The past couple of months have been action packed with lots of traveling, learning and thinking of the year ahead. Inevitably, when one starts to think about the challenges and hopes for the future we find ourselves reflecting on the past. It was this time last year that my wife and I finished a successful Kickstarter campaign for the Katutubong Filipino Project (Indigenous Filipino people project). It feels like a lot longer than a year ago that we ventured into this project, but we are thankful for it and for all of the people we have met because of it.

We are still working on the project with two major areas still to visit with our Kickstarter funds. After these two areas, I’m excited to continue and make this a long term project of mine. One year really just let us scratch the surface of what this project entails and I would like to look for grants and other means this year to continue photographing more groups and communities. Throughout the year, our attention will also graduate to doing some outreach with the photos we have gathered. There are avenues for this opening up so please stayed tuned for what’s to come with the Katutubong Filipino Project. Again, I am extremely grateful for all the people who have helped us along the way. I will not forget your generosity and time and something really good will come out of all the help people have given.

While most of 2012 was dedicated to working on the Katutubong Filipino Project I have also kept busy this past year with other equally important tasks. Besides the everyday undertakings of photo editing, stock image preparation, emails, contacting editors, and arranging travel, I have been refreshing my feature writing skills and learning more and more about storytelling and how to best create a strong visual narrative. Being able to tell a story with images and present it in a way that has impact and meaning takes a lot of work and heart. Storytelling has always been at the core of what I want to accomplish as a photographer and lately I have been looking more into the technical and objective side of it. There is always room to learn and grow and I have been fueling my hunger for this over the past year.

A Tagbanwa woman on Coron Island arriving home with her seaweed harvest. This was taken in Coron, Palawan while giving a one-on-one workshop last December.

More recently, my time during the past couple of months was devoted to conducting two different one-on-one workshops, which I feel were both successful in their own ways. These workshops brought me to Manila, Palawan, northern Luzon, and then eventually back home to Cebu and onward to Mindanao. I find that teaching photography techniques and seeing my students overcome challenges can be very rewarding. The one-on-one nature of the workshop I give really allows itself to focus on what the student whats to learn or improve on.

During one of the workshops, Sidney Snoeck, a Manila based photographer guided us around the city. Sidney is a wonderful guide and knows the in’s and out’s of Manila. He is passionate about finding new and interesting stories to photograph and you should visit his blog or website if you have time.

This is Kristong Hari (Christ King) who spends his Fridays in front of the Quiapo Church in Manila ready to bless and heal people. He believes that Jesus Christ took possession of his body and in 1981 he started his ministry of healing people. In this photo, Kristong Hari is singing with his followers in Quiapo and he even made his voice sound like child who he says is the voice of baby Jesus. A very interesting man.

We came across this man while walking the streets of Manila. It provided a great opportunity to look at light and create an interesting portrait. By being able to have flexibility in a workshop schedule (because it is only one-on-one) we are able to explore a bit deeper and get ourselves into situations that would be very difficult with larger groups.

One of the places we visited was the charcoal community of Ulingan, one of the poorest communities in Manila. This area certainly has one of the harshest living conditions I have seen in my life mainly because of the toxic smoke constantly inhaled from producing charcoal. Many of the families in this community buy wood that is collected by scavengers and others to make charcoal as their livelihood. In addition, their community sits on top of an old garbage dump and the conditions they live in are horrendous. Many of the families also have to resort to eating food found within the dump site. Young children help their families make charcoal and they are exposed to the fumes all day long. Sidney volunteers for a great organization that is helping the people and children of Ulingan called Project Pearls. They are making huge strides to help educate the children there and providing them with proper nutrition. If anyone is looking for an organization to get involved with this would be a great one to get in touch with.

A man tending to charcoal at Ulingan, Manila. Soil has to be placed on top of the burning wood to keep it at a certain temperature. It was hard to breathe while photographing here and it’s really hard to imagine that people live in this type of environment every day.

A charcoal worker shoveling soil on top of burning charcoal, Ulingan, Tondo, Manila.

January arrived and with the new year came festival time in Cebu City. Sinulog is one of the bigger festivals in the Philippines and it had been a couple of years since I photographed the event. This year I had time to join some of the religious processions and activities that happen during the nine days of Sinulog. I find the religious aspect of the festival much more meaningful and interesting than the grande parade with street dancing that happens on the last day. Devotees from all over Cebu and other islands make their way to Cebu City during the nine days to pay homage to the Santo Nino. Visually it is more challenging to photograph the religious aspect of the festival, but to see the devotion and dedication so many people have is truly a fascinating sight.

Nuns during the “Walk with Jesus.” Thousands of devotees gather for a procession through the streets of Cebu on the first day of Sinulog.

A ritual to commemorate the Christianizing of the Cebuano’s by the Spanish. This was done outside of the Santo Nino Basilica after the fluvial procession of the religious icons.

Alter boys lead the procession at a Sinulog Mass.

The Santo Niño de Cebú is claimed to be the oldest religious image in the Philippines, the statue was originally given in 1521 as a baptismal gift by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. Since that time Cebuano’s have celebrated and looked to the Santo Niño for special intentions and offer prayers to the baby Jesus. Today, the image of the Santo Niño is one of the most beloved and recognizable cultural icons in the Philippines, found in both religious and secular areas.

The Basilica Minore del Santo Niño in Cebu houses the original Santo Niño with thousands of people a day coming to offer prayers and petitions to the Holy Child. During Sinulog people will wait for two to three hours to see the original Santo Niño.

A woman praying at the side of the glassed housed original Santo Niño at the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño. Because of the long line people are limited to a very short time to offer their prayers or petitions, usually about 5-10 seconds. I noticed, however, that some people make their way to the side of the housed Santo Nino where they are able to spend a little longer without being bothered by security.

Devotees attend mass by the thousands. Starting at 5:30am until 8:00pm mass is held every hour and a half for nine days straight. During mass people wave their hands to the Santo Nino while singing a song called the 'Bato Balani Sa Gugma'.

Dancers perform at the Basilica after mass in preparation for the grande celebration and dancing during the street parade.

Of course, the grande parade with street dancing is a key part of the celebration as well. I have found though that this day has become very commercialized and I feel more people come out to see the actresses and actors than the street dancing. It is a fun time, but the amount of people taking photos and other photographers competing for space is a little annoying.

A colorful dancer smiles while performing during the Sinulog grande parade.

A Sinulog street dancer dressed as a native Aeta indigenous person.

After Sinulog, I made my way down to Surigao, Mindanao as part of another workshop. I love getting into rural settings and seeing people do their everyday activities. These are the places where interesting photographic opportunities often present themselves and genuine people are interested in what you are doing. Going into rural settings allows me to slow down and look a little deeper. Mindanao itself is a special place and being able to explore and look around there is always rewarding.

We came across this coconut husker in Surigao del Sur while looking for subjects to practice with off-camera flash. The husker didn’t need a flash though as the ambient light was just right.

An older couple out in the morning feeding their pigs. We came across this home while waiting to get on a boat to visit some crab farmers.

Men removing mud in a crab pond to help build up the banks around their home.

I was soon back to Cebu where some more shooting took place before finishing up another workshop. It has been a lot of fun getting to travel and spend time with students who are very much interested in learning and wanting a different perspective. I have been slowly making improvements with my one-on-one workshop tour and would certainly be open to new ideas or suggestions that people might be interested in. I am also giving some thought in putting together a local seminar or workshop either in Cebu or Manila this year. For anyone reading this that may be able to help organize something like this please feel free to get in touch with me.

Farmers weeding a field in barangay Mantalongon, the vegetable basket area of Cebu.

2012 was indeed a very productive year and I’m looking forward to what’s on the horizon. Being able to continue my work with lots of energy and ideas must mean I am in the right place. There is a lot to be thankful for, but even more to be excited about for what this year and the next may bring.

A swimmer dives between two whale sharks in Oslob, Cebu. Our last stop was a day of swimming with the whale shark of Oslob. There is some controversy about the whale sharks here because local fishermen have been hand feeding them small shrimps for almost two years now. Opinions about the controversial feeding vary greatly and while some want to ban the feeding, others believe this is an alternative income for the fishermen.

Last month I made a long awaited trip to the island of Mindoro to visit some of the different Mangyan groups there. This trip took a few months to arrange and I was very excited our journey happened as I have been wanting to visit Mindoro for a long time. Although, we knew it would not be easy to get access to the different communities we wanted to visit, our contacts and non-stop effort explaining and promoting the Katutubong Filipino Project helped us significantly on this trip. There are 8 different Mangyan groups (Iraya, Alangan, Tadyawan, Tau-buid, Bangon, Buhid, Hanunoo and Ratagnon) on the island of Mindoro and all are distinctively different including their languages. Mangyan is just the collective term used for the indigenous peoples found on Mindoro.

Something unique to the indigenous Mangyan of Mindoro is how well organized their groups are. All eight groups have active tribal councils and they are very strict about what visitors can enter their communities. Each group also has formal bylaws with penalties for different crimes that are committed. To enter the different communities we had to get clearance from the tribal leaders, the tribal councils and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples with formal letters and documentation about our project. It was all a little daunting and we never knew if we would be approved or not until we arrived. In the end we made some wonderful friends with the different mayors (tribal leaders) and they all seemed very excited about the work we are doing. We are very thankful for being approved by all the communities we visited and we are already excited about our return trip.

A Bangon Mangyan woman smoking kwako (tobacco). The Bangon are known for their pipes and even young children can be seen smoking pipes.

Portraits of a Mangyan woman and a Mangyan man transporting coconuts.

A Bangon woman in a field near the Bongabon River, Mindoro.

Our trip started in Puerto Galera, a popular get-a-way and vacation destination for those living in Manila and foreign visitors alike. I always feel a little awkward when we end up in places like this with western restaurants and resorts while working on this project. I have come to realize though that our time in places like this are generally short and are usually for a particular reason. On this trip, we came to Puerto Galera to meet with a contact who had lived with the Iraya Mangyan in the mountains outside of Puerto. This would be our starting point to meet more people and help set the tone for our whole trip.

We hiked 5 kilometers up the mountain to meet some of the Iraya people we were told about. We met some wonderful people who were able to help make arrangements for our trip south to the Hanunoo and Bangon tribes. We only stayed one night with this Iraya community, but it was a great starting point. Many of the Iraya in this area have been well educated and have jobs as teachers, police officers and government employees. In the small community we visited typical every day activities were normal with an elementary school in town as well.

A Iraya Mangyan man digging a fish pond near his home to raise tilapia for his family.

An Iraya Mangyan man mining for gold in a small river. Before we left the Iraya community we walked to a small river where we were told some of the Iraya’s often mine for gold. Rocks are used to divert water into wooden filters where small gold flakes will collect if there are any. There was only one man at the river when we went and he hadn’t had any success for the day.

An Iraya woman transporting firewood to her home.

We headed south for a day and a half to try and get permission to enter a Hanunoo community from the tribal mayor and council. After a short deliberation they said it would be ok to go into their community and stay for as long as we would like to. I wanted to visit a Hanunoo village because of their indigenous script that is still sometimes used. I wanted to find out more about it. In the meantime, I spent my days in their community learning a little about their culture and what they do on a day to day basis. We found out that most families spend a lot of their time collecting crops in their fields.

Shifting agriculture (kaingin) is a common practice by all of the Mangyan groups because it is the only way they can grow crops to eat without using fertilizers. Most families own large tracks of land which they clear and plant different crops throughout the year. Everyday, crops are harvested for daily consumption with the majority of the Mangyan diets consisting of root crops such as sweet potatoes, ube, and kamoting kahoy. Eating rice is often a luxury because it is not grown where they live. After a few years the cleared land is not fertile anymore and another area is cleared and crops are planted. This is the nature of tropical soil and a method the Mangyan have been using for a long time. Most families own multiple tracks of land that they rotate using.

Collecting crops is a daily activity for most all Mangyan families. Children help gather whatever vegetables or root crops are available for the day. Planting and harvesting crops consumes a large percentage of their time during the day.

Root crops such as sweet potatoes, ube and kamoting kahoy make up a large percent of the Mangyan diet. Here a mix of ube (the purple root) and sweet potatoes are hot off the fire and out of the pot. All their cooking is done over an open fire.

Shifting agriculture can be a touchy subject because of the environmental damage it can cause by clearing forests. After talking to a number of Mangyan they are aware of how the forests hold water into the ground (and keeps their rivers clean) and they restrict certain areas from being cleared. Forests near the river are not allowed to be cleared and any older growth forests are also not allowed to cleared. The Mangyan must have land to plant crops in order to survive. This is their main food source. However, many families are now growing larger tracks of produce that they harvest and sell to lowlanders as well. This larger scale farming on shifting agricultural lands is something that should be of concern for the forests and the Mangyan people. It is good to know though that many people there are aware of the effects of clearing all of the forest. On another related note; the Mangyan are very much against mining and any mining activities on their ancestral domain. They get a lot of offers from large and small mining companies, but they understand the long term effects of mining. Because they are well organized it is hard for companies to abuse or take advantage of their ancestral domain.

Shifting agriculture in the mountains of Mindoro. You can see in this photo how tracks of forest have been cleared to grow crops.

A mother and child walking to their kaingin field about an hour hike away from where they live.

When night falls, communities become very quite. There is no electricity available so dinner is often prepared by lantern or fire light and usually starts right after it turns dark. Most people are asleep by 8 or 9pm and awake early in the morning when the sun rises. In the mountains it can get really cold at night as well. Towards the end of our trip I came down with a flu because of the very hot days and cold nights. It’s amazing to me to see children either naked or with only a small t-shirt on all night long when two blankets and a jacket barely keep me warm. Many of the children also had small colds.

A Hanunoo house after the sun goes down. There is no electricity in the community making kerosene lamps essential to do anything after dark.

A family preparing dinner inside with light from kerosene lamps. The women are removing peas from beans collected in the field which will be used to make a tasty dinner.

Something I really wanted to see while with the Hanunoo was the Hanunoo script. The Hanunoo script is one of three indigenous scripts that is still being used today in the Philippines. The other two are the Buhid script (another Mangyan group) and the Tagbanua script in Palawan. Traditionally, the Hanunoo script was carved into fresh bamboo because paper was not readily available even 50 years ago. The script was occasionally used to communicate between communities, however, the main use of the script was to write love letters or love poetry called ambahan. Nais, one of the elders in the community we stayed with told us how they used to pass love letters to each other when they were younger. To send an ambahan or love letter to someone they would carve the script on bamboo and then place it on the corner of a path. When the other person passed by they would pick up the bamboo and read the message. She told us that everyone in the community knew what was going on, there were no secrets back then because these messages were left where everyone could read them. This was the way young men and women expressed their interest in each other and communicated.

Nais, a Hanunoo Mangyan woman writing Hanunoo script on a fresh piece of bamboo. Nais is one of only three people in her community that can still write the script.

A closer look at the script on fresh bamboo. Nais is using a small knife to carve the script on bamboo like men and women did for centuries before to pass love notes between each other.

Today, the younger generation is not learning the script although they still speak their native language. There were only three people in the community we stayed with who knew how to write the script, all well over 65 years old. The script has been well preserved, but those who know how to write it from memory may soon fade away. We were also told that there are likely thousands of ambahans that have been passed down from generation to generation. There are researchers who have spent countless time collecting these different ambahans to help preserve the poetry.

Our last night in the Hanunoo community was complete with a wonderful sunset. Here a Hanunoo woman moves her goats in a field near her home after arriving back from her kaingin field.

After leaving the Hanunoo community we spent a couple of days in the town of Roxas where St. Luke’s Medical Center and the Ramon Tulfo Good Samaritan Foundation was putting on a medical mission. The majority of the people who came to receive care were Mangyans who made the long trip down from the mountains. Because most of the leaders we needed to talk with were planning on coming to the medical mission we thought it would be a great place to meet. This was my first time to witness a medical mission and I was very impressed with how well it seemed to go. It was really well organized, with lots of help from volunteer nurses, surgeons, technicians and dentists who all came from Manila. The Mangyans and other community members seemed to all be very appreciative of the free medical care and the volunteers I talked with said they always look forward to doing this kind of work.

Many Mangyans made the long trip down from the mountains to attend a free medical mission put on by St. Luke’s Medical Center and the Ramon Tulfo Good Samaritan Foundation.

Minor surgery was one of the options offered at the medical mission. This is the only opportunity many of the area’s indigenous people have to receive certain kind of care and treatment. This man is having a cyst removed from his back.

Women line up to get x-rays at the medical mission. All of the treatments and care was done in the city’s gymnasium.

After the medical mission finished up, we headed to a Bangon community in the mountains along the Bongabon River. Getting there involved a rough motorcycle ride over rivers and very rocky terrain. There was one crossing where the motorcycle was half underwater in a fast flowing current and I had never been so nervous before seeing my camera gear tied to that bike. The drivers were very experienced though. After a couple of hours of rough motorcycle riding we had an hour hike to reach the community we would be staying at. After making arrangements with the mayor of the village the wonderful Mangyan hospitality started to shine. We were given a whole bamboo shelter to ourselves and the family who lived there transferred to another place so we could be accommodated. Cooked sweet potato’s and bananas were given to us and we felt like we had been there for a week already.

A Bangon Mangyan community near the edge of the Bongabon River, Mindoro.

A Bangon man taking a rest after hauling goods from the mountains into town.

Life in the Bangon villages are not much different from the Hanunoo villages we went to. Much of the day is spent around planting and harvesting crops from the kaingin fields. This area had a lot of bananas, however, so a good majority of the Bangon diet consisted of cooked bananas together with their root crops. Some families would produce charcoal along side the river edge which they would sell to lowlanders. Life is very simple from our point of view.

Mangyan children collecting charcoal on the side of the Bongabon river. Wood is covered with soil and rocks and set on fire for a certain period of time to produce charcoal. The temperature of the wood must not be too hot for the wood to produce the best charcoal. After the wood cools children help sift through the sand and soil to get every small piece of charcoal they can find.

A Mangyan man hauling charcoal into town to be sold.

We were asked to attend a community meeting in a nearby village the day after we arrived. This nearby village was a lot larger than the one we were staying in and the mayor thought it would be a good opportunity to let people know why we were there. Additionally, they had this village meeting scheduled to discuss an upcoming ritual they were planning (more on that later). It was nice to discuss with the community about the purpose of our stay with them and I feel like we were able to explain well what the Katutubong Filipino Project was trying to accomplish. There were a lot of questions about the project and it can sometimes be hard to explain how communities will directly benefit from the pictures we take. Because our project is to help promote awareness to non-indigenous peoples there really isn’t anything we can say about how their particular community will directly benefit from our work. It was great that they understood what we were trying to accomplish though.

Women gathered and talking to each other during a village meeting we attended.

A resting Bangon child during a village meeting.

Every Friday and Saturday many of the Bangon harvest their excess produce and transport it to the lowlands to be sold. Because a lot of the crops come from far up in the mountains, floating everything down the river is the best way to transport it. Large tire tubes are used to float bananas and other produce down the strong river to be sold in the larger Tagalog towns. Everything from ginger, bananas, coconuts, sweet potatoes, and ube come into town to be sold. It’s grueling work and everyone helps transport the goods into town, including children.

The unfortunate situation of most Bangon is they don’t get a fair price for their goods. The lowlanders give them an extremely low price, but they always sell their goods anyway because they don’t want to bring them back up the river. Many of the Bangon also occur small amounts of debt during the week from the lowlanders when they buy rice or other products from their stores in town. Because they have this debt they are obligated to sell their products at a low price to the owners. It’s a sad situation to know how little they get for all the work they do in planting, harvesting and transporting their crops. We discussed with the mayor that they need to get better organized and set fixed rates for all of the crops they sell. If all of the Bangon sold their crops at the same rate the lowlanders would still buy them, but the Bangon would be better off.

A Bangon man walking to the river early in the morning with a floating tube to transport his goods down river.

Floating produce down river like these bananas is done on large tire tubes twice a week to be sold in town.

A mother and her two children crossing a small river to reach the much larger river where produce is being transported. Many community members come out to help sell and transport goods on Fridays and Saturdays. Young children always go with their mothers and almost every women you see has a young baby with them.

Carabaos help move produce and other products to the river edge from the different Bangon communities.

In the Bangon culture if a married man wants to leave his wife for another woman he simply has pay his current wife a set amount of money. The man and woman will agree on a price, which isn't generally too much, and then the man can leave. It seemed like a fairly common thing to do and I would say that most men in the community have had two or three wives in the past. There were a lot of step brothers and sisters in the village.

The last day of our stay we were invited to watch a special ritual performed by members of the community to help cast away a bad curse they had been in for a long time. This ritual is not performed very often and to be able to watch something like this was very special. Unfortunately, I was really sick at this point and all I wanted to do was lay down. The heat was getting to me and we had to make our way down the mountain in the afternoon to catch a boat back to Manila early the next morning. The ritual got started later than expected on this Saturday, so we were only able to watch the first part of it before we had to start to make our way back down. If I had been feeling better I may have tried to stay a few hours longer and travel back down in the dark. However, it was wonderful to witness this and partake in something that rarely happens. We were honored to be guests.

