Higaonons

The Higaonons of Mount Balatukan: Traditional Way of Life vs. Threats of Eviction

The Higaonon are a national minority in the Philippines who reside in the northern part of Mindanao, the Philippines’ second largest island. The Higaonon who live in the province of Misamis Oriental regard Mount Balatukan, the highest point in the area, as sacred.

The mountain is located at the center of a mountain range, and is really a volcano, considered inactive, but displays fumarolic activity. Emitting smoke and heat, Mount Balatukan was regarded by the Higaonon as a place where the souls of the dead are judged before going to heaven or before being punished.According to their ancestors, it served as the national minority’s refuge when they were driven away by different settlers. Their ancestors were said to have lived near the coastlines of Northern Mindanao many centuries ago.

The Higaonon have kept their traditional system of governance. The indigenous group is led by a datu, a position earned by displaying leadership qualities. While upholding this tradition, the Higaonon recognize the barangay system where a barangay captain and barangay councilors, in paper at least, lead the community.

For the Higaonon, buntod is their home. “Buntod” means mountain in Higaonon, also the name of their own dialect. Because they regard the future of new generations of Higaonon to be intimately tied to the mountain’s future, they would fight for it with their lives.

Food from the Mountain

“Dalion tagkaon kig sa inyo! (Hurry, let’s eat!),” a Higaonon inay (mother) called to her children. It is 6:00 in the evening, and the day’s last meal is kamote (sweet potato).

“Magpula kid (to plant)” is the Higaonon’s main source of living. They are heavily dependent on root crops and banana trees for subsistence. They use fire from wood, and cooking with wood takes time.

“If you are at the mouth of Mount Balatukan, you will see that the smoke is really hot. It can cook bananas in only 15 minutes,” the inay said. “But you will not like the food because it tastes awful when cooked in the volcano.”

Agricultural production is centered on banana, kamote and cassava. The Higaonon also grow maize (corn), grind it, and eat it in a way similar to how lowland Filipinos eat rice. They get to eat rice only after corn harvest season, and the supply usually lasts for one month or two months at the most. For the whole year, kamote is the staple.

To bring the products from the mountaintop to the barangays in the lowlands, the community uses a horse. The distance is very far. It would be one hour for the ordinary Higaonon, but two to three for those who are not used to the travel.

The farmers bring to the lowlands a few baskets of bananas every Tuesday and Sunday. Each kilo is sold for PhP 9.00 (USD 0.18). Kamote is sold for PhP 13-20 (USD 0.26-0.40) per kilo, but they seldom sell kamote because they consume it.

They also raise chickens and pigs, but only a few of these. In some communities, especially where they practice collective farming, they have a cow.

Most families still practice individual farming. There are some families, however, who now take part in collective farming, which is a planned production of kamote, corn and rice.

“It is easier to produce collectively because we cover a wider area in less time,” the farmers said. “We allot one-third of the land for rice, and two thirds for kamote and cassava,” they added.

What they produce through collective farming is also used for domestic consumption. Only the left-overs – or produce they would not be able to consume before it rots - are allotted for selling. They have to hold a meeting and decide as a group before selling the left-overs. The unity achieved by the Lumad in collective farming is enforced more than the decisions made by the barangay leadership.

Selling crops is traditionally seen by the Higaonon as bringing bad luck, but they have learned to sell a portion of their produce so they can acquire a small amount of cash for necessities which the mountain cannot provide.

Children of the Mountain

One thing the present generation of Higaonon value for which they need money is education for children.

“Maayad ha masulom (good morning)!” At 4:00 in the morning, children start preparing for school.

Lente is ten years old and is in 5th grade. She has to be in school at 6:00. Her classes end in the middle of the day.

“My favorite subject is Math. I have one, two, three, four, five books in school. I have one teacher,” she said in Higaonon.

While having kamote for breakfast, Lente played with her older sister. Saisai is 13 years old and attends the seventh grade. She rose earlier at 3:00 to cook the kamote. To go to school, she walks down the mountain and rides a motorcycle called “habal-habal.”

With all the jumps and zigzags, riding the habal-habal is an everyday dirt bike affair. In Mindanao, only habal-habalscould take on the rough roads across mountains. The arteries leading to highways are often rocky and muddy. Most roads in the mountain areas of Mindanao are undeveloped. 

