Healing island

MANILA, Philippines - The day is dissolving into dusk in the hilly barangay of Tag-ibo in the town of San Juan in Siquijor island, but visitors are still arriving at the home of Conching Achay.

A small woman in her 80’s, Nang Conching is standing in a corner of a receiving area back-dropped by an altar with religious images and a black cat by the doorway, engrossed with a female “patient” with scaly, red, itchy marks on her once flawless face, a condition dermatologists have failed to remedy for two years now.

Nang Conching feels her pulse. “You can tell by a person’s pulse if the illness is brought about by bad spirits,” she says in Cebuano.

She then half-fills a glass with water, drops a “magical” black stone into the glass, and blows air into it using a six-inch bamboo tube, pressing the glass to the young woman’s face. Shrubs and dirt suddenly appear in the water.

She repeats this procedure with clean water, again and again, until the water no longer turns murky, which means that the toxins have been eliminated from the woman’s body.

Nang Conching rubs an herbal liniment on her face, and offers a word of counsel in Cebuano, “You’ve been the object of other people’s envy. Don’t draw too much attention to yourself. Also, avoid looking at the mirror too much.”

Nang Conching, one of over 50 identified folk healers of Siquijor, just performed the bolo-bolo, a healing ritual unique to the island.

Nang Conching perform healing rituals. PHOTOS BY ALDO NELBERT BANAYNAL

Siquijor folk healers believe that illnesses can be explained as either supernatural or natural. Since not all are attributable to the workings of supernatural elements, you can expect Nang Conching to dish out advice on how to avoid the ill-effects of physical strain, weather changes, and even too much vanity.

With alternative medicine now in vogue, Nang Conching and the rest of Siquijor’s folk healers have been attracting renewed interest, particularly from foreigners. Some of them are included in the promotional posters in resorts, and have been drawing curious tourists.

Japanese national Toshitl Harada, who owns Villa Marmarine Resort in Siquijor, says Japanese are no strangers to traditional medicine, and the rustic and tranquil environment of the island-province adds much to the appeal of the Siquijor folk healing experience.

Another foreign resort owner, Johnnie Karstensen of Danish Lagoon, says that he used to suffer from psoriasis, but a bolo-bolo healer told him to apply tugas bark on his skin. He claims he has been healed, and adds that the weather is also perfect for relaxing and recuperating. “There are so many Europeans suffering from psoriasis, so imagine if they all come here to be treated.” 

Efforts are now underway by the provincial government to develop Siquijor’s potential as a healing and wellness destination. This is also one move to shed off its image as the land of sorcery and black magic, which has, for the longest time, given the island-province an unflattering reputation.

The stigma is apparently wearing off, if the increase in tourist arrivals is a gauge. Siquijor had over 100,000 visitors in 2009, a 30 percent rise from the previous year. Still, the guests are spillovers from the more preferred neighboring islands of Bohol, Dumaguete and Cebu, and the numbers do not dignify what this postcard-pretty island has to offer.

Branding “Mystical Siquijor” as a healing destination has been deemed a good step to differentiate it from the similar sand-sun-sea-surf attractions of its neighbors. Gov. Orlando Fua, Jr. tells STARweek: “At present we are trying to catalogue every point of interest that Siquijor can offer, also encompassing the healing practices of Siquijor, including traditions and folklore that mystify people.”

MYSTICAL SIQUIJOR: Love potions are the island’s most in-demand product.

According to provincial tourism head Jossette Armirola, this new direction jives with a study recently undertaken by the Department of Tourism-Region 7, which gave Siquijor high marks for its potential as a wellness destination.

Jomar Fleras, a wellness expert who has advocated traditional healing practices in a spa setting, says what sets Siquijor apart is that there’s a lot of culture involved.

Siquijor is “special because it offers a folkloric experience” with its host of healing rituals and healers using varied and fascinating techniques. Some of the healers have received training from the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care (PITAHC).

According to Virgie Miquiabas of the Siquijor State College who has written a book on the island’s mystical practices, there are 50 identified healers in this island of roughly 100,000 people. Apart from the bolo-bolo, some of the methods employed by healers are hilot (massage), tawal (prayers), eggs, candles, and others.

Noy Perdo Ano-os of the town of Lazi, who was interviewed by a Japanese TV crew at the time of our visit, says that he uses a blessed candle and herbal medicine made of ingredients from church surroundings, the river fronting his home, and the mountains. He lights this candle, and moves it around a patient’s body, as he murmurs special prayers. Although he doesn’t hesitate recommending patients to go see a medical doctor, he shares that he is often summoned to the hospital to treat patients who are undergoing conventional medication.

So why does folk healing thrive in Siquijor despite the presence of modern medicine? Miquiabas reckons it is a tradition that’s been passed on from generation to generation.

The island also offeres natural wonders such as the San Juan Lagusan Falls.

Congressman Orlando Fua, Sr. candidly admits that he is no fan of folk healing, but surmises that it still exists in Siquijor because the place is abundant with herbal plants. He says, “The different herbal medicine you see on television, we have long known about their medicinal properties. Growing up, when we got sick, we take herbal medicine brewed by our mother.”

In heavily-forested Mt. Bandilaan, the highest peak in Siquijor and the venue of the province’s First Healing Festival held last Holy Week, there’s an area designated by the government where some of the plants needed for herbal concoctions are grown. But one cannot just harvest ingredients anytime, as healers believe this has to be done only once a year, during the days leading up to the Holy Week, to be effective. There is a group in charge of the cropping and gathering, called the mangangalap.

A lot of these plants interestingly bear the names of the kind of effect it will have on people, like tawa-tawa (laughter), sumbalik (return), tulay (connection), tulog-tulog (rest), etc.

These are the same herbs used in the island-province’s famous love potions, the best-selling among all the products that the provincial government brings to trade and travel shows.

But the healers are just part of the whole healing picture. An overall sense of well-being is induced by the surroundings, with fire-tree framed landscapes, a gentle, leisurely pace of life, and an array of eco-tourism gems.   

No wonder it became the set of the 3rd season of the Japanese version of the reality game show franchise “Survivor” in 2002, long before other foreign editions of “Survivor,” famous for featuring the world’s most exotic environs, discovered the Caramoan Peninsula in Camarines Sur.

Siquijor has some of the finest beaches in the region, as well as caves, waterfalls, and spring parks, like the Cambugahay and Lugnason Falls, the Cantabon cave, the Guiwanon Spring Park, which has cottages suspended high above mangrove grounds.

And it is a natural beauty that’s time honored and tested, if we were to take into account the declarations of the Spanish Recollect friar who built the sprawling St. Isidore Labrador church and convent – declared a National Cultural Treasure by the National Museum – in the languid town of Lazi.

As documented by the Siquijor Heritage Foundation Museum, Fray Toribio Sanchez had written to a fellow priest why the convent was constructed from 1887-1891: “I want to build a spacious convent so that sick priests can come and rest here because your town is very restful for the mind and spirit.”

Today, that rest for mind and spirit can still be found in Siquijor, whether you look for it in the bolo-bolo ritual of the healer or the soothing embrace of a pristine beach or the tender caress of the waves at dusk.