It was told to us that this community was under a curse that was leading to people getting sick and crops not growing good produce. An old shaman (who is now passed away) told his people that if they continue to settle into communities (sitios) and move away from their mountain homes they would have this curse put upon them. Today, many of the Bangon of this area live in small towns or sitios away from their isolated mountain homes. Because of the curse they were now under they wanted to perform this ritual to cast it away. The ritual consisted of three different colored pigs to which the curse would be transferred to. Here one of the leaders is holding up a metal ring which all the people would have to touch.

All members of the community and visitors had to touch the pig to transfer the curse to it. We were told the ritual would last for three days because all members of the community had to touch the ring and pig and not all were present on the first day. Here people start to move in to touch the pig. The pig was eventually killed and the meat was divided amongst the village.

Over the past month I have made two separate trips to Mindanao in the hopes to document the ethnic sport of horse fighting that is still occasionally practiced by the areas Lumads (indigenous peoples). My first trip was during Davao’s Kadayawan Festival, which is an annual week long celebration featuring the different tribes from Davao. This festival is like most other festivals in the Philippines, complete with street dancing, beauty pageants and plenty of people walking around the streets. In years past horse fighting was one of the side events at the Kadayawan Festival and was the sole reason I made the trip to Davao. Sadly, the tribal Chieftain, Datu Causing Ogao, who was in charge of this years horse fighting was murdered only three weeks before the festival. This murder was one of three tribal murders in the same time frame throughout this part of Mindanao. The New People’s Army (NPA) took responsibility for these acts, but as of now there still has been no investigation by the government into the matter. Needless to say, the horse fighting activities did not happen. Many of the tribes decided to either boycott the festival or were afraid to leave their homes due to the murders. Because I was already in Davao, I ended up spending my time with the different tribes that did gather for the festivities. Most of them were staying at local elementary schools and I tried to make the best use of my time by taking portraits of the people I met.

A Matigsalug tribal Datu (Chieftain) and a Matigsalug woman from different tribes.

The tribal muse for the Klata tribe and a Datu (Chieftain) from the Obu Manuvu tribe.

An Atta Manobo woman and a boy from the Bagobo tribe.

After returning home from Davao I continued to research in hopes to find a scheduled horse fight. After a short time I found something that looked promising and I made some phone calls to confirm if a horse fight would take place. After some good information I again made my way back down to Mindanao. This time to South Cotabato. I boarded a plane and took a 6 hour bus ride all within 24 hours after I heard of this particular fight. After I arrived at the location all the signs were positive that some type of horse fight was going to take place the next day. The following morning I arrived at the venue only to find an empty field with a lot of students hanging around. It was the founding anniversary for this school so students were out of class and waiting for different activities to happen. A young T’boli man I befriended the night before was with me and he helped me get in touch with the organizer of the event. After little insight from the event organizer there were still no horses in sight and I was beginning to get worried that I may have come all this way again only to go home empty handed. It took some time, but a few hours later a couple of horses started to arrive. Then a mare arrived and a few men started to setup bamboo poles in the middle of the field. This was a great sign.

Two stallions fight over a mare. The mare, who is usually in heat, is tied up between two bamboo poles so she cannot escape. The stallions fight over her until one flees with the winner being the horse that lasts the longest. Without the mare present to stimulate the stallions sexual aggressiveness the stallions would not fight with each other. I was told the average fight lasts about 7 minutes with the longest fights taking up to 40 minutes. This particular fight lasted less than 10 minutes.

From what I have read, horse fighting is a sport thats been happening in Mindanao and other parts of the world for more than 500 years. The indigenous peoples of Mindanao have used and lived with horses for this time period and have practiced this ethnic sport as a form of entertainment for many years. Because horses are herd animals, they naturally engage in battle for leadership and for mating purposes. The sport basically emulates what horses would do in the wild under a controlled environment for the purposes of entertainment. The Animal Welfare Act outlawed all horse fighting throughout the Philippines in 1998, but on tribal lands the sport continues because it is etched into the culture of the Lumads.

Two stallions face off before they start to fight. Once fighting starts, they kick, bite and strike each other with their hooves. Before the two stallions are brought together for their bout they are each given a short one-on-one time with the mare to stimulate their sexual appetite.

The fight begins with the horses kicking and jumping at each other. Spectators in the background are mostly students who were celebrating their school's founding anniversary.

This particular horse fight was more of an exhibition than an official fight where bets take place. During bigger festivals there is usually a temporary fence built to keep people protected from the horses and to prevent the horses from running too far off. Likewise, during the bigger events a lot of gambling happens. This was just a small gathering and no gambling took place. There were only three horse fights that happened and all were less than 10 minutes each.

It was a bit exhilarating to be out in the field up close to the horses while they were fighting. There was nothing to protect me if the horses got too close and it made for a fun 30 minutes of shooting. I was chased once by a stallion and I ran away up into the crowd to escape. The people were all laughing as it was probably funny to see a tall white guy being chased by a horse.

Two stallions fight during an ethnic horse fighting event practiced by the T'boli people of Mindanao.

Eventually the horses start to bit each other going for the neck and body of the other horse. The mare who is unable to escape sometimes gets in the way and is kicked or bit as well by the fighting stallions.

Two stallions fighting with their owners watching from a distance.

I know a lot of people are very much against animal cruelty and I can see how something like this would upset many people. I actually didn’t know this practice happened here in the Philippines until about a year ago. When I first found out I was a bit disturbed, but I think I was more excited in knowing that such an unusual practice still happens. Now after having watched one (albeit a small one) I can say that it really wasn’t that bad. It’s simply an activity that people do in their community and it is a form of entertainment. Sure the horses beat the crap out of each other, but I have seen a lot worse torture of animals throughout my life and there is hardly any blood even drawn during these fights. Likewise, contrary to what many people report, the horses don’t die and their owners take very good care of them afterwards. After all, horses are expensive and they are used for transportation and as work animals in and around the community. This is just something that people have done here for over 500 years and it is a part of the indigenous peoples culture.

A T'boli man treating the wounds of a horse with Colgate toothpaste. By applying toothpaste to the wounds it helps to keep flies away and prevent infection. Often times, injections of antibiotics are giving to the more severely injured horses.

A fighting stallion returns to his normal place of residence where he will continue to work for the family's daily transportation and labor needs. This stallion has won his last eight fights.

After the horse fighting I had a little time to explore the area of Lake Sebu in South Cotabato. It is indeed a beautiful area with waterfalls, T’boli culture and peaceful lakes. Most of Lake Sebu and it’s surrounding area is ancestral domain of the T’boli people. However, many of the T’boli have sold off their land for a very low price to outsiders. In the past, much of the land was even bartered away for minimal goods such as coffee and sugar. Today, Ilonggos make up a large percentage of the community and run most of the businesses in the area.

Tilapia fish ponds early morning on Lake Sebu.

Falls Two at the Seven Falls of Lake Sebu, South Cotabato.

Last week I had the opportunity to take some images for the Gift of Grace Foundation, a non-profit organization which provides resources to elementary school children living within the Umapad dumpsite of Mandaue City, Cebu. There are four large dump sites around metro Cebu with more than 5000 people living and scavenging for materials just trying to survive in whatever way they can. Many of the children living within these dumpsites are born into a life of extreme poverty and are often given very little opportunity to escape the cycle. Meagan Kelly, founder of the Gift of Grace, started the foundation in hopes to educate children starting at a young age so that they can follow their dreams and eventually provide for their families away from the dumpsites.

Two of the 100 currently sponsored children by the Gift of Grace Foundation in their classroom at the Umapad public elementary school. School supplies, project costs and other materials are provided to children who have no other means to continue their education with the hopes of eventually restoring their dignity and escaping poverty.

During weekends or if not attending school, children spend most of their time in the dumpsite collecting materials that can be sold as recyclables or scrap material. These plastic and metal scraps are eventually sold to a middleman where they are able to make a very small amount of money.

The Umapad dumpsite is in the middle of Mandaue City which is one of the bigger cities of metro Cebu. Honestly, I never knew this dumpsite existed until I went there last week. I had been to another dumpsite before in Cebu a few years back, but I never realized that people live within these dumps in an actual community. There are homes, small sari-sari stores, a child day care center and even a small chapel. However, I was told that the land where the Umapad dumpsite is located is privately owned and therefore makes all of the residents there illegal squatters and the chapel and child day care center only temporary structures. Nonetheless, the dumpsite is home for many people who know no other way of life. The living conditions are unimaginable and the smell of garbage is sometimes overwhelming. It’s amazing to me that people live in these conditions and are able to survive.

A typical home within the Umapad dumpsite. This particular area where many of the homes are found within Umapad is no longer an active dumpsite (the active site is currently found nearby). It can be deceiving at times when you see soil and plants growing from the ground. If you walk on the soil you will feel the ground below you push downwards. This is because there is roughly 10 feet of garbage under it.

A child sitting in the entrance of her home found within the Umapad dump site. The scale in front of her house is used to weight scrap and recyclable materials found within the dump.

I’m not one who usually likes to take pictures of poverty in it’s raw form. I think it’s always better to show people a little more dignified and therefore tend to not take those types of images. However in this context I believe it’s important for people to see the conditions that children are living in. The dumpsite provides families living there with everything they need including toys for their children, clothes, well water to take a bath, wood for their homes, food to eat, and sometimes medicine.

Children of all ages scavenge for any materials that can make a small amount of money. As you can see dumpsites here in Cebu are not covered with soil or managed like other dumpsites found in the developed world. Trash is simply dumped and piled up. I was also told that 10-15 children die every year from the heavy equipment moving around. Children are run over by bulldozers or trucks when they do not see the large machinery.

A child without any clothes on plays with a toy found in the dumpsite. I also came across a boy and girl rinsing off with well water found within the dump. It is heartbreaking seeing children living in these conditions.

Working with the poorest of the poor certainly takes a special type of person with a heart of compassion and dedication to serving a greater cause. I met a number of people last week doing incredible work with the children of Umapad. Two of those people, Meagan Kelly, founder of the Gift of Grace and Father Heinz Kuluke are certainly impacting peoples lives first hand.

A long line forms for those sick in the community to receive medicine from Father Heinz Kuluke. Father Heinz visits the dump site every Saturday to hold Mass, hand out biscuits & medicine and visits with the community. I only met Father Heinz for a brief moment, but his advocacy and life's work is inspiring. Father Heinz does a lot of work with street children, sex workers and those living in dump sites in Cebu. He has also recently been elected as the 11th Superior General of the Society of the Divine Word in Rome.

