Mangyans starve in food basket.

Philippine Daily Inquirer
 | April 25, 2002 | Copyright
Byline: Mei Magsino, Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro
IN WHAT appears to be the most cruel joke in the province known as one of Luzon's food baskets, the Mangyans of Occidental Mindoro have been subsisting on poisonous mountain yams and unsafe freshwater snails since December last year.
Worse, malaria has spread among the Mangyans, according to a village leader.
This, while the town mayor recently purchased a Toyota Hi-Lux pickup worth P1.1 million.
Five kilometers from the poblacion of the capital town of Mamburao is Sitio Tugilan, a Mangyan settlement in Barangay Tayamaan where 30 Mangyan families live on nami, a wild, poisonous and fibrous yam they dig from the mountains.
The Mangyan settlement's "vice mayor," Amado Dalusong, said the last time they planted palay was in December last year.
"The problem is, the earth has dried up and cracked because there is no more water," Dalusong said in poor Tagalog.
Three of the four hectares of the settlement area are used for farming, and each family has its own field. Huts and banana trees are found in the remaining land.
The Mangyans plant rice only during the rainy season. Last year, their one-hectare rice field produced only 10 sacks, which were divided among the 30 families.
The people eat rice only after the harvest season. The last time they did was before the May 14, 2001 elections when candidates campaigning for local government positions handed out rice and canned sardines.
With the onset of the El Nino weather phenomenon, it would take eight months more before they could eat rice again, unless an election campaign starts again.
Dalusong, along with his family and entire neighborhood, and probably all the Mangyan settlements in the entire province, still does not know that the El Nino is coming.
But even before drought began to parch their land, they have been subsisting on nami since December, supposedly their month of "tag-sagana" (season of abundance).
Nami
The deer and wild pigs they used to hunt are now gone because there are no more forests in the mountains. Persistent kaingin (slash-and-burn farming) has contributed to the disappearance of the forests.
When the male Mangyans cannot find nami, their wives would go down to the river and pick snails that they boil and eat. But the children have remained thin and frail, and their bellies have become swollen, which could indicate affliction of schistosomiasis or snail fever.
Ed Datos, 52, a Mangyan who has lived in the settlement for more than 20 years, said he has seen bad times in their place, but this is definitely the worst.
"There is no more nami even in the mountains. We have to go to the other side and the far mountains to dig nami. Often, we can't even get half a sack," Datos said in Filipino.
Even Rodolfo Plopino, farm manager of the nearby Jopson Aqua Livestock Integrated Resources Inc. who visits the settlement every three months, was shocked when he learned about the situation of the Mangyans.
"The last time we visited was in December when we gave out food and clothes," Plopino said. "Back then, they still had enough food to eat."
Malaria
For a family of nine, half a sack of nami is enough for only one meal. After that, the family goes hungry again, waiting for the next harvest.
To squeeze out the poison and fiber from nami, the root crop is peeled and sliced into thin strips, and washed in the river. The sliced white flesh is dried for a day and soaked in water overnight.
The strips are pounded and placed in a clean cloth to squeeze out the poison, after which these are again dried in the sun.
The dried nami is ground into a white powdery substance, sprinkled with water and cooked over wood fire. Only then can the Mangyan family be able to eat the yam.
Datos said five Mangyans have already vomited blood after eating nami processed the wrong way.
Since the Mangyans have nothing nutritious to eat and the nearby Tugilan River has become a breeding place of mosquitoes, the entire settlement has been stricken with malaria, according to Dalusong.
The people have gone to the provincial hospital to seek medical treatment. "But nothing happened since we were given only paper prescriptions. We have no palay, that's why we have no money to buy medicine," Dalusong said.
Malaria usually attacks people with weak immune systems. In the Mangyans' case, the nutrition they get from eating only nami once a day has made the entire village susceptible to the disease.
The settlement is only five kilometers from the poblacion. Those living in farther settlements could have been suffering more.
Up to now, there has yet been no report of deaths.
According to Plopino, this could never have happened had the Mangyans been given a water pump to irrigate their rice fields.
"If they had a water pump, they could have harvested rice last March," he said, "But it's not yet too late for that now. If they could have a water pump now, they could still be saved from the El Nino."
Mamburao Mayor Allan Aquino said help was on its way, and the Mangyans just have to ask for it.
"The problem with the Mangyans is that they don't come to me to ask for help, to ask for what they need," Aquino claimed, "But if they will come and ask for assistance, we can grant it."