Community perspective... 'tangay'

COMMUNITY... (Vision 1: A)

Vision 1 : Poor & Destitute :

A. Indigenous tribe (Tagbanua brothers)
B. Fishermen
C. Farmers
D. Kaingeros
etc.

Overall Objective :
- Must be empowered to effectively engage with laws and institutions.
- Law enforcement. Laws and government programs will have no meaning unless they experience the benefits, witness their favorable impacts or participate in the implementation.
- Community participation in legal processes, complex it may seem, to help shape or refine policy. The need and opportunities for engagement in the formulation and implementation of policies.
- Envisions communities that are self-determining stewards of natural resources
- Developmental legal aid, the use of law, legal education or services as a means to empower local communities confronted with problems.

A -1: Tagbanua brothers

Perspective:

The Calamian Tagbanua

The indigenous inhabitants of Culion Island (Calamian islands) are collectively called the Calamian Tagbanua which is also how their language is called. They use the word Calamian to separate it from the Tagbanuas of mainland Palawan.

The Calamian Tagbanuas are distinguished from the Tagbanuas inhabiting the villages of the central mainland Palawan by their fishing and marine-related activities. While mainland Tagbanuas are characteristically swidden (shifting cultivators or 'kaingin'), the Calamian Tagbanuas 'are generally sea-faring people. Their life
revolves around the ayuk (lakes), talu (corals), teeb (ancestral
waters), and leyang (caves). They have a semi nomadic way of life migrating from one island to the other depending on where they can have source of foods and incomes.

During kamian, (northeast monsoon, 'amihan'), those that have luray (cave containing bird's nest) visit their caves to gather the edible bird's nest, and stay in the area for at least one month. This is their most important source of cash during this season. They guard their clan's caves where the balinsasayaw (swiftlets) builds nests to prevent other people from harvesting the nests. Climbing the limestone cliffs where the nests are is a dangerous task that can cause broken arms, legs or sometimes even death. Historical data shows that the Tagbanua have been trading edible bird's nests with the Chinese as early as the 11th century A.D. For the Tagbanuas who have no caves, the northeast monsoon is the time for them to plant rice, sweet potato, cassava, or harvest cashew fruit and 'kurot' a thorny vine bearing fruit or buds underground. They also have seasons for honey harvesting.

Abat (southwest monsoon, 'habagat') is the best time for fishing,
because the sea fronting the two villages is calm. The Tagbanuas go out to fish from Monday to Friday and generally rest during weekends. They also go spear-hunting for fish and digging sea shells along coral reefs. They also have the lato harvest season where they can sell in the main town and some barangays together with their fish and seashells as sources of their income. Some are makers of mat or 'banig' where they also sell in town together with the honey 'pulot-pukyutan'.

Calamian Tagbanua are still shy and timid. When they saw people coming to their place, they usually hide out of anxiety, but now that some of them have already been interacting with other people, they have somehow adjusted to the presence of outsiders.

Seldom can you find a Calamian Tagbanua not chewing mamaken (betel nut with pepper leaf, lime and tobacco, 'nga-nga'). It is part of their everyday activity, may it be in a meeting or chatting and this is a necessity when they do overnight fishing. The mamaken will keep their body warm because of the spicy taste.

The manner by which fish migrate in schools or groups, such as the bararawan (Rabbitfishes), closely resemble the semi-nomadic life of the Calamian Tagbanua. They fish in the sea during abat (habagat) and kamian (anihan). They do fishing by groups into Talung Dakulo (big reef), Talung Gesye (small reef) and Nataktakan reefs. They collectively go farther during low tide and return at the same time when it is high tide.

The Calamian Tagbanuas are inherently unselfish and share their fish catch with other community members when the catch exceeds what a family needs. In the past, the Calamaian Tagbanuas used to wear takyul or takwil (G-string) when they went fishing. Nowadays, they wear shorts or pants and t-shirts to protect them from the heat of the sun. Elderly women and men find it comfortable to be half-naked while tilling the soil or making mats. Most of the teenagers, however, are influenced by the way town people dress. Physically, they have fair to dark complexion, some may be short and tall. There are also families
with Chinese features, a result of intermarriages between the Chinese and natives in the early days.