Founder of the Gift of Grace Foundation, Meagan Kelly, talks to the Umapad children before handing out school supplies including backpacks, notebooks, pencils and workbooks. The gift of Grace Foundation holds a partnership with JPIC-IDC a non-profit which has helped improve the lives of the poor and marginalized in the Philippines for decades.

Children respond when asked if they want to go to school. The foundations vision for the future includes scholarships, on-site educational workshops, skills training, health education, and community education programs.

A young girl with polio from the dumpsite is unable to walk and has been carried to school every day by her father on his shoulders. It's difficult for her father as the school is far and it takes away from his time working in the dumpsite. The foundation bought them a new pedicab last week which will be used to take the girl to school now instead of on her fathers shoulders. Here the father is showing off the new pedicab in the neighborhood with his wife and disabled daughter riding.

Going to the dumpsite and visiting the children in their school was an experience that I will not forget. By the end of our short time there the children were calling me Kuya Jake (Big Brother Jake) and I felt a strong sense of community despite the conditions they are living in. The dumpsite is only 20 minutes from my home and I am going to try and revisit some of the children again in the near future. My best goes out to those helping people living in extreme poverty and to the people working directly with scavenger children in Cebu. It is a noble mission and is always in need of more people extending their help.

Children from Umapad walking to school with their backpacks and uniforms provided by the Gift of Grace Foundation.

Children in class at the Umapad public elementary school. We spent an afternoon at the school and the principal and other teachers all seemed very open and receptive of the initiatives that were taking place. The majority of the children at this public school reside within or near the Umapad dumpsite.

Two Gift of Grace children reading a book in their classroom. Currently, all the of scholars are elementary school students, but the foundation plans to eventually help high school and university students as well. It was inspiring to watch these two look through these books. We gave them the books so I could take some photos of them reading. What I didn't realize was they probably were never given books like this before to open freely and look through. The amazement on their faces for the 20 minutes they looked through them was uplifting.

Attending school is the starting point to help improve a child's life. The longer a child stays in school the more time away from the dumpsite they spend. In turn, their health often improves by being away from the toxic fumes and other health hazards. Likewise, the more years a child spends in school the better the chances of finding a job in the future away from the dump.

Things often do not turn out the way you might expect them to. Such was the case during my recent trip back to the Sierra Madres. I returned to a part of Isabela and Cagayan provinces to visit some old Agta friends from last year. Upon returning this time I had a plan to go on a hunt with some of the men, a hunt for wild pig, deer or monkey. These are game items that the Agta still hunt for occasionally in the forest to eat or sell to locals. I was excited about this trip and thought with the contacts I had made everything would fall into place fairly easily. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Uncontrollable circumstances such as bad weather, broken transportation, and previous obligations of my contacts lead to a serious amount of time waiting. Watching the pouring down rain, sitting on the side of a dusty road in the middle of nowhere and waiting for conditions to become just right for a hunt. Conditions that never happened during my two week visit.

An Agta man walking in the shallow reefs on the coast of Isabela looking for fish and octopus. The rainy weather during our visit did not make the conditions ideal for a forest hunt, but fishing continued as usual.

Despite the many hours of waiting, we were able to make the most of the circumstances. I’m referring to ‘we’ because I was with a friend, Norman Mabborang, who without his help in the four local dialects he speaks would have made for a much more difficult trip. I am very thankful for Norman’s help and for being so patient with all the down time we had. A lot of our time was spent visiting families in the different villages and getting a better sense of community life. Being back at the Blos River was also a nice treat as we were able to print pictures from our visit a year ago and share them with our friends. Seeing the excitement on the peoples faces after viewing their photos was priceless and worth the trip in itself just for that short moment.

Traditional Agta homes on the rocky banks of the Blos River. A year ago when we were at the Blos River we did not see any traditional nomadic Agta homes. However, on this visit there were about ten families who had setup a camp on the side of the river. Each shelter is a single home for a family. I also noticed that during heavy rains they will move all of their homes together to make one larger space which helps prevent rain from being blown in from the side.

The Blos River from above. The forest still has many wounds (landslides) from Typhoon Juan back in October of 2010 which is visible from the air. The weather was beautiful upon flying into Maconacon, but it did not stay that way for our whole trip.

Our journey back to Blos began from the small town of Maconacon on the east coast of Isabela. The 17 passenger Sky Pasada plane that we flew into Maconacon was full of passengers and brought us over the beautiful and lush mountains of the Sierra Madres. It took a day to reconnect with familiar faces and we soon we were off on a kuliglig heading for the Blos River. To set the tone of our adventure, our kuliglig got a flat tire about 30 minutes into our trip. We ended up waiting for a few hours on the side of the road for the kuliglig to fix the problem back in town. Eventually, our transportation returned and we made it Blos before dark.

Community members from Blos ride a local kuliglig as their main form of transportation when going back and fourth to the larger town of Maconacon. A kuliglig is basically a diesel farm engine mounted on the front of a harness which is attached to a platform where people and cargo can be placed. It's a two hour ride on one of these from Maconacon to the Blos River.

A grandfather and his grandson coming home in the rain from collecting fire wood on the nearby beach.

It was great being back in Blos and visiting with friends we hadn’t seen in almost a year. We immediately began talking with the men about arranging a hunt of some sort. It sounded like something might be possible, but then the rain came and we ended up waiting for a couple of days for the low pressure to clear. Generally, I try not to let weather stop me from shooting, but under these circumstances the men would not go hunting in the rain because the animals get scared off. While waiting for the weather to clear, daily life continued and I tried to document what I could.

Eventually the rain did clear and right away we were told that two men were going to look for octopus. I quickly grabbed my gear and headed out with them. After an hour walk to the reef the men immediately found an octopus hiding in the rocky shoreline. A pleasant surprise.

Two Agta men catching an octopus in the rocky shore where they hide out. They use a metal spear to pierce the octopus and then it takes the two of them to pull it out of the rock.

Two Agta men pull a live octopus out of the water. We ended up cooking this later that evening and it was very tasty.

For those of you who regularly follow my blog you will know that I have talked before about the proposed road connecting Illagan to Divilacan. Essentially the government wants to build an 82km road that will connect the isolated towns of Maconacon and Divilican to mainland “Luzon.” I know the road is close to being approved, although I haven’t heard if it has passed all of the clearances yet. It’s only a matter of time. During this trip I made it a point to ask regular people I met about their thoughts on the proposed road. I wanted to hear from locals who would be most affected by the plan what their thoughts were.

I talked with school teachers, pastors, Agta men and local people while riding the kuliglig. To no surprise, I found people stating both good and bad things about the road. It seems everyone is aware about the harm it will have on the environment. Everyone I talked with mentioned this. However, a few people mentioned that it will be easier to sell their goods and have access to better medical care if a road is built. Although, with that being said it was always made clear to me at the end of our conversation that the road would do more harm in the long run. As one person told me, “the government never did a survey of all the citizens that will be directly affected by this road. This seems to be a plan of certain politicians who will benefit from the project. Why would the government want to build a 1.9 billion peso road to only connect two small towns. Maconacon only has a population of 5000 people. There could be other alternatives such as a subsidized fairy boat for residents.”

It saddens me that in 5 years time this area will be connected to the rest of Luzon and slowly peoples life’s will start to change. An influx of people will certainly put more pressure on the areas natural resources and the life in the Agta communities we have come to know will change as well.

The coastline of Isabela near the town of Maconacon. The coral reefs and marine life in this part of the country are still very rich. The proposed 82km Illagan to Divilacan road will certainly put a lot more pressure on the areas natural resources.

We ended up spending most of our time socializing with the different Agta communities and drinking a lot of coffee. There isn’t much else to do when it’s pouring down rain and everyone else is waiting as well for the weather to clear. This time was nice though and provided some intimate moments among family members that we were able to be apart of.

Women and children talking around the fire while heating water for coffee. Because of the rainy weather the dogs were enjoying the heat from the fire as well.

Once the sun goes down many families will spend time in their homes talking around a fire or kerosene lamp. Especially when the weather is wet families tend to stay inside.

A father and his child play on a hammock while waiting for the rain to stop.

Agta children playing basketball on the side of their house. This was an activity the children were constantly playing whether rain or shine. Right after this photo was taken one of the boys mother came over and ripped down the plastic hoop from the wall. I guess she had enough of the ball beating on the side of the house.

An Agta man cooking shells which will eventually be crushed into a white power and used as an ingredient for mama. Mama is a mix of beetle nut, tobacco, a type of green leave and then shell powder. It's a type of drug commonly used by the Agta and causes the body to weaken.

Preparing a fire for cooking. The rain would occasionally clear for a short time allowing for fires to be built outside of the homes.

A mother applying oil to her sick child's body. I was told the baby had a fever and rubbing oil on the body is a way to help the child.

Children helping an older man in their community get lice out of his hair. He eventually cut all of his hair off after the fun was finished.

After talking with some of the men in Blos they recommended we get in touch with their cousins on the other side of the Sierra Madres. They said that the hunting grounds there were much better and it was very likely we would catch something within a couple of days. After all of the waiting in Blos we decided that the best option would be to at least visit their cousins and see what was possible. We still had a few more days in and around Blos before catching our flight back to Tuguegarao. But now we had a plan.

The men from the Blos community did a small dance around the fire during our last evening there to show us a traditional dance. It was a bit comical because I don't think they have done the dance in a long time. All of the women were laughing at the men and they only ended up dancing for a few minutes.

With some down time in Maconacon before heading back to Tuguegarao, we decided to go out one morning to two different Agta communities living nearby on the beach. These two communities primarily catch lobster as a source of livelihood and sell them to locals. Locals will then pack the lobster and fly them out to be sold either in Tuguegarao or Manila where the prices are much higher. We were able to go out with some of the men to see how they catch lobster one morning, using a single rod spear. Usually, the men will fish all night long looking for lobster because the conditions are much better at night. During our short time in the water the only thing the young Agta men caught were a couple of fish (no lobster).

A young Agta man from Maconacon heads out early in the morning to look for lobster. When looking for lobster at night the men will use waterproof flashlights and stay out all night, however, occasionally early morning excursions also happen like this one.

Two Agta men head out from their boat to look for lobster near the town of Maconacon.

An Agta man bringing in his nightly lobster catch on shore early morning.

