With Bae Sophia Salvo Mancolintas, 2013.
I begin with this. This is Bae Sophia Salvo Mancolintas. A Higa-onon from Alubijid, Misamis Oriental.
When I was younger, she'd tell me stories of how, when she herself was a young girl- escaped the war by hiding in a cave curtained by a waterfall. She showed me her bansil- her teeth wrapped thinly-hammered bulawan (gold). I spent summers with her in lime-encrusted Ulab, where I often saw her in her small hut, sweeping away the sineguelas leaves that blocked the stairway. She was my great-grandmother on my mother's side. We called her 'guyang'. Until now I don't know what that word means exactly, but I know that it referred to her.
I didn't grow up in Ulab. I grew up in urban Cagayan de Oro. Nanay Norma, my grandmother, moved to the city in the '60s to find better opportunities. She met my grandfather and settled. My mother was born and raised in Cagayan, and through hard work, gained an Atenean education. My guyang's stories are all that connected me to my heritage as a Higa-onon. I was young, I didn't listen to her enough. I was just full of listless energy. I am Higa-onon only by lineage. I do not claim to fully understand the community's struggle.
I've spent years of my life trying to reconnect with my heritage. In 2018, after my Masters degree in Education, I decided to pursue a Masters in Culture and Arts Studies from Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology. Through the course, I've learned how to better approach and solve problems using a more informed culture-and-art-studies lens.
I finished said degree last March 2023.
Through my schooling, and conversations about research and even through the actual research process, I've gained more and more insights about my identity and I've learned to appreciate the importance of the Higa-onon community's knowings and worldview to their own lives.
Datu Arturo Cunto, a Higa-onon datu from Lanao.
He gave insights on the migration patterns of the semi-nomadic Higa-onon people,
which explains why the community is scattered all over Mindanao.
I've also realized how lucky I am to have the opportunity to discover more about my lineage and my heritage. I am one of the luckier ones- education, for me, was empowering. It was a way to reconnect to my roots. Unfortunately, that isn't always the case.
For most Lumads, formal education becomes a marginalizing experience, as they are subject to discrimination and exploitation even by the very structures which are supposed to nurture them. According to a report from EED-Philippine Partners Task Force for Indigenous Peoples Rights (2009) 1 out of 3 indigenous children entering primary school will most likely drop out and fail to graduate. Only 27% have the chance of availing of a secondary school education and a mere 11% of the students have the chance of completing it. The odds are even lower for a college level education, with only 6% have the chance of availing it and a mere 2% of the schooling Lumad population graduating.
A report from the Episcopal Commission on Indigenous Peoples (ECIP) (2007), revealed there are several difficulties faced by the Lumads when attending classes in public schools. For Lumads, schooling becomes an experience of non-being when they are denied their culture. When culture is discussed, it's usually limited to observable and tangible culture, which results in a surface-level understanding of it. There is a continued exploitation of culture and resources, and a number of practices which touch on culture are tokenistic in nature, resulting in alienation from their own people and their cultural identities, customs, traditions, and history. Specifically, these have been manifested through fragmented intergenerational ties, the exploitation of cultural practices, and fading IKSPs (ECIP, 2007). IKSPs
are important as these are how they maintain and preserve their way of life,
value systems, and worldview (Macusi et al., 2023).
As I'm continuing my schooling in the Doctoral level, I'm trying to put together two of the things very important to me- teaching and culture. With the use of decolonizing theories- Ladson-Billings' (1995) ‘Cultural competence’, Paris, (2012) ‘Culturally sustaining pedagogy’, Tagore’s essentialist purpose of education (Mukerjee, 2021), Nyere’s view of education as self-reliance. (Shizah, 2013) and Sefa Dei’s three central tenets – “Multicentricity”, “Indigeneity”, and “Reflexivity” (Sefa Dei, 2016), I hope to find out how teachers integrate IKSPs in their teaching to transform the formal education of Lumad learners. I believe that through understanding how IKSPs are integrated, we could provide a richer learning experience for said learners affecting not only practice, but also policy.
I am also very thankful for the lessons, activities, and experiences that were imparted in the qualitative research course which equipped me with skills that led to a clearer path to where I want to go. I understood that research was a way to help solve the world's 'wicked problems', that it should be relevant and a 'force within itself'.
Doc Achoot clarifies what would otherwise
be mind-numbing concepts
Through Margaret Archer's central idea of morphogenesis, we found how the interplay between structure, agency, and culture can either lead to transformation (morphogenesis) or status quo (morphostasis). This, framed within the critical realist framework, reminds us that research considers not just the 'symptoms' that we perceive, but goes deeper into the causal powers- the mechanisms that make things the way they are. Through examining these relationships, we can find better solutions addressing the roots of the problem.
I also appreciate how the Doc Achoot helped us through the process by taking us step-by-step through it. I appreciate how everything was relevant and streamlined to produce impactful research work. I also appreciate (and it would be amiss if I missed to mention) the company I was with when going through the process. Having people to sound off with and to support your ideas is a blessing.
The best support group. Loving learning together!
Hopefully through the results of the paper produced in this qualitative research course, we can recommend means to make education better by considering the richness of culture of Lumads, and make education work for them, instead of them being sidelined by what is supposed to be a system that gives them opportunities and helps them live their best lives. Hopefully the results would show the power that both education and research have in changing lives as they reconnect us to our roots, as they help us ground ourselves in our culture and experiences, and as they reaffirm our identities.
I remember my guyang always asking me 'hindu ka tag-payanaen?' when I was younger. She was always asking me where I was going. Now I find myself constantly asking this question too. I do not pretend to have an answer yet. But wherever 'that' is, I'm sure this course just took me a step closer.
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(ECIP). (2007). From Alienation to Rootedness. Indigenous Science
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Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a
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