On Mondays, the Tagbanuas usually go to the market to buy food and other basic needs for the whole week. The family who has a son or daughter studying in school travel back and forth to the island and dependent on the weather. This is one of the major hindrance of their studies.

The Calamian Tagbanua still use their bare hands in measuring mass and weight. They use empty milk cans to measure volume and use shadows of people to determine the time of day. They are also engaged in barter system. One of the known skills of the Calamian Tagbanua is their sense of direction. They use the mountains as their landmarks. They usually remember the portion of the mountains on their left and right, and situate themselves at the middle position. They call this kuadrant.

Because of a sustained relationship between the Tagbanuas and their ancestral land and ancestral waters, they have derived a sense of uniqueness and identity as a people, an identity inseparable from their ancestral domain. Hence, their ancestral domain is not merely the territory per se, but also the intangible aspects of the community such as its history, social relations, system of resource use and cultural identity. All these are direct expressions of the Tagbanua's relationship with their traditional territory... "Pinoy na Pinoy!"


A. -2: Tagbanua brothers

Goals:
- Building a regulative and ennobling Tangay communities in preserving their unique identity.

- Community-based Conservation Program for seafaring Tagbanua tribes identified as one of the important areas for biodiversity...

- To benefit from the resources within their ancestral territory. Given them a new tool to protect their environment and to obtain an equitable share of the economic benefits of their natural resources.

- To strengthen the overall capacity of the Tagbanua organization in terms of resource management as distribution of benefits among community members. The continuing struggle to gain sympathy from the local government units and from other foundations to confront & constructively interact with major development issues obtaining its ancestral domain to become part of the development of tourism.

- To motivate them to attend school to educate the local central
communtiy and heal prejudices among the Tagbanuas.

Research and Intervention:
- Tribal and community-based systems exist & pre-exist must be enhanced. Likewise, such indigenous systems must be developed as enforcement mechanisms.
- Tradition, Culture, Arts and beliefs or faith.
- Participant observation and oral history interviews among
Tagbanua... living among Tagbanua - observed and "participate" in daily life that centered on their living conditions and their behavior, (e.g. why they drink after their long day income?)
- A deeper understanding of their unique behaviors.
- preservation and recording or documenting of their language.
- students and school participation in understanding their way of life.

Personnel/Tasking:
- teachers / students / volunteers / historian-writers-film-documentation
- coordinators and research personnel
- community participation
- elder advisers among them
- interpreters

Recommendation:
- Reviving & Building a new Tangay community and give them a permanent claim of their ancestral or territorial domain.
- Redefining their true place in our local gov't and even to
participate in local gov't decision making and have their own
barangay/s.
- The right to manage their own affairs and
- Preservation program among their territories grant by the local
gov't. possible Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC) or the Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title(CADT) under the new Indigenous People's Rights Act2
- Preserving Tagbanua language and literatures. Documentaries.



Overall Insights:
- Education must be a continuing or never-ending process. We must continue to be creative in seeking new ways to sustain education. If possible participation of all concern brothers..
- Interaction among them must be facilitated so they can learn from their experiences and constitute a movement that could effectively voice out their concerns.
- Security and equitable access to resources must be addressed in order to sustain tangay-based initiatives.
- Interventions in converting policy oratory into reality.
- Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms among them.

hello mga tangay, i know you can add more on this...
God bless

...


Vision 1 : Poor & destitute :

A. Indigenous tribe (Tagbanua brothers)

B. Fishermen:
C. Farmers:
D. Kaingeros:
for more details on this ares please refer to our Files menu.... thnx



(notes: majority of my reports are my priorities that I see, so if you happen to find some missing points please do add your suggestions even objections. this is an open-ended-letter and I'm hoping that we will continue to give in-puts and data to add more crazy ideas and dreams in order to revitalize our fading value of community… because for me community is the key that we can start to animate everybody so that our journey will not be stagnant.) Mabuhay na paglalayag!






ps

this letter is obviously dedicated to our tangay brothers especially to mr. dapal jr. (sorry bro. i use your login name to intensify our concern or even mission :) ...and of course to all: like ispin and rupert... by the way i miss them.

:)



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