Once back in Tuguegarao, I spent the next few days trying to arrange a guide to get up to this new community. I was optimistic as I saw two deer skulls and was told just a few days before the Agta had delivered a deer for the barangay captains birthday party. The barangay captains house is a two hour hike from the Agta community. Despite three flat tires on our motorcycle and multiple blisters we eventually arranged for a guide and reached the community where I needed to be. It was a beautiful place and I was pleasantly surprised being fairly accessible from Tuguegarao City. It’s a rugged road to the start point of the rough two hour hike, but nonetheless it is still accessible by a vehicle. I spent three days in the community, but again no luck with finding any animals to hunt. I spent almost three days waiting for the men to find the location of the wild pigs and deer but our time wasn’t long enough and again nothing could be found. I ended up photographing more everyday life images from around the village. Some of the images from this particular community are mixed in with the other images from this blog post.

The rugged path to an Agta community in Cagayan province on the western side of the Sierra Madre mountains.

The Sierra Madre mountains from above. If you look hard enough you can see the small Agta village in the bottom left hand corner of the image near the river. This was taken from the airplane on our way back from Maconacon and it wasn't until later that I realized I had captured the actual place I would be visiting.

Corn was a common crop grown in this community. It was a nice change from canned tuna and rice every meal.

A common sight I saw along the river to the second Agta community I visited was hard wood from the forest being floated down river. This is clearly an illegal activity as the wood is coming from a natural park and harvesting any type of old growth hard wood in the country is now banned. However, I was told that the police don't mind because they know it is a source of livelihood for the community down river. When I asked about the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) I was told that the workers have to be careful when DENR officials visit the area. It amazes me, however, that the regional headquarter for DENR (a large three story building) is only two hours away and accessible by road. This activity is clearly happening and you can see large piles of wood being stacked along the side of the river. Every morning I saw about 20 men heading up river to start their daily cutting. The Agta are also engaging in this activity as it is a relatively easy source of income for them. Once the logs are cut they are floated down river using old tires or rice bags filled with plastic bottles.

With the initial plan for this trip to be based around some type of hunt, we actually only went out hunting for a few hours one afternoon. We went looking for monkeys, however, because of the strong rain apparently they were no where to be found. We came back empty handed and the picture below is the only hunting image I was able to capture. My initial vision of an Agta man carrying a large wild pig or deer on their shoulders through the forest did not happen. I guess this will have to wait for another visit and when my energy level is back up to try and arrange another hunt.

Tapog and Odang hunting in the forest looking for monkeys.

On another note, going back to the Sierra Madres came at an appropriate time. Discovery Channel Magazine is running a 12 page photo feature about my trip to Isabela last year in this August issue. If you are in Asia or Australia you can pick up a copy at any decent bookstore or newsstand. The article is written in the first person and talks about my trip there and a little about my shooting style. I’m also excited that the article mentions the Katutubong Filipino Project so perhaps it will bring some more attention to the indigenous people here. I’ve attached the tearsheets below, but you will have to pick up a copy to read the article.

The Agta of Isabela from my trip there last year is featured in the August 2012 issue of Discovery Channel Magazine.

I’m back home in Cebu now for a couple of more weeks for some non-profit assignment work, a relatives wedding and my 33rd birthday (which has already passed now). Then it’s off to Davao, Mindanao to continue working on the Katutubo Project. I’m hoping to be able to document an interesting practice that still happens in that part of the country with the Lumads. If all goes as planned I’ll be sure to post some images here on the blog and share all about it.

A memorable sunset over the Sierra Madres which was spectacular. I will be back once again in the near future.

Lao Cai province of northern Vietnam borders the Chinese border and is home to a number of different ethnic minorities that have lived in the area for centuries. I came to Vietnam with very few expectations as our time was relatively short and our tickets were bought over six months ago. The original purpose of this trip was a mini-vacation of sorts and out of necessity to leave the Philippines for my visa renewal. We flew into Hanoi and decide to head straight to Lao Cai Province after a couple of days in this fast pace city. Parts of Lao Cai are fairly popular tourist destinations because of the beautiful landscapes and colorful minorities that live there, especially the mountain city of SaPa. Because my initial inclination is always to go as far away from tourist hotspots as possible, we decided to first head to a town called Bac Ha. Bac Ha is well known for it’s large Sunday market, where locals and minorities come to sell their goods, but during the week the town is really low-key and a great place to start exploring the mountains of Lao Cai.

Sunset in the mountains of Lao Cai Province, Vietnam.

We ended up finding a really good local guide in Bac Ha who was willing to take us to some mountain communities via motorbike. Because of the language and cultural barrier having a guide who understood what we were looking for was key to getting a little more off the traditional path. We spent a week around the area of Bac Ha exploring the north and south and sleeping at homestays. The mountains in this region are grande and the landscape is covered with corn, tea, rice and other agricultural crops. My first impression of the area was that it looked centuries old. The fields looked like they had been tilled for many years and the homes made of wood and mud added to the uniqueness of the landscape.

Indeed, this area has had it place in history primarily as a historic trading post between the Chinese, Vietnamese and different ethnic minority groups. Today, a number of the 54 recognized ethnic minorities of Vietnam still live in Lao Cai province, including the H’mong, Tay and Dzao people.

H'mong women weeding their corn crops near the town of Bac Ha in northern Vietnam. Most of the agricultural crops in the area are grown on steep hills or the sides of mountains.

H'mong girls in the mountains around Bac Ha. It seemed like almost all of the Hmong women we encountered had a basket on their backs for carrying goods. These girls told us they were out collecting food to feed their pigs.

A Tay women collecting tea leaves in a field near her home.

Like in most subsistence-based cultures a good portion of the day is spent tending to crops and preparing food. From our limited time in Lao Cai we got the impression that the women are the hardest workers and are often the ones doing these jobs. It was always the women we saw carrying the heavy loads and working in the fields. Although the men have their roles as well and often help in the fields, it’s the women we saw doing the bulk of the work. We were told that the men are fairly shy so it’s also the women who interact with tourists and sell their products in the market.

A H'mong women and her child heading to their field to work. It's the women that are often the ones who carry the heavy loads when transporting produce or other goods.

H'mong women taking a short break and a smile as they work in the field during the heat of the day.

A Flower Hmong women distilling corn wine. Corn and rice wine are very popular drinks with the minorities and very potent as well. From what we gathered they drink socially and it's hard to say no when they keep pressuring you to drink. I myself fell drunk on a few occasions.

One of the most striking features of the minorities in northern Vietnam is the colorful and elaborate dress the women wear. Each group has it’s own dress and the women told us it makes them feel beautiful. Some of the pieces are bought in the market, but the most intricate portions are all hand-made by the women. Our guide told us it can take her up to a year to make a new top because of all the elaborate embroidery that she has to do. The men tend to wear more western style clothes, however, they also have a unique dress they sometimes wear. I myself found the mens dress to be intriguing, particularly the old military style that many of them wear.

A H'mong man with his water buffalo heading off to work.

Hmong boys in the mountains around Sapa on a foggy morning. Fog in the mountains would come and go and it added some much needed cool weather while hiking.

School children exercising at a primary school in the mountains of Lao Cai. We stopped into this school to say hello and the teachers welcomed us with tea and conversation.

A H'mong man feeding his granddaughter.

We ended up heading over to the more popular destination of Sapa, a mountain retreat town frequently visited by foreigners and local Vietnamese. The mountains around Sapa felt larger than those in Bac Ha and I can see why Sapa has become a popular destination. The city itself is lined with travel agencies, hotels and western style restaurants, but the scenery is beautiful. We ended up trekking into a local H’mong community about three hours outside of Sapa after meeting a local guide in town. Sapa had a much different feel than Bac Ha, likely because of tourism there. Upon arriving into Sapa we were constantly asked to buy stuff by the local minorities even when we got outside of the main town. I had some idea that this is how it might be and that’s why we waited to go there towards the end of our trip. On that note we had a great guide that brought us into her home to sleep and took very good care of us. However, once people from her community knew we were there they all tried to sell us stuff. Much different that in the rural communities around Bac Ha.

The scenery around Sapa is covered with rice terraces and huge mountains.

A H'mong house in the mountains around Sapa. This was another homestay we ended up sleeping at.

A Tay women heating water in her home for tea. All of the meals we ate in the mountains were cooked over an open fire. I was impressed with peoples ability to cook this way. Sometimes we would have five different dishes all cooked over the same fire for a meal and everything came out delicious and hot!

Coming from the Philippines where there is a limited selection of locally grown vegetables available, I was impressed by the selection in Vietnam. It seemed that all kinds of different produce and agricultural crops were grown in the area. We ate fresh green peas, bamboo shoots, peaches, and various nuts and greens that I didn’t know existed. It was also the first time I saw marijuana being grown in large fields. The H’mong women told us that they harvest the marijuana for its hemp to make clothing but they also occasionally smoke it.

Dried cinnamon from the bark of cinnamon trees. The aroma upon entering this Dzao village where this cinnamon was harvested was a special treat. We were given a stick and I chewed on it for our remaining time in Vietnam. Very good!

Dzao women transporting fresh cinnamon bark. Again, it was always the women carrying the heavy loads. The men transported the cinnamon on their motorbikes. As you can see cell phone signal was prevalent even in the most remote areas we visited.

Large tracks of marijuana are grown by the minorities for the hemp it produces. Our H'mong guide told us that they are not allowed to sell the marijuana in the market or they would get into a lot of trouble from authorities. However, she said that they do occasionally smoke it and that a number of foreigners like to come and smoke it as well. As long as it's not being sold there is no problem. We sure saw plenty of it.

When the weekend came we decided to visit the two most popular markets, the Sunday market of Bac Ha and the Saturday livestock market of Can Cau. I was a little hesitant upon arriving into the Can Cau market as we saw five tourist buses parked on the side of the road. These are generally the places I try to avoid, but after arriving the atmosphere still felt very local to me. There were a number of foreigners taking photos and walking around but the general feeling was that the market was still for and about the locals, doing their weekly shopping and trading.

A Hmong women on a mountain road transporting water buffalo to a local market to sell.

A big portion of the Can Cau market is the selling of livestock. People from all over the area come down the mountain to sell horses, water buffalo, pigs, dogs and other animals.

Hmong women selling corn product early morning in the Bac Ha market.

A group of Flower Hmong women selling a pig at Can Cau market.

A big aspect of the local markets is socialization. People get together to talk and eat and then carry on to selling and buying.

One of the items sold at the two markets we visited were various species of birds. We observed that many Vietnamese homes had songbirds in them and seeing the variety of birds at the markets was interesting. I don’t know enough about the birds of the area to know if they are exotic or not, but from what we gathered most of the birds are caught locally. One of our homestays near Sapa had six or seven birds they had caught which were going to be sold in the market. The photo below of the owls are two of these birds.

Birds lined-up for sale at the Bac Ha market.

Owls caught in the mountains will be sold in the local market.

A H'mong man observing a bird for sale at the Bac Ha Market. I watched these men for about an hour just observing all the different birds. Picking the right bird seems to be a very important and pleasurable experience for these men.

