Letter From Tawi-Tawi

The Chinese Port in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi buzzed with a singular energy, at once

familiar and exotic, on an overcast Sunday morning. Along the pier, massive

wooden passenger ferries nodded silently over the water. People scuttled along narrow

streets next to tricycles and heavily tinted vehicles, their movements carefully

synchronized, bodies and machines moving here and there in steady inefficiency. Three

stories above the bustle, colorful laundry fluttered on a roof deck, briefly animated by a

soft breeze. Farther away, the vertiginous Bud Bongao peak dominated the skyline, a

limestone monolith jutting out like a jagged tooth over the landscape.

Blue backpack slung over her shoulder, Cansida Arances navigated the port expertly,

slipping between men carrying baggage, sacks of rice, and plastic jerrycans filled with

fuel. Arances was making her way back to her hometown of Barangay Buan in

Panglima Sugala, where she also works as a volunteer teacher. Teacher Sidang, as she

is called by her students, had high cheekbones, even, brown complexion and wide-set

eyes behind a pair of rectangular glasses. Dressed for comfort, she wore a light blue

hijab, a checkered long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and off-white trainers. She climbed a

narrow gangplank to board the ferry, pushed past a gaggle of men, and ducked under a

low ceiling to enter the lower deck, which was already filling up with passengers.

These boats, or lantas, are a backbone of transportation in Tawi-Tawi, moving people

around the different islands of the province. They are also an anachronism, a holdout

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from the rest of the country where wooden ferries have mostly been phased out. Inside,

seats were limited. Early birds spread blankets on the floor and stretched out beside

their belongings. A young mother secured a hook on a low beam and fashioned a cradle

out of a malong, a length of colorful fabric ubiquitous in this region. An enterprising man

knocked together a small bed out of two sacks of rice and curled into position.

Hammocks draped from the rafters. A pair of hens cowered in a corner while travelers

squeezed between baskets of vegetables and crates of eggs and soft drinks lining the

passageways. Up a steep stairway, the cramped upper deck, barely high enough to sit

in, was also packed with people and possessions. A tiny, dimly-lit bridge with squinting

windows crowned this claustrophobic wonderworld. The captain’s infant son was

propped on the console in front of him, like a life-sized ornament.

Teacher Sidang settled on a bench and rested her head against a panel. She was a

picture of calm and patience. Sidang made this trip regularly over the weekend to visit

her two eldest daughters who live in Bongao.

When I asked her what time the boat would leave, as we were now an hour behind the

announced schedule, she gave me a knowing smile. “When it’s ready,” she said.

Now it was time to go. The massive diesel engine roared to life, engulfing the ship in a

cocoon of noise and vibration. The hulking boat slid over emerald waters, which was

unwrinkled on this gray, windless morning. Salty air wafted through the deck, providing

some relief from the stifling humidity. A youngster sitting on a pile of bags smoked his

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second cigarette. He didn’t lift his eyes from his cellphone, which he held sideways with

two thumbs over the screen, intently focused on a game. The baby in the makeshift

cradle, gently bobbing, was blissfully asleep. Distant hills and verdant coastlines cast

dark reflections over the flat water, a slow procession of green on green. There was

something prehistoric, even primeval about the seascape, like it poured out from an

archaeology book.

Tawi-Tawi is frontier land in more ways than one. The farthest province from the seat of

power in Manila, the capital of Bongao sits just 50 kilometers away from Malaysia-

administered Sabah. The historical connection between the two territories runs deep,

with blood ties spanning both sides of the border. Tawi-Tawi was once part of the

Sultanate of Sulu, a territory predating Spanish colonization that encompassed the Sulu

Archipelago, parts of modern-day Mindanao and Palawan, and portions of

northeastern Borneo. During its peak, the Sultanate is said to have had the most

advanced culture and socio-political system in the entire archipelago. However, the

prosperous maritime power fell into decline in the early 20th century after struggling

against successive colonial powers. Since then, development in this part of the

Philippines has been slow. In the past decades, government neglect, social inequality, a

porous frontier, and pockets of lawlessness have given rise to separatists and freedom

fighters as well as pirates, smugglers, and extremist groups. Even today, despite years

of relative peace, its image as a place of instability has been hard to shake off.

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Sidang wants to see change in the place she calls home, and believes she can help

achieve it one student at a time.

We arrived in her village four hours later. The island has no electricity, no cellular signal,

not even a local police force. Instead, a detachment of the Philippine Marines provides a

measure of security. The village chief received us at the port, wearing a polo shirt and

shorts. He was a heavy man with drooping eyelids and a stolid temperament. A few

hundred meters away, at the edge of a mangrove forest, a roaring speedboat

disappeared behind the curve of the island. The chief glanced in its direction, then back

at me, his expression unchanged. He already knew what I was going to ask. “Fuel

smugglers from Malaysia,” he said candidