Western Visayas Online: 2005

Monday, March 14, 2005

Indigenous Peoples of Western Visayas

The Magahat

The Magahats called Corolanos or Bukidnon of Panay are shifting cultivators in the mountainous areas of Southeastern Negros, in the municipality of Tanjas, Santa Catalina, Bayawan (Tolong) and Siaton, at elevations of 1,000 to 3,000 feet. Generally called Bukidnon, those tributaries of the upper Tayabanan are known as Magahat, referrins to a custom whereby the near relatives of a deceased person may go on a raiding party to the coastal regions to kill. If they are successful, they return home and bury their dead relative. Predominantly "Indonesian" (Proto-Malay) in physical type, their languase is a mixture of Susbuhanons and Hiligaynon, both lowland Christian Filipino languages. Magahat culture is in general similar to the Sulod of Panay.

http://www.ncip.gov.ph/resources/ethno_detail.php?ethnoid=66

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The Bukidnon

The Bukidnon people belong to the original proto-Philippine stock. Although the Bukidnon groups are scattered, tradition reveals that they were once a homogenous group. The Bukidnon groups' major means of subsistence are food gathering and swidden agriculture. The women are skilled in making applique and embroidering garments. The different cultural communities found in the Province of Bukidnon are Manobo groups: the Bukidnon, Higgonon, Matissalug, Talaandig, Tigwahanon, and Umayamnon. The Arumanen is another sub-group. The Bukidnons speak the Binukid dialect. They have light brown complexion, straight black hair, have an average height of about five feet. Their nose bridge is not flat. Courtships and marriages among the Bukidnons dre brought about by parental arrangements made since the children were eleven years old. Men practice polygamy but the women are expected to be monogamous. Marriage is done by exchanging betel with molded rice. Bukidnon art is best expressed in their dances, poetry and music, mat weaving, and basketry. The Bukidnon musical instruments consist o bamboo flutes, bamboo Jew's harp, one-stringed violin, and the boatshaped guitar. The Bukidnen handicrafts consists of mats, hats, fishtraps, and cloth weaving. The traditional method of farming is still being practiced by the Bukidnen farmers in upland areas. The agricultural products produced by the farmers are palay, corn, sugarcane, pineapple, coffee, cassava, abaca, and vegetables. The power of the Bukidnen chieftain or datu is built on trust and the confidence of his constituents. It is a blend of ascription and achievement and not governed by seniority or birth.

http://www.ncip.gov.ph/resources/ethno_detail.php?ethnoid=75

The Ati

The dark-skinned Ati group of Panay Island are probably the best known of the Filipino Negritos (Spanish term of Ati) being the indigenous tribe credited with welcoming historys first Malay datus from Borneo in the fourteenth century. The Atis have retained their dialect with traces of the ancient terms of "Kinaray-a" and dialects of the present time "Hiligaynon". Ati is the local term for their "dark brown" to "sooty black" skin color. They have wavy to kinky hair, pug nose, and thick lips. They are short in stature and generally below five feet tall. Their physical appearance is genetically carried up to the third or fourth generation even with mixed marriages. When the Spanish colonizers came they called the indigenous peoples of the island Negritoes because of their skin color. The colonizers also named the Island Negros. The Atis are scattered in the provinces of Aklan, Capiz, Antique, lloilo Guimara, Negros Occidental, and Negros Oriental. The biggest population settled in Nagpana, barangay Lipata, Barutac Viejo (lloilo). Other bigger groups are found in Hanti (Antique), Malay (Aklan), and Lambunao (lloilo). The total population is 63,654 (OSCC, 1987). For economic survival, they are adept at hunting, fishing, and food gathering. Nowadays, they have become less sedentary and constantly move in panuns (band). They become the "mountain people" in escaping the civilizing process of the colonists. They are perenially dependent on the yields of the forest, since they practice no permanent agriculture. Until the modern times, the Atis have used the forest for indisenous medicines as it yields medicinal roots, woodchips, shavings, gums, wines, leaves, seeds, barks, and herbs for curing kinds of sickness. They apply such herb with corresponding rituals. Because they are nomadic, the Atis put up their dwellings in the form of a lean-to or shack. During the olden times, most of the Atis went about naked. The menfolk wore ubad to cover their private part, while the women wrapped their lower torso with sahat leaving their breasts exposed. The Atis have an animistic religion. They believe in the existence of Kalosonin (spirit of the forest) and the aswang(witch). They hold a unique wedding rite on top of a hill. The bride is made to run fast one hundred meters away from the groom. Drums are sounded when the groom starts to pursue the woman.

