Reaching out to the Philippines' lost tribes

A Mangyan family in their traditional wooden house.

The tropical Philippine island of Occidental Mindoro can be ruthlessly hostile to its inhabitants and visitors alike.

At 35 degrees Celsius and humidity reaching 90 per cent, you feel the meltdown effect as early as nine in the morning. With the sun blazing in full fury and hot vapours blowing off the China Sea, it doesn’t take long before you feel you have sweated out every salt that is left in your body.

For Plan's community workers Mario and Rene it’s the start of a typical working day. They have to walk a long distance - sometimes up to eight hours - to reach indigenous Mangyan communities with whom Plan is working. Spread thinly across Mindoro's remote mountainous terrain, most of the seven different Mangyan tribes can only be accessed on foot.

It is often a tough trek up the mountains through dense woods. There is no road, there is no electricity, and there is no water either. "I often set off early in the morning with my survival kit and reach the communities by late afternoon," says Rene. Today is a good day - it's only hot and not rainy. Just like its intense heat, unpredictable violent downpours are very much part of Mindoro’s hostilities.

"Mudslides often block the trails after heavy rains, and the only way to reach the communities is by crossing the river on foot," says Mario.

Since 2005 Plan has been running various child-centred community development programs for the Mangyan primarily focused on education, community sponsorship, alternative learning systems and livelihood training. Currently the organisation is working with 51 communities in Occidental Mindoro, which is home to nearly 25,000 Mangyan people.

Efforts to reach out to the Mangyan are met with extreme challenges that are not just limited to accessibility. The reclusive Mangyan are among the poorest and most marginalised people in the Philippines, physically and socially removed from the mainstream. A Mangyan family earns on average just 34 cents a day. Nine out of ten Mangyan people have poor access to safe drinking water and 60 per cent of Mangyan children are malnourished. Literacy is low and it is common for both boys and girls in the community to be married by the age of 10.

It is because of the relentless efforts of frontline community development workers such as Mario and Rene that Mangyan communities are beginning to build bridges with the rest of the world. Mangyan are untrusting of anyone outside their communities and it takes months to establish contact and build mutual trust with their communities.

"Traditionally community elders gather for meetings only after sunset as most are out in the forest or in the farms during daytime. So it is normal for us to sit all night through with a lantern listening to Mangyan folklore with education and livelihood discussions thrown in between," says Rene.

The Mangyan have a long and difficult journey to overcome generations of isolation and discrimination, but the community development efforts are slowly beginning to make a difference. For Plan’s livelihood programmes alone, 178 Mangyan communities have achieved sustainable food and income. By early 2014 Plan hopes to have established 13 community-based farm enterprises covering 73 communities and benefiting at least 16,000 Mangyan people.

“Before, we used to get only 150 pesos for five whole kilograms of unprocessed forest honey from the market middlemen. Now, we process our own honey, sell it directly in the market and earn 70 pesos for only 300 grams,” says Roberto from Pambuhan village, where Plan has started a food processing centre.

Roberto’s joy is understandable. What is hard to comprehend is what keeps workers such as Mario and Rene going. “Nothing is more rewarding to me than seeing Mangyan children go to school or communities become self-sufficient in food and income," says Mario. "Each community is like an extended family to me and I feel a part of them," he adds.

No surprises then, that each time Mario and his band of development foot soldiers arrive, sleepy Mangyan villages wake up to a festival.

Find out more about Plan’s work in the Philippines.