Overall, Vietnam was a pleasant place to visit. The people we encountered on our short stay were very hospitable and friendly and especially so when we got into the mountains. People invited us into their homes, offered us tea, and wanted to know all about us. It seemed genuine and most of the time it probably was. The one thing that started to bother me towards the middle of our trip, however, was the general attitude many Vietnamese have towards foreigners. Walking money machines with no regards to cheating, lying and stealing to get more money out of you. I know there are many travelers who feel the same way and honestly it is frustrating. I understand that prices are to increase as you enter more touristy areas, but when you are in a very remote part of the country and the women in a local market tries to charge you 30 times more for a 1/2 kilos of tomatoes you realize this goes beyond tourist areas. This is a fairly big generalization, but on countless occasions during our short stay, from buying bread to getting bus tickets, I was charged more than the local rate. Is it right? I suppose one could argue either way, but every time it happened I had a very unsettling feeling inside of me. Towards the end of our trip I started to look at people in a different way because of this. Like there was always an alternative motive for people being friendly to us. I hate to think that way, but that’s what began to happen to me. Would I go back to Vietnam? Yes, of course. I would just do a little more research before I left and perhaps have Oma learn some Vietnamese words so she can pretend she’s a local when shopping in the market (she got mistaken many times for being Vietnamese)

Walking along the rice terraces in the mountains of Lao Cai.

A Flower H'mong and her child. Children generally go wherever their mothers do and are usually found in slings on their mothers backs.

Singnapan Valley in southern Palawan is a place I have wanted to visit for a long time now. It was a couple of years ago that I came across some images online of the Tau’t Bato tribe and it has intrigued me ever since. The remoteness of Singnapan valley is what first caught my attention and then the interesting stories that the people there live in large caves during the rainy season. Thus, their name Tau’t Bato – Dwellers of the rock. There are a handful of travel blogs and some videos online of other foreigners and Filipinos making the trek to Singnapan. This area is also home to Mount Mantalingahan, the highest peak in Palawan and an occasional destination for hardcore mountaineers. I am always somewhat skeptical of visiting a place when I see this, as I always want to try and visit new places with new faces. However, from what I gathered there are really very few individuals who travel here and that was confirmed when we arrived and talked with our guide. We were only the second visitors to the area this year. Likewise, for the Katutubong Filipino Project this was an area we needed to visit so it was destined that we would make the long journey into the jungle to visit the Tau’t Bato.

Our friend, Tumihay, a native Pala'wan Tau't Bato of southern Palawan.

The Tau’t Bato (Tao’t Bato, Taaw’t Bato) are really just a subgroup of the larger Pala’wan indigenous group. They speak the native Pala’wan language and practice many of the same beliefs of the Pala’wan. The only difference being this particular community, those living in the area of Singnapan valley, take shelter in the large nearby caves during the rainy season. Because of the heavy rains and flooding within the valley during the wet months taking shelter within the caves is their best protection. During the dry season each family has its own land and house within the valley. The name Tau’t Bato was given to these people by President Marcos back in the 70′s because of their cave existence.

It was during this time that President Marcos made multiple visits to Singnapan valley to explore the area. Our guide, Buano and our host, Tumihay, who was just a little boy at the time remembers the helicopters flying into the valley with Marcos and Imelda on-board. Tumihay said President Marcos only stayed for 30 minutes in fear that the people may attack him. The helicopters brought in clothes, rice and some other provisions to distribute to the tribe. This is the first time Tumihay remembers getting western style clothes. However, the reason Marcos was so interested in this area was because of the riches it held. For many months Marco’s team raided all the caves in the area (the burial sites for the Tau’t Bato) and collected all the gold and other valuables on the bodies. Buano also said that it’s possible they found Japanese treasure as well in the caves, because many of the caves Marco’s team explored were caves the Tau’t Bato never went into. Years later there were many stories that Marcos hid a lot of his wealth in the caves of Singnapan. In the 80′s and 90′s this area saw numerous visitors from all over the world searching for Marco’s hidden wealth. However, the reality was, Marcos was there to take the wealth from the natives not leave hidden treasure of his own.

Our guide, Buano, and Tumihay eating kamoting kahoy by a gas light while telling stories. Although a native Tau't Bato, Buano moved away from Singnapan many years ago and built a small home down the mountain closer to the barangay center. He told us he was 87 years old, but like most other Tau't Bato they do not know their age, not even the children. I suspect he was a little younger than 87, but he hiked the trails like he was in his 20's and went barefoot the whole way.

Getting to Singnapan valley was no easy task. From the capital of Palawan, Puerto Princesa it’s a good day travel on a not so comfortable bus. Once in Rizal, it’s another day trek by foot up the mountain into Singnapan. The trail was rugged, slippery and the air was as thick as one could imagine hot jungle air to be. Every ten minutes or so I had to ring my shirt out from the sweat it collected. Our bags were soaked with sweat by the time we arrived and our bodies on the verge of collapsing. We did have our guide, Buano with us and two of his grandsons as porters. Having quite a bit of gear and all of our provisions for four days it was necessary (we had about 15 kilos of rice alone). Once we arrived we were welcomed by our host Tumihay and his family who were the most gracious people. Their home sits in a small clearing within the valley surrounded by forest, a serene location.

Tumihay's home the evening we arrived into Singnapan valley.

A Tau't Daram man burning grass to help keep mosquitoes away from his home. Malaria is a still a huge concern for the natives of Singnapan Valley and taking preventative measures is a must. Tau't Daram is another subgroup of Pala'wan people near Singnapan valley. There are also the Tau't Arib in the area, but as we were told all of the groups mix with each other now. They are all still Pala'wan.

During our stay we had to be very careful of mosquito bites as this area is still very much invested with Malaria. In 2005, three journalists from Manila died of malaria while making a documentary about the effects of malaria on the Tau’t Bato. During their stay Reyster Langit and his team all came down with cerebral malaria. Reyster died while being treated in California and his two companions also died of complications from the disease, one in Manila and one in Puerto Princesa. We asked Tumihay about the three journalist that died and he said he wasn’t sure if it was malaria or not. Apparently, the journalist were not listening to the Tau’t Bato and doing forbidden acts such as defecating in the river during their stay. Upon being asked not to do these things, they continued to do so. Perhaps some of the tribe members put a spell or something on the journalists and that is what killed them. At least that is the response that seems to be circulating anytime you mention the incident. It was also suggested that the doctors really didn’t know if it was actually malaria the three had or not. That being said, Tumihay admits that he has had malaria in the past and one of his daughters babies died at a young age because of the disease. It is certainly present and we proceeded with caution during our stay.

Panglima, a chief mediator of the Tau't Bato. We met Panglima while hiking around the valley one day. Although blowguns were traditionally used to hunt in the forest, shotguns are now the more practical means for the Tau't Bato. Blowguns are still used on occasion, but shotguns are now the weapon of choice for hunting in the forest.

Mariam, one of Tumihay's eight children, making a bat catcher that will be used later in the evening to catch dinner. The spines on the edges of the branches are very sharp and clasp to anything that touches them.

Tumihay is one of those guys I could see myself hanging out very often. Easy going, highly motivated and the nicest person one could meet. He didn’t mind at all that I was right at his side while he was doing everything throughout the day. Not to mention his family opened their house for us during our stay and offered us what little food they had. Our second day there I ask him if he could show me around some of the caves and without any hesitation he said, lets go hunting and I’ll show you the caves. It’s like he knew exactly what it was I wanted to photograph. Because it was dry season none of the families from the valley were staying in the cave. Tumihay wanted to show me the large cave where they stay during these months, but the ladder to reach the opening was broken. Instead, we explored some of the other more accessible caves. I may have to make a trip back during the rainy season to see how life is within the cave.

Tumihay in one of the cave structures looking for birds to hunt with his blowgun.

Tumihay walking along the entrance to a large cave looking for birds and other prey to hunt.

One morning Buano took me up the mountain to another small clearing in hopes to meet an older man named Oki. One of the main differences with the Tau’t Bato and other Philippine indigenous communities we have visited is the distance between their homes. Anywhere we wanted to go within Singnapan valley required somewhat of a hike to get to. Oki was still out collecting tobacco leaves when we arrived, so we ended up talking to another family for a couple of hours. During this visit we met a young man who had a huge slash on his foot and could barely walk. Apparently, he fell a couple of weeks prior and sliced open his foot on a rock. Without any access to medical treatment his whole leg swelled up and his foot looked like something out of a horror film. I will spare you all from posting a photo of it here. I told Buano that if his wife wanted to hike back with us to town in a couple of days I would be happy to buy antibiotics and cream for the wound. She gave it some thought, but told us she would be afraid to hike back alone. The good sign was the swelling of his leg had started to come down.

Oki, an elder Tau't Bato man having a smoke of tobacco in his home. Many of the Tau't Bato men and women heavily smoke tobacco leaves. During the thirty minutes we spent with Oki in his home he had three smokes.

Oki walking back home on a path through the forest.

The women woke up early to start their work in the valley. I noticed that all the able bodied people of Tumihay’s family pulled their share of work. It takes a lot of time to plant crops, maintain the fields, harvest, prepare the kamoteng kahoy and cook for the family. The children take care of the other children and everyone stays busy. If the family is able to make a little money, Tumihay and his wife will hike into town to buy necessary goods such as salt, oil, and sometimes fresh fish.

Ernisa, Tumihays wife, cooking their version of what they call pancakes, a sweet treat prepared from crushed rice, sugar and oil. Ernisa spent all morning crushing the rice into a fine power and most of the afternoon cooking the yummy fried cakes. I must say it tasted very good and she was able to sell all of them to neighboring families.

Two of Tumihays daughters head up the river bed to a trail that will lead them to a small clearing to harvest kamoteng kahoy.

Tumihay's eldest daughter sorting through their harvested kamoteng kahoy while her daughter is eating fresh sugar cane.

Melmel making sounds with a leaf to pass time.

Something I was looking forward to on our last night was seeing how Tumihay hunted for bats. After seeing the unique contraption his daughter made to harvest the flying mammals I was thinking this could be a great activity to photograph. Unfortunately, Tumihay asked me to stay back because he said the trail was dangerous and we would have to walk back down in the dark. I didn’t want to push things too much, so I followed him and his wife for a short while into the forest before they went ahead up the mountain. About a hour later he returned with four bats in his trap all still alive. Ernisa took the bats and started to prepare everything to cook them.

Tumihay and his wife heading out at dusk up the mountain to hunt for bats.

Tumihay removing live bats from the bat catcher after arriving home from their hunt.