At school, Saisai ate cassava for lunch. Her classes end at 5:00 in the afternoon.

Back home at 6:00, she joins the planting with her inay. She washes clothes with her sisters Lente and Kim in a nearby community well.

At 7:00, Kim, the eldest who is 15 years old, calls on her sisters, “Tiruga kid! (It’s time to sleep!)”

Saisai’s dream is to become a teacher in a school near her house.

In the year 2000, a grade school was built in the community. It offers pre-school and grades 1 to 6. For the whole school, there are only four teachers who come from barangays in the lowlands. Travelling around 20 kilometers, the teachers come to the school using the horses in the Higaonon’s community. During heavy rains, travel is impossible, so there would be no classes.

There is no high school in the community. Most children only finish grade school. For Lente, Saisai and Kim’s family who can hardly afford the expenses of travelling to a faraway school, finishing high school is only a dream.

Kim said her favorite subject is History because she likes learning about other people in the country.

Her dream is to become a doctor devoted to her community. There is no community doctor, nor any health facility nearby. In most cases, cure comes from the Higaonon’s hospital – the mountain itself.

Cure in the Mountain

The Higaonon can identify different kinds of herbal plants. They even distinguish and have names for different types of grass. They said it is important to know about grass because there are only specific types that can be used for medicine.

“Atay-atay” grass is important for rituals. It can also be used to calm stomach aches. Even chickens are healed when they eat it.

There are herbal plants which the Higaonon use when they have cough and other simple illness. There are trees that bear a fruit with a cotton-like flesh. They use this to clean the ears.

Although the mountain provides plants for curing simple illnesses, the Higaonon recognize that available cure has its limits. Some types of illness do not go away by taking herbs. This is another important reason why they sell some of the crops they harvest. They need to buy medicine.

But normally, a ritual is performed when a member of the household is ill.

Rituals

Dancing is part of Higaonon rituals. “Dugso” is performed as a thanksgiving after harvest season. It is a community dance which involves the up and down motion of the feet, similar to hopping.

“Inagong” is performed to pay tribute to the “anito” or gods. It is a community dance which involves the rhythmic waving of the arms.

“Saot” (war dance) is performed during gatherings, usually by an individual. The dancer moves on the ground while raising an arm and clenched fist. The hand and foot glide in air in a rapid motion.

Passing Time

Many of the Higaonon adults regularly use “mama,” a traditional masticatory concoction common among mountain dwellers across the country.

Mama has three ingredients. “Apog” are shells refined as powder. “Tabako” is similar to the leaves used in ordinary cigarettes. “Bunga” is a fruit specially used for the mama. It comes from a tree similar to the coconut tree which is grown mostly up in the mountains.

The three ingredients are combined in the mouth. By chewing them, a red liquid is extracted, which tastes like spice and alcohol combined. After extraction, the leaves are spitted out, and the process repeated.

Frequent users know the balance of how much and how long to chew before spitting the leaves out. Those who are not accustomed to mama can at first feel a sudden dizziness similar to the sensation of taking a shot of hard liquor.

Integrating with the Lowlanders

“Traditionally, we plant root crops and herbal plants,” a Higaonon inay said. “But as you pass by our houses now, you will see flowers around them,” she added. Ornamental plants are mostly the influence of people from the lowlands. Higaonons can grow flowers easily up in the mountain because the temperature is cool and wet.

Many Higaonon have learned to speak Bisaya, the common language in the Visayas and Mindanao areas. Using Bisaya enables them to transact with people in the lowlands regarding their agricultural products. Bisaya is also the common language used in schools.

Higaonon families dream to finish tertiary education, in the hope that they would get more knowledge for production and cure. They also want education in the face of the various threats they are facing. 

Politicians for the Higaonon

“Every election, when politicians come here, we ask for small bridges that will help us cross the rivers going down the mountain,” the inays said.

The rivers make life difficult for them during heavy rains. The farmers cannot bring down their products to the lowlands. They cannot bring up medicine for the sick. The children who are studying high school cannot go down. The teachers of the elementary school near their community cannot go up.

“Politicians come here and bring NFA rice,” the inays said. NFA stands for National Food Authority which distributes rice, often substandard, among the poor.

