Fiestas
Every town keeps a patron saint’s day, and the fiesta around it is the social event of the year. Expect food pressed on you by strangers. Accepting is the polite response.
Culture & People
Eight peoples, one island
Mangyan is a collective word for eight distinct groups. Using it as though it means one thing is the first mistake most visitors make.
Photo: Old House in Pinamalayan Or Mindoro by Elmer B. Domingo, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The Iraya, Alangan, Tadyawan, Tawbuid, Buhid, Hanunuo, Ratagnon and Bangon are the indigenous peoples of Mindoro. They have separate languages, separate territories and separate customs, and they were on the island long before the lowland towns existed.
They are not a historical exhibit. These are living communities, most of them in the uplands, many of them dealing with land pressure, logging and the slow encroachment of development from the coast.
If you visit, visit as a guest of someone.
Ambahan
Seven syllables to a line
The Hanunuo Mangyan have a poetic form called the ambahan: chanted verse, seven syllables per line, traditionally carved into bamboo using Surat Mangyan.
The subjects are ordinary and human — courtship, farewell, advice to a child, the behaviour of a guest. They are not performance pieces written for outsiders; they are how people say things to each other.
The Mangyan Heritage Center in Calapan holds a substantial collection and is the sensible first stop if this interests you.
Do not treat a village as an attraction
Turning up unannounced with a camera is not welcome, and in some communities is actively resented. Arrange any visit through the Mangyan Heritage Center or a community-sanctioned guide who can tell you what is appropriate.
Ask before photographing anyone
This holds everywhere, but it holds harder here. A refusal is a complete answer.
Buy directly if you buy
Woven baskets and nito-vine work are genuine crafts with real skill behind them. Paying the maker rather than a coastal reseller is the difference between the money staying in the community and not.
Listen to them, not to us
Two perspectives worth your time
We are a long way from qualified to speak for anyone here. These are documentary pieces made by others — the first is a visit to a community in the Baco mountains, the second addresses the pressures these cultures are under.
Lowland life
The other culture on the island
Most of Oriental Mindoro’s population is lowland Filipino, farming rice, calamansi and coconut. That has its own calendar.
Calamansi country
Oriental Mindoro is one of the country’s major producers of the small citrus that goes into nearly everything. You will taste it constantly and stop noticing within a week.
Eating well
Grilled fish, sinigang soured with tamarind, kinilaw cured in vinegar. Coastal towns eat what came in that morning, which is the whole argument for eating where the boats land.