Ernisa cooking freshly caught bat over an open fire. After the bat is slightly charred over the fire it is cut up and fried in oil. I was given a small piece to try, but I politely declined as the only thought going through my head was 'bats carry rabies, right?' In hindsight, I should have tried it.

Life in the valley is simple from our perspective, but families have everything they need. Food to eat, a roof over their head and their families. We certainly felt the family bondage and love during our stay there, although it took a little time for the children to warm up to us. They were incredibly shy, but some of the most beautiful children I have come across. I could have photographed Tumihay’s children all day long as their faces were simply beautiful. There are certainly similarities between the Tau’t Bato and other groups we have visited, arranged marriages being one of them. Like in Bukidnon, there is a dowry of sorts given to the women’s family in order to marry. Couples are arranged at a young age, although no one in the valley knows their age as they do not keep track. I asked Tumihay how old he was when he was married. He pointed to his daughter (who looked to be around 10 years old) and he said around that age. Because the women are in a sense ‘bought’ by the man, they are generally the ones carrying the heavy loads when hiking.

The children enjoyed playing with whatever insects or critters made their way into their home. During our stay there the children tied up locusts, chased praying mantis, and even had some fun with the live bats before they were cooked. This was a great reminder to me that children are really a product of their environment and that their connection to the forest begins when they are small.

A Tau't Bato man pulling weeds from his rice in a slash-and-burn field (kaingin) along the route to Singnapan valley. This method of farming is common among the people here as it provides needed space to grow their necessary crops.

Tumihay's children helping and watching their father collect honey from the forest after the queen bee has been smoked out. Almost anything that can be found or harvested from the forest is used by the Tau't Bato.

A Tau't Bato family transporting kamoteng kahoy in Singnapan valley. Occasionally we would run into other families hiking along a path or in the forest. With homes being a good distance away from each other most of our time was spent with Tumihay and his family.

As the Katutubong Filipino Project moves ahead, we are honored to meet people like Tumihay and his family. It is a great privilege to be able to share life with these special people, even if just for a short period of time. It is my hope that at the end of this year long journey we may be able to bring together key people we meet along the way to gather and meet each other. I think that would be inspirational for those who could join and perhaps a way to bring this all together near the end. Just a thought.

Our friend, Tumihay, taking a rest while hunting for birds in the forest.

It’s been eight years since I was last in northern Palawan during my Peace Corps days. Back then I spent a lot of time in Coron and Busuanga doing marine surveys and remember how beautiful the islands were in this part of the country. This time my travels brought me to Coron to photograph the Calamian Tagbanua people, one of a number of different indigenous groups found in Palawan. During the months I spent in Coron years ago I remember isolated fishing communities that harvested seaweed and octopus. I also remember the picturesque tropical islands, especially Coron Island which stands tall above most of the others with its karst limestone cliffs. It was these memories in part that made me want to return and explore the area with my camera. Much has changed since the last time I was here, but even with tourism booming in the area, we were able to find some traditional Tagbanua communities that we were searching for.

Overlooking Coron town at sunset in northern Palawan.

The Tagbanua people are descendents of some of the oldest people in the Philippines likely coming from Borneo and historically had strong relations with Brunei. Today there are various subgroups of the Tagbanua throughout the province of Palawan. In Coron, the Tagbanua are distinct from the Tagbanua on mainland Palawan, not only in their language spoken but also their general way of life. The Calamian Tagbanua (those living on Coron Island and on mainland Coron/Busuanga and surrounding islands) have adopted a sea oriented way of life, living off of the ocean and its resources. The majority of Tagbanua in Coron live in two communities on Coron Island (a different island than mainland Coron). In recent years Coron Island has had an influx of visitors, both foreign and local, because of it’s stunning beauty. Many tourists will spend a day visiting a few different lakes on the island which are open to the pubic, including Kayangan and Twin Lagoons. However, the majority of Coron Island is still off limits to guests who do not have permits to be there. In 2003, Coron Island and its surrounding waters was declared ancestral domain for the Tagbanua and they now restrict where people can visit on the island. We are told that many of the most beautiful lakes on Coron Island are sacred burial grounds for the Tagbanua and only those Tagbanua who own land on the island can visit them. Although getting to the sacred lakes would not be possible, Coron Island would still serve as our starting point to explore the Calamian Tagbanua.

Landrey, a native Tagbanua, spearfishing on Coron Island.

After a short visit to the crowded Kayangan Lake I noticed two small native houses very near where all the tourist boats were passing. I saw someone in the water and was curious what he was doing, knowing very well it was probably a Tagbanua man doing some type of fishing. I asked our boat driver if it would be alright to get in the water and see what was going on. I ended up spending a few hours with Landrey watching him spearfish and was later invited into his home. I was surprised that there were two Tagbanua homes this close the most crowded and visited lake on the island.

A Tagbanua man fishing for lapu-lapu (grouper fish), a high priced fish off of Coron Island. He is also transporting firewood from another area of the island for cooking. You can see Tagbanua fishermen like this in small banca boats all around Coron Island.

Thanks to a lot of help from friends living in Coron town and a highly motivated boat guide, we ended up spending two days in a small community on a more remote part of Coron Island. There were about seven families in this community and they welcomed us to stay with them and photograph how they lived. This was just the type of place I was looking for and it felt like all the planning and hard work in finding a place like this was finally paying off. I had a bit of anxiety before this trip, not knowing if we would really be able to find a place I had visioned. After reaching this community my anxiety went down some and I was able to enjoy the people and beautiful location where they lived.

A Tagbanua community on Coron Island in northern Palawan. All of Coron Island and it's surrounding waters was declared as native ancestral land and sea in 2003. Non-natives are not allowed to own land or even fish within the ancestral domain. However, there are still a number of outsiders who fish within the Tagbanua territory.

A path connecting two homes in the Tagbanua community we stayed with. The terrain of Coron Island is mostly tall limestone karst rock making paths somewhat of a challenge.

The people we stayed with had a very relaxed and low key temperament. This could partially be because of the island mentality and perhaps partially because these Tagbanua are no longer fighting for land rights. The Tagbanua communities on Coron Island collect a fee from every visitor that comes to a particular area. Generally it’s 100 Pesos per person per stop (around $2.50). Kayangan Lake is 200 Pesos per person and this money goes to the two Tagbanua barangays on the Island. That can add up relatively fast seeing the number of tourists in the area and it’s tax free. If a tourist boat stops on a small beach for lunch, each person must pay the fee to the particular Tagbanua family who owns that land. Although the community we stayed with did not request any payment, they may be receiving some type of supplement from the general fund. Water and food is the biggest concern for people here. There is no water source in this particular community (and all of Coron Island from what we were told) and land is scarce for growing crops because of the type of island it is. Water must be brought in from the mainland and the staple crop eaten here is a wild tuber called Kurot.

A typical afternoon with Tagbanua children playing in the beautiful tropical water of Coron Island.

Preparing Kurot, a wild tuber eaten on the island. Kurot must be prepared right to remove all the toxins before it is edible. This is the final stage of preparation before it is cooked and eaten (rinsing it in salt water).

There is no question that Coron Island is a beautiful place. I was amazed though that there are still somewhat isolated Tagbanua communities like the one we stayed with on the island. It makes me feel fortunate that we were able to visit this place, perhaps before tourism infiltrates more of the island. The tall cliffs and beautiful water of Coron make it an incredible place to visit.

A small valley were a few Tagbanua families live on Coron Island.

A Tagbanua home on Coron Island.

Two women on Coron Island showing the typical dress of the Tagbanua people. Before we were told that the Tagbanua likely wore some type of native g-string covering, but western clothes are now worn by all. This is also a portrait of Landrey, the spearfisherman we met earlier in the week.

The Calamian Tagbanua utilize many of the oceans resources. It seemed like we were always running into another type of activity or harvesting method in each new place we visited. Harvesting seaweed, sea cucumbers, high-priced live fish, spearfishing, net fishing and octopus fishing are some of the ones we encountered.

Cultivating and harvesting seaweed is another livelihood of some Tagbanua.

Sea cucumbers are harvested and dried to be sold in the foreign market. I'm not actually sure what one would want with these, but the larger lighter colored one in the photo sells for around 3,500 a kilo ($83).

A Tagbanua family starting the preparation of kurot, a wild tuber eaten as a staple crop on Coron Island.

A Tagbanua man cooking in his home as night falls. Many of their homes are built with native materials against the rocky cliffs or on the beach. There is no electricity in this community, so kerosene lamps are used after the sun goes down.

One of the original reasons I wanted to visit the Tagbanua was to document them gathering swift nests. This is a practice they have been doing for many years now as Coron Island produces some of the best swift birds nest in the world. This is another item the Chinese love for their “bird nest soup” and the Tagbanua have been selling their bird nests to traders for many generations now. I was hoping to find a family that I could document collecting the birds nest (the nests are made from the birds saliva), but I wasn’t fortunate enough to find one. The birds make their nest high up on the cliffs and within the caves of the island. We came during the right time of the year, as the nests are only collected from December to May. However, within this time frame the nests are only collected at certain times when the nests are at optimal readiness. This is something like every 30 days or so. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a family collecting during the time we were there. This makes an excuse to visit again sometime in the future.

Climbing caves is a part of life for the Calamian Tagbanua. Many families will collect swift nests during the summer months that will be sold to Chinese traders. This is a practice the Tagbanua on Coron Island have been doing for many generations now.

Another angle of our friend Landrey spearfishing in the shallow water around Coron Island.

A Tagbanua child holds onto her mother's dress.

We were able to make some shorter visits to a number of different Tagbanua communities on Coron Island. Each one had a unique feel to it and all were fairly isolated from each other. There were also some single isolated homes on the edge of the island, mostly single families who were watching and protecting there swift nest land. After swift nest season is over these families will go back to their main community, likely in one of the two main barangays on the island. Boat travel around the island is really the only way to get around. Because of the tall cliffs there are very scarce paths or routes connecting different communities. Bamboo rafts are often used to get around for sort distances.

Our time with the Tagbanua on Coron Island was relatively short. Being one of the few success stories for indigenous peoples in the Philippines, we were not really sure what to expect with our trip here. By success story, I mean the Tagbanua having full claim to Coron Island and the surrounding water as ancestral domain. We thought things may be harder to organize and perhaps we might not be able to find a more “authentic” community. It turned out that things went fairly well and I was happy that the places we visited were so accommodating. There is also a lot of talk about the power struggle between the Tagbanua on Coron Island and there is a really good article written in 2009 about this by Geographical. Basically, now that the Tagbanua have rights over their land there is conflict as to where the tourist money is going. Clearly, by having full rights to their land the Tagbanua of Coron Island have set an example for indigenous rights in the country. I just hope they will stay on course and figure out the best way to continue and improve their lives.