“Politicians make a promise to build small bridges and to help us improve our agricultural production. But they do not come back after winning. Not even to thank the communities,” the inays said.

New Interests in Mount Balatukan

Different companies often come to survey Mount Balatukan. The Higaonon have heard of plans to harness geothermal energy and develop hotspring pools for tourists using the heat emitted by the volcano.

They also heard of plans of a Canadian mining firm to start extractive operations in the mountain.

The amays (fathers) said they saw people coming to survey the mountain a few years ago. After the survey, electric posts were set up across the mountain. “ They even placed electricity in areas where there are no communities,” an amay said.

The Higaonon in Mount Balatukan have a limited supply of electricity, which they use for light bulbs in the evening, and for charging cellphones and radios.

“We want power supply, but what is the price for it?” another amay said. As much as the they are thankful that they have power supply, they loath the idea that electricity was really brought to their area in order to power future operations of big corporations.

Land Titles

The Higaonon are also critical of the actions taken by the local and national governments that put into question their claim for ancestral land. Many Lumad, including the Higaonon, are forced to get a title for land ownership.

Land ownership can be claimed when the community, through their head claimants, is awarded a Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title or CADT. The community said that only a few Lumad have been awarded with such a title in their province. Still, even those who have legal claims on ancestral domain are facing the threat of being driven away from their land.

Natural Parks

Several moves have been taken to make Mount Balatukan a natural park. For the Higaonons, “natural park” does not sound as good as it does for those who are not living in the mountains.

In 2006, Senate Bill 2519 was introduced by Minority Leader Senator Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. as a Senate (Upper House) counterpart measure of House Bill 5839 which was filed in the House of Representatives (Lower House) by Representative Danilo P. Lagbas from the 1st district of Misamis Oriental. Pimentel is well-known as a senator from Mindanao.

The bill states that Mt. Balatukan and its peripheral areas will be covered by the National Integrated Protected Areas System or NIPAS. It is the classification and inclusion of all designated areas, like mountains and rainforests, into a so-called system that would maintain the area’s natural features.

The bill also states that human activities result in the most profound effects. Human activities can be interpreted as those brought by companies that want to make business out of the mountain’s resources as well as the activities of ordinary people who live and use the mountain’s resources such as land and water.

In 2015, Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada filed Senate Bill 1643 which also sought to declare Mt. Balatukan as a protected area. It stated the need to protect the diversity of species of flora and fauna found in the mountain such as insects and other endangered species like the Philippine Eagle, Mindanao Lorikeet bird, Tarsier, Giant Fruit Bat, Monitor Lizard, and Flying Lemur.

The Higaonon want to protect the animals and all living things in the mountain. But for them, declaring certain places to be “protected areas” means that the area will be closed and guarded from all activities including the people of the mountain, the Lumad.

Declaring areas natural parks are regarded as similar to legalizing the entry of multinational corporations for large-scale mining or for generating geothermal energy. These activities, they believe, can only start and continue in the community with the help of military presence. For the community, the presence of the military is synonymous with human rights violations. 

Sum-up of Complaints

The Higaonon value their community leaders because they listen to their members. But they said the barangay and the local government elected officials are not really bringing help to the people. They complained that the national government is anti-Lumad. 

First, they said, the national government does not give assistance to their livelihood. Second, it questions their claim to ancestral domain and makes them comply with legal requirements to prove that they own the land. Third, the government, through the military, is aiding the entry of big corporations into their ancestral domain. Fourth, it declares spaces as “protected areas,” which are protected from all human activities including the community’s.

“Maybe that is the reason they do no go back after winning the elections. Because they have plans that are anti-Lumad,” an inay said.

Future in the Mountain

The Higaonon see their future up in the mountain. Food will still come from agricultural production in the mountain. Medicine will still come from herbal plants. And water will still flow from springs.

Mount Balatukan is sacred for the Higaonon because the buntod (mountain) is their source of bubuhay (life).

The Higaonon of Misamis Oriental have lived for decades in Mount Balatukan. “Bubuhay is here. We were born here. Our ancestors died here. Our families are living here,” they said.

For their sacred mountain, they said, “Sukol kitalugong (we fight our enemies).”