Philippines, Palanan and Beyond

So when we say we are going to the Philippines for the best part of a year, it doesn't really paint a vivid picture. The Philippines is a vast, diverse country comprised of hundreds of islands, many with completely different ecosystems.

The capital, Manila is huge and feels like a combo of colonial Spain, Asia, and consumer-driven America. I am sure Wikipedia will tell you the land-area it covers, but take my word for it – it’s massive and endless. Yet, it’s in complete contrast to where we will be sending the majority of our time – Isabela Province in north-east Luzon.

The Philippines is broken down into provinces, forming the local government like British counties. Isabela is the second largest of these and comprised in part by the Northern Sierra Madre National Park. It is Sierra Madre mountain range which has kept the Agta and others living in Palanan so isolated from the rest of the country.

   

Most of the inhabited areas of Palanan are to the east of the mountain range, physically cut off from what everyone refers to in Palanan as the ‘mainland’. You might as well be on an island – the only way in and out is by 10-hour boat from Dilasag in the south or a lightweight (and rather old) airplane from a nearby city.  The cause of this isolation is clear in the relief map below as the mountain range slices the province in two.

 

So after traveling for a couple of days from Manila, you reach Palanan, a town the Lonely Planet describes as ‘at the ends of the world’. So yes, this is a tiny town in the watershed of a river running through the last untouched primary mountainous rain forest in the Philippines,  but there are Coke and karaoke so let’s not get too carried away with exoticising the place. 

However, Palanan is famous as the leader of the Philippine revolt against Spanish colonial rule was captured here, bringing the revolution to a close.  There are a mini memorial and museum in Palanan dedicated to the event – a tourism hot spot.  Actually, due to its inaccessibility, tourism is a non-event, with very few people braving three-day mountainous jungle trek.  

Not to be confused between the municipality called Palanan and the town, which also called Palanan locals refer to the town as Bayan, meaning, rather unoriginally ‘town’ in the local dialect, Paranan. But it makes the distinction well.  Bayan is small, and you get the feeling that everyone definitely knows everyone. And everyone knows when non-Filipinos are in town – it takes a while to get used to being stared at.

Out of the populous of 16,000 around 1,000 are Agta; a historically, physical, genetically and culturally isolated foraging population who were the original inhabitants of the Philippines.  In contrast to the majority of the population the Agta are not rice farmers, but rather they live off marine, river and forest resources which they eat or trade for other objects. 

This isn’t because they don’t have contact with the farmers because they do and have done for centuries, as well as the Japanese invaders, American troops, Christians from every nationality and American and Dutch (and now British!) anthropologists who took great interest in the area. Why they have maintained their lifestyle is in part a mystery which I hope to study, but they conduct it in a beautiful and ecologically diverse landscape which includes coral reef, beaches, watersheds, rivers, mountains, and rainforests.

So hopefully, with the descriptive prose, maps and photos the picture of our next year are now vivid in your mind…… next time I will tell you more about the UCL Hunter-Gatherer Philippine Team.