Another Tagbanua community we visited on Coron Island. Most of the houses in this community were built on the beach.

The coral reefs and marine life seemed to be in fairly good condition around the parts of the island we visited.

Most of the Tagbanua people we meet seemed fairly easy going and happy with what they had. Here a father and son were having fun on their floating bulsa after we went to photograph them harvesting seaweed.

Navigating on a bamboo raft is a common form of transportation for the Tagbanua, especially when only traveling short distances.

Travel to Coron Island is only accessible by boat.

After our time exploring some of Coron Island, we decided to visit a few Tagbanua communities on mainland Coron. We wanted to see the differences between the two places and I was interested in finding some octopus fisherman. We traveled by jeepney for three hours to a place on the northern coast of mainland Coron known to be predominantly Tagbanua. This was probably the worst jeepney ride I have taken in recent memory, but likely because we had just taken our malaria prophylactic and we were fairly nauseous the whole time. Glad that is over. We ended up exploring the coast for a few days as there were no rides back to Coron town.

Octopus fishermen leaving with their balsas in the morning on the northern coast of mainland Coron. These men will stay out for most of the day returning early afternoon with their catch. Here they are using a motorized boat to bring their balsas out to further away fishing areas.

A young Tagbanua man looking for octopus using his floating balsa. Typically, the fishermen will use a jig to lure out the octopus and eventually it will get hooked on the jig. This is all done while laying on the floating balsa and looking into the water with their goggles.

An octopus jig used to lure out the octopus.

A Tagbanua man sells his octopus catch to a local on mainland Coron.

The Tagbanua on mainland Coron are still ocean dwellers and rely on the sea for their food. However, a lot of the seafood they catch here is packaged and sent off to Coron town where it will be sent to Manila or other cities. Here a Tagbanua man is cleaning his shark catch.

A Tagbanua fishermans home at night. Even though this community is on the main island of Coron there is still no electricity available.

A quite morning in a Tagbanua barangay on mainland Coron.

We ended up visiting on the barangay's foundations day which is a mini celebration of sorts. One evening there was a singing and dance competition and I was asked to be a judge. Usually, I would decline something like this because I know all too well how these things go. However, I accepted this invitation because we were told most of the contestants would be Tagbanua. It was quite an interesting evening and these boys ended up taking third place in the dance competition. Everyone had a good time.

Tagbanua women pounding rice to remove the husks. You can see one of these wooden pounders by almost all of the homes in this community.

A Tagbanua grandmother and grandchild taking a break while collecting cashew nuts on mainland Coron.

I’m back home in Cebu now for a couple of weeks recollecting my thoughts before heading off to Vietnam. I’ll be working on another post as well about our visit to the Tau’t Bato of southern Palawan in the coming days. It’s time for a little down time with the kids before heading off again.

The Bukidnon plateau is home to seven of the 18 different indigenous groups found in Mindanao. After doing some research I decided it would be a great place to visit for starting the Katutubong Filipino Project. Although our travel to Bukidnon was fairly short we learned a lot about the Lumad people (the Visayan word collectively used for all indigenous people in Mindanao). We spent most of the week with a Manobo community high in the mountains of San Fernando municipality. The Manobo people are just one of the 18 Lumad groups found in Mindanao, however, they have a number of subgroups with slight language differences and practices. The different Manobo tribes are semi-autonomous from the Philippine government and have their own laws, practices and judgements given by tribal chieftains (Datus).

We were not able to visit the original community we wanted to because of an internal clan war that was going on between two Manobo tribes. Apparently, one member stole a firearm from another community which started the conflict. The owner of the firearm was so mad that he told his Datu that for four days he would kill anyone who crossed the path until his gun was returned. We arrived on the second day of this declaration and obviously had to change our plans. (I heard that this man killed a family of four, including two children, after his gun wasn’t returned on the fourth day. We were told the man is now in hiding and will be sentenced to death by the Datu once they find him). After a lot of hard work from our local guide, Jepoy, we found a community that was safe to travel to. We ended up finding a second local guide as well, Jeffery, who was from the Tigwahanon Manobo community we were in route to. We ended up befriending Jeffery and were amazed with his story and insights he was able to tell us about the area. At the end of our trip we decided to bring Jeffery back to Cebu to get to know him better and so he could experience the city. You can read more about Jeffery’s story here.

To get to this particular community we had to travel 45 kilometers on a motorcycle from the main highway and then hike about 5 kilometers straight up into the mountains. I was looking for a community that was a bit more traditional, more isolated from the lowland, and although I saw some of that in this village there is still a good amount of influence from the lowlanders (at least from a visual perspective – wearing mostly western clothes). Culturally, the Manobos are very distinct from the Visayan lowlanders and practice their own ways of life. Many of them cannot understand the Visayan language. Actually, this trip was perfect for the short amount of time that I had and has opened a lot of avenues for future visits. Not only that, but I am starting to get a better understanding of the struggles and issues facing many of the indigenous peoples in the country. Next time I visit Bukidnon we plan to travel by foot for three days to reach, by what Jeffery says, a very authentic community – visually speaking.

Datu Biniti (tribal chieftain) of the Tigwahanon village we stayed in. The chieftain is in charge of judgements and conflicts within the community and what he says is final.

A Manobo family cooking rice and camotes over an open fire in their home. Their diet mainly consists of root crops, rice, maize (once a year) and anything caught in the forest (wild boar, birds, rodents, snakes, lizards).

Dogs lead the way as we head out for a morning hunt in the forest.

Jeffery, our guide, wanted to take us into the forest and show us some of their hunting practices. Most families in this community depend on root crops and what is caught in the forest for their food. However, food can sometimes be scarce so often times dried fish and rice has to be bought in the barangay market (5km down the mountain). On our morning hunt we only caught two small birds and a rodent, hardly enough food for a small family. Because of this some lumads have to use forest resources to make a livelihood for themselves. This is often done my selling live birds to lowlanders, raw material such as abaca and often times logs. The Manobos know it is illegal to commercially sell logs, but because of economic conditions they often do not have an alternative – and they are usually taken advantage of when it comes to selling the logs (read on).

Jeffery and his younger brother, Rubin, look for a bird hit with his shotgun in the forest.

Dogs are used to help dig and find forest rodents for food. At the time I didn't know what was going on - all I saw were two dogs running around like crazy and digging into the earth near the base of a large tree. Rubin was busy pulling up the soil and I thought he was trying to pull a root out of the ground. Eventually one of his dogs surfaced from his burrow and had a rodent in its mouth. Rubin quickly took the rodent from the dog whose head was already off.

Rubin with his catch in the forest takes a moment to look at a bird.

I knew that indigenous people are some of the most marginalized people in the country, but it’s different when you hear first hand their stories. For instance, we were told by a number of Manobos about the abuses brought about by the Philippine military, the ones who should be protecting them. Many of the Manobo women are raped, village pigs killed, and possessions stolen when the military are scouting the forest. During election time, local officials will give 20 pesos ($0.45) to each Manobo to sign away their vote. Because of the number of Manobo their combined vote is often the only way officials can win. There are other stories of lumds not being able to enter restaurants when they are in town because they are deemed as second class citizens by some locals. Unexpected and heartbreaking stories.

Tigwahanon Village in San Fernando, Bukidnon, Mindanao.

Fog in the forest after an afternoon shower. Virgin rainforest surrounds the Tigwahanon community and animals such as the Philippine Eagle are often seen here.

Jeffery climbing down a vine that is used to reach the top of very tall forest trees to collect honey. The particular tree that he climbed was around 150 feet high. He uses no harnesses or straps. He simply climbs the vine along side the tree with bare feet until he reached the top.

Jeffery climbing a vine to collect honey on top of the forest tree.

We were also told that some individuals will lie and give small amounts of money to the Manobos for the chieftains signature in order to log their forests. Logging of any virgin forests in the Philippines is currently illegal because there is a total log ban in place declared by the president. However, indigenous peoples are still allowed to cut trees for their own use (to build their houses, etc.). Some individuals take advantage of this by offering tribal chieftains a small amount of money to log an area of forest. We were also told about the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) the government agency responsible to protect the country’s resources and their inside scandal when it comes to logging these forests. The DENR follow the same practices of logging the Manobos trees and illegally selling them to make under-the-table money. Apparently, the DENR will sometimes partner with a business and make all the documents look like they were approved by the Manobos to log an area of forest – when in fact they were not / or a Datu signature was given for a small amount of money. On one occasion the DENR was given 5 million pesos ($120,000) to arrange all of the documents for an area of forest near the village we visited. The Manobo people are clearly taken advantage of by others and the government, and need better education to know how to best protect their interests.

We noticed that women in this community do the majority of the hard work. The men are their to protect the community, hunt and sit around a lot talking. Women do most of the heavy lifting, planting of crops, pounding rice, raising children, cooking, and all the other day to day tasks.

Women pounding palay (rice in its shell) to remove the rice grains.

Another source of livelihood within the community is the live capture of forest birds. These birds are sold to lowlanders as a source of income for the Manobos. The men use a sticky resin on a wooden pole and allure the birds in with camote roots. When the birds land on the sticky resin they are caught. We ended buying this bird for 100 pesos ($2.50) and released it back into the forest.

Vernan striping away an abaca plant to get its fine raw fibers. Abaca fibers are sold to lowlanders as a source of livelihood for the community.

A Manobo child in class at the community school where two volunteer teachers give lessons. The school reopened in 2007 after eight years of not having any teachers. The small school school is run by the Seventh Day Adventist Church and class is not mandatory for the children.

Some of the families within the community receive government assistant through a program called 4Ps. Those families who receive this assistance must send their children to public school in the local barangay. This requires the children to hike 5km each way up and down the mountain every day. Occasionally, the children will stop to have a swim in the river on their way home.

Picking berries for a snack on the way home from school. Some of the children hike 5km to and from town each day to attend school, crossing the river 12 times each way.

Members of the tribe crossing a mountain river on their way home.

I never felt unsafe during my visit here, but I know that life here is often lived by the barrel of the gun. The Manobos want to protect themselves and often times are ambushed by other Manobo tribes and the military when their is conflict. The NPA (New Peoples Army – Communist Fraction) is another organization roaming the mountains who have their own agenda as well. Life is by no means easy here and conflict and abuse seem to be common topics of discussion.

I’m off to the States for a few weeks to see family and make a few bucks, but I’m excited to get back next month to really jump into this project. I have a sense that it’s going to be a very rewarding year.

A Manobo man on his horse along the edge of the Salug river in Bukidnon, Mindanao.