MAHALTA: The Significance of the Mangyan, Halcon and Tamaraw preservation efforts in keeping the Mindoro heritage.

Mindoro is located in southern Luzon and the 7th largest island in the Philippines. The marine environment of Mindoro hugely contributes to overall national and global biological diversity. The Mindoro Strait is one of the most economically productive fishing grounds in the country and a migration route of commercially important fishes. Mindoro, being one of the major bio-geographic zones of the Philippines, is nationally and globally recognized as an important conservation area because it harbors numerous unique flora and fauna that inhabit a variety of natural habitats from terrestrial, freshwater, coastal, and marine ecosystems. Several species found in Mindoro are endemic only to the Philippines and to the island and cannot be found elsewhere in the world (Oliver and Heaney 1997).

It is very significant to preserve Mindoro’s heritage. Mindoro’s amazing biological diversity is associated with significant cultural value due to the presence on the island of at least eight tribes of indigenous peoples (IPs), collectively known as the Mangyans. These Mangyan Tribes are Alangan, Bangon, Buhid, Hanunuo, Iraya, Tadyawan, Taubuid and Ratagnon. The Mangyan tribes have preserved their original customs, beliefs, and practices through the years and maintained traditional ways of life that are deeply rooted in love, care, and enrichment of land and nature despite the assimilation of a number of tribe members into non-IP culture. Some Mangyan tribes strongly refuse to embrace lowland culture and are living in primitive ways and wandering in the remaining forests, with male members of tribes still wear g-strings made of barks. There are Mangyans who evade interactions with non-IP communities and continue to rely on forests for food. However, the depletion of forest resources has led several Mangyan groups to adopt lowland agriculture and engage in farm labor with lowlanders. Mt. Halcon is home to two of the eight ethno-linguistic groups in Mindoro Island — the Alangan Mangyans and the Iraya Mangyans. The Alangan Mangyans perhaps the most primitive among the Mangyan groups, still wear clothes that they make out of bark, the same material they use for roofs and walls. Mt. Halcon is known to Mangyans as “Siyaldang,” which means Sacred Mountain. These IP groups assert their ancestral domain rights over a large area covered by the eight sub-watersheds delineated in this plan.

The biological and cultural significance of Mt. Halcon is now defined as highly vulnerable. If left unattended, it’s various issues, concerns, and challenges may result to the further erosion of the IP culture, more losses to biologically important resources, and extreme deterioration of natural environment and ecological services, among others. The remaining forests of Mt. Halcon serve as important habitats and watersheds and offer other ecological services. They are under threat of further decline over the next few years because of timber poaching, charcoal production, conversion of forestlands into other land uses, slash and burn farming, small scale mining, and other destructive and unsustainable resource use practices. Mt. Halcon’s remaining natural forests are already fragmented and confined to a much higher elevation, and the use of natural resources found therein is not fully regulated. Mt. Halcon has, therefore, become an open access area because of the unresolved question of who the real authority is to undertake protection activities. It cannot be overemphasized that actual protection measures and mechanisms need to be put in place in order to properly take care of Mt. Halcon.