Hungry days over for Mangyan tribe.

Asia Africa Intelligence Wire
 | December 05, 2002 | Copyright
(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Byline: Mei Magsino, Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro
AFTER WHAT seems to be a painful joke about Mangyans starving in Occidental Mindoro, one of Luzon's food baskets, the Iraya tribe celebrated a thanksgiving ritual on Nov. 23 to express gratitude for a good harvest and invoke prayers for more food to come. In their language, Iraya members prayed over organic rice, chicken and pork laid on the table under an acacia tree. Nearby were the rice fields that they have cultivated.
Men, women and children left their homes in the mountainous settlement area to join in the ritual, which was followed by a prayer in Filipino.
The elders thanked God and the people who helped them recover from starvation and diseases that hounded them seven months ago.
A sumptuous feast followed. Tribal members cooked pansit bihon (rice noodles) that symbolized long life and better harvest.
Every year thereafter, the Mangyans would mark Nov. 23 as thanksgiving day and celebrate the event. For the first time, they would be assured of a real merry Christmas.
Good harvest
The people have reason to celebrate. Their harvest last month from the 10.5 hectares of land that Jaliri Farms has lent them since July produced 60 to 65 cavans of rice per hectare, or five to ten cavans more than the National Food Authority's standard per-hectare yield.
"We have surpassed the NFA standards and we will never again go hungry," village leader Eddie Maligaya said in Filipino.
Maligaya said 21 families living in the settlement worked in the ricefields. Together, they would clean the fields and plant rice.
"Our system was to work together at the start," he said, "but after planting, we divided the field equally among us. That way, we eliminated laziness among the group members, as nobody would expect anybody to take care of the entire field. When we divided the field, each of us took care of our own rice paddies and even competed for the cleanest and biggest yield."
Starving no more
Seven months ago, the Mangyans who have settled in Barangay Tugilan in Mamburao town were discovered to be subsisting only on nami (wild yam). Malaria struck most of them, as they had little means of sustenance and not enough nutrients to combat the disease.
Their unirrigated ricefields had dried up, and for their source of food, they looked up at the mountains for wild yams, which were already scarce as a result of over-harvesting.
Nami can only be found in the mountains and half a sack of the root crop is good only for a single meal of a small Mangyan family. In such family, however, there are ten children to feed.
It takes a day or two to dig half a sack of nami, which is peeled, dried, washed in the river, dried again, pounded and boiled in water. The nami paste contains no other nutrients but carbohydrates.
The laborious process is necessary to take away the poison of the wild yams. Last year, five Mangyans died after eating yams prepared the wrong way.
The other food source then was the shallow river where they picked edible small snails.
That tragedy happened seven months ago. Mentioning nami now and the Mangyans would sneer.
"Why should we eat nami when we already have rice? If we used to eat nothing but nami and snails in the past, now we eat rice," another village leader, Amado Daluson, said. "From now on, as long as we work together, we will never go hungry again."
Organic rice
The Iraya is the most timid among the Mangyans tribes in Occidental Mindoro. Its members had gone hungry and had suffered from various ailments for a long time, but they do not go around town to beg for alms.
After a report on the starving and sick Mangyans appeared in the Inquirer, help came.
According to Maligaya, aside from the land that Jaliri Farms has lent them, the Municipal Agriculture Office gave each farmer a cavan of rice seedlings worth P300.
Mamburao Mayor Allan Aquino also gave ten cavans of rice seedlings, while other local politicians contributed four more cavans.
Maligaya said their other expenses were paid from their harvest. The rent of a hand tractor they used to plow the fields was paid with six cavans of rice per hectare of plowed field.
For their irrigation system, they relied on the Tugilan River.
"We grew organic rice," Maligaya said, "We didn't use any chemical fertilizer and pesticides. We took care of our fields as we pulled out all the weeds so the plants would grow better."
With their bountiful harvest, Maligaya said they would return the cavans of seedlings to the town's agricultural office, the mayor and the other politicians who helped them.
The rest of their harvest, he said, would be saved for the rainy days.
"We thank God that the El Nino [weather phenomenon] didn't put us down," he said. "And we thank God for the people who helped us become self-sufficient."
Community effort
Maligaya said only half of the Mangyan community, comprising 80 families, was active. And their participation in cultivating rice has done them good.
Teresita Gilagid, now nine months pregnant, was the frail woman whose photo with her baby appeared on the Inquirer seven months ago. She said she and her husband, who were given half a hectare of rice field as their share, harvested about 30 cavans of rice.
"When you took my picture last April, I was thin, hungry and tired," she said, "Now I'm bigger, full and healthy. These fields have given us a new hope. We're hoping that we'll be blessed with the same bountiful harvest next year."
In January, the Irayas will again plant rice. They are planning to adopt crop rotation to improve soil fertility and gain better yields.
"This Christmas, we won't be going around town to ask for pamasko (Christmas gifts) because it doesn't look good if we would always ask around," Maligaya said. "We're hoping that for a change, people will come to our village."