http://www.ncip.gov.ph/resources/ethno_detail.php?ethnoid=85

The Sulod

The most numerous of the various cultural-linguistic group inhabiting the mountains of Central Panay, Tapaz, Capiz, Lambunao, lloilo, Valderama, Antique provinces are the Sulods who are relatively unassimilated. Their estimated population is 13,814 (OSCC, 1987). A Sulod lass performing a dance ritual. The Sulods occupy the rugged finger-like slopes along the banks of the river in the interior and higher mountain. It is because of this sandwich like location of their territory that the inhabitants are called by their neighbors Sulod which literally means closet or room. They speak the Sulod dialect with the combination of Kiniray-a and Ililigaynon. The Sulods live in small discrete settlements, called puru, which are generally located near their kaingin or swidden. Each settlement averages five to seven houses. They look upon themselves as a social unit, being conscious of common interests and loyalties and having a perfectly clear idea as to which families belong to the unit and which do not. The standard house of the Sulods is a four-walled, one-room dwelling raised about three or four meters above the ground on bamboo or timber posts and supported on all sides by several props called sulay. The roof is made of cogon thatch and the walls with flattened bamboo or bark of trees. Bamboo slats are the materials for flooring. They are shifting cultivators and do not stay in one place for more than two years. Hunting is another source of subsistence. They also catch fish with the use of hook and line and fish traps. Aside from hunting and fishing, gathering vegetable products and edible fungi is a way of securing supplementary food. The ordinary attire of the Sulods is like that of the lowland Bisayans. The women wear jacket with long narrow sleeves, usually made of silk and cotton with harmonious color. A band of red cloth is worn by women to hold up the barrel skin. On special occasions, the women wear a head dress of a narrow strip of cloth with silver coins seen on it with necklaces made of colored glass beads and silver coins strung together. The young men wear trousers and a shirt but some elder prefer to wear the traditional G-string. Their headwear is an ordinary burl hat during dry season and during rainy days. The spear is the Sulods most indespensable weapon which he carries in work and in travel. They have very few household utensils. Coconut shells are used for drinking cups. They do not have tables or chairs; they sit or squat on the floor to eat. The musical instruments include the drum, gong, bamboo violin, bamboo flute, bamboo percussion, and bamboo Jews harp. There are at least two famous dances, the binanugdnd kuratsa. The leader of the group which regulates the political, social, and economic affairs of the Sulod community is the Kahimataan. He participates in marriage arrangements, in the performances of community rituals, in the settlement of family feuds, in the payment of wergild, and in many other cooperative organization of the Sulod social, economic, and ritual life which is beyond the capacity of the nuclear family to handle. The Baylans are either men or women whose function is to communicate with major spirits during the important seances, to interpret dreams and omens relative to the general welfare of the communities, and to handle special magico-religious performances during ceremonies. The Mirku is called upon to administer herb medicine to the sick.

http://www.ncip.gov.ph/resources/ethno_detail.php?ethnoid=102

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Thursday, March 10, 2005

City finds the cure for its stinking dump (Part 1)

Jo M. Clemente writes about garbage problem and solution.

Composting the solution

YOU'VE got to smell it to believe it! In San Carlos City, what used to be a stinking open garbage dumpsite lorded by flies and worms is now a rich repository of compost. No stench, no gory picture of rotting animal carcasses, just the soiled remains of empty plastic bags embedded into the compost ready to be pulled out to be recycled elsewhere. And yes, the city government still dumps their waste into this two-hectare site while setting up their new Solid Waste Management Facility. But each day they throw in about two tons of garbage, they also cover these with rice hull to form windrows that measure about eight meters high and five meters wide. The rice hull-covered garbage is then left to itself for six months to cleanse and transform everything biodegradable into a humus substance enough to fertilize a vegetable plot or a flower garden.

And indeed, patches of flower gardens welcome one at the entrance of the site. More than a means to rehabilitate the six-year old dump before it is finally closed, San Carlos City Mayor Eugenio Lacson said they are now convinced of the rice hull technology and will adopt the same method when they finally move to their new solid waste facility. "We're totally convinced of the technology and I believe it is just right for a city like ours, given our existing resources. It is safe and it uses indigenous materials, at the same time solves the requirements of the rice millers. Instead of burning the rice hull, they give it to us and we use it for the dump," he said. The rice hull method was introduced to San Carlos City by the Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO) in May last year as part of its Comprehensive Solid Waste Master Plan, which the city government adopted in compliance with the requirements of Republic Act 9003 or the Philippine Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000. CESO on the other hand was accessed by a Negros-based non-government organization called Genesys or Global Environment and Nature Ecosystems Society, which the city government tapped to encourage private sector participation in the endeavor. A study undertaken by CESO's consultant Bill Goodings revealed that 80 percent of the city's domestic waste is organic, but that sorting out the garbage as already thrown into the dump was impossible. Thus, they chose to compost the mixed garbage through the natural aerobic process and used rice hull as treatment to bring more air into the waste and the needed "carbon" to stabilize the organic portion of these solid waste. Aerobic bacteria are already present in any organic waste. When the pile becomes malodorous, this means that the oxygen needed by the aerobic bacteria to thrive is depleted and methane is produced. This condition is righted by aerating the waste and adding carbon material such as rice hull to complete the aerobic process. In three days, the eight-meter high windrows of hull-covered mixed garbage start to work as as compost pile. As per the experience of San Carlos City, interior temperature of piles reach 55 degrees Celsius and in that environment, flies, weeds and other pathogens are killed and the odor diminishes to tolerable levels. From here the rice hull is mixed in and left alone for six months. Edgar Lopez, an officer of the city's General Services Department and in charge of the project, said they stick in long mercury thermometers to take the temperature of the pile as this has a bearing on the quality of compost that can be produced. "At 50 to 60 degrees celsius, we can produce better quality compost good for farm requirements," he said. Lopez also started to breed African night crawlers, an earthworm species, right at the dumpsite to support full rehabilitation of the site. Today, even as the city government still uses the same site for their dump, there is a noticeable decline in the presence of recyclables, an improvement, they say, in the way the people of the city manage their garbage.

http://www.inq7.net/reg/2003/nov/08/reg_5-1.htm

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City finds the cure for its stinking dump (Part 2)

Jo M. Clemente writes about the garbage problem.

No segregation, no collection

The City has two policies in its advocacy for zero waste. "If they don't segregate, we don't collect," said Mayor Lacson. "Their waste are left in front of their houses for a few days just to impress to the people that segregation should really start at source."

Lacson said they also do not encourage the use of plastic garbage bags. While an ordinance is yet to be passed by the city council that would penalize non-segregation of garbage, advocacy work is already being done on the barangay (village) level. Genesys had been the city government's partner in this information and education campaign that runs the entire gamut of the garbage cycle. Princess Solis, acting executive director of Genesys, said their advocacy campaign leans towards a change in lifestyle because technical know-how can help reduce garbage. "The garbage is no longer a problem; we have to work on the people now," she said in Filipino. Her team employs community catalysts who conduct training for key individuals and leaders in a community, which in turn develop their respective barangay plans. These plans cover the A to Z of managing their garbage. The city for its part had implemented a garbage collection system that also separates biodegradable wastes from recyclables. Three compactor trucks go around the city daily to collect biodegradable wastes while two open trucks do the rounds for recyclable garbage at scheduled days for each part of the city. While garbage segregation is a process yet to be perfected at source, the attempt to limit disposal to residual waste is high on the city government's agenda. A few manifestations can already be seen.

http://www.inq7.net/reg/2003/nov/08/reg_5-2.htm

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City finds the cure for its stinking dump (Part 3)

Jo M. Clemente writes about the the stinking dump and scavenging in Negros Occidental

Rosa Java is a scavenger who scouts for recyclables and sell these to junk shops. She lives within the dumpsite compound the last three years even when it was still filthy. They ate inside mosquito nets then, to get the flies off their food. During the rainy months, worms from decaying garbage crawled up their shanties. That's all gone now, she said, but with it is a decline in their source of living. Rosa said they used to earn about a thousand pesos a week from the junk they were able to get from the dumpsite. Today they are lucky if they get to earn 300 pesos for the same period.

Solis attributed this to the improvement of the people's knowledge about segregation. What others threw away in the past, they now collect themselves and sell. Solis said they were looking at the 13 families living at the dump area as possible partners in gathering the plastics from the composts. These plastics will also be compressed into blocks and then sold to recycling plants. In the meantime, the scavengers were given soft loans by the city government for use as their capital in buying the recyclables from various sources. "In sum, what matters is what we can do well with the resources we have," said Lacson. Lacson, who was the city's vice mayor for three terms before becoming its chief executive, said 'continuity' is also a key in local governance. "Just continue the good (policies) from a past administration and follow the development plan so that resources are maximized and projects are not disrupted." Right now, San Carlos City is a learning school for the rest of the country's local government units, it being the first to apply rice hull technology using the windrow technique for mixed garbage in its solid waste project. Local officials from across the country had been going to this city to look at the project-to better appreciate it--and smell the dumpsite as well. If only for this, San Carlos City is worth a visit.

http://www.inq7.net/reg/2003/nov/08/reg_5-3.htm

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