INADAN: THE LAND OF LUMAD | The Unheard Manobo of San Miguel

Despite  their condition, they manage to smile

Lumad refers to the native Manobos living in the island of Mindanao.  They are one of the indigenous groups in the Philippines that dwells in the rich forest mountains of Caraga Region.



In my two years of stay here in Mindanao, I have never thought that I will have a deep cultural attachment with the locals particularly in Sitio Inadan.

Sitio  Inadan is a sub community of Brgy. Magroyong, San Miguel, Surigao del Sur. It is located 7 km from the barangay proper of Magroyong and is composed of  few families of Manobo tribe that mainly depend on the natural resources gathered from the mountains to survive. Most of them cannot read and write. Their houses are made from scrap of slabs from the processed milled woods.

The people of Inadan have a special place in my heart. The elders have provided me protection and survival tips in the course of my field work.

For some entertainment, the children just keep me happy, smiling and talking to me through bashes of Chinese words –(chungchinghghang kong) thinking that  I am some kind of a black Chinese ! I really don’t know where these children got the idea. I just throw them with thousands of smile and giggle with them all the time.

Working in the area, I have witnessed their day to day lives, and it’s hard to imagine that this community is very much deprived with basic services that the government should be providing. No electricity, no source of clean water, roads, hospital and other basic social needs. During a life and death situations, the Manobos have to walk  more than 7 km of rough and muddy unpaved road just to reach the nearest community hospital; sad to say, nobody has ever reached the hospital alive.

Is this the Hope of the Future?

No choice but to attend school half-naked 

I am very much concern with the future of the children.  Looking at their ill life condition, I doubt that at least 2 or 3 of them would even finish elementary. Most of them sign on every piece of documents with their thumb marks. Because of this, they are being cheated by illegal forest loggers that are persistent on entering their ancestral domain and in return, they only gain little from the wood cut and other forest products that were sold to lumber and paper companies.

The current 2-room concrete building primary school was donated by a foreign organization and is  managed by a single teacher handling all grade levels from grade 1 to grade 4 . Most of them strive hard walking for several kilometers going to school even without food and school supplies on hand. Some even come to school HALF NAKED because they don’t have clothes to wear on.

Because of poverty, the children are  forced to help their parents by cutting and carrying more than 25 kilos of falcata timbers, walking on bare foot to  more than 15 Km in distance and selling the timber  to ‘kapatagan’ for a few hundreds of pesos.

Forced to work , helping the family

The depressed condition of the children of Inadan is an uneasy scenario for me. And I always pray that there is something I could provide to help them.

I always believe on my principle to “have some initiative to do whatever you can and don’t wait for others to tell you  when to start”. 

So even if  I am hundreds of miles away from the city, I tried to reach out to my networks of friends. I posted some of the photos of the people of Inadan via internet and I was overwhelmed with the responses. I was very thankful to those people who gave their pledges of donations in the form of books and clothes. I even worked in persuading my boss to provide contribution to the community and after long hours of discussion over a few bottle of beers I was able to convince him to draw few thousand of pesos for school materials (YEHEY-drunk).

First time to own a reading book

It was like Christmas in June when the donated materials arrived and were distributed to the children.

In behalf of the children of Inadan, we would like to give my sincerest appreciation to:

• Ms. Marynell Isip-Santos and her son Matthew Isip Santos of Good Christian of Faith Academy  for the books and other colorful reading materials; 
• Dr. Arnold Fonollera of DLSU-Dasma for the clothes; 
• Engr. Maricris Elemos of BDC for the instructional materials; 
• my boss Fred for the school supplies and those anonymous donors who wished not to be known.

These simple gifts and donations are worth a pot of gold for the recipients of your kind sympathy. May the Lord bless you always.

For those who wish to make their donations (in kind), you may coordinate with the author or send it to:

Inadan Primary School
c/o Ulyses Ravelo
Tina Elementary School
Brgy. Tina, San Miguel Surigao del Sur
Philippines, 8301

Contact Numbers: 

(+63)927.327.0344/ (+63)917.524.9462/(+63)948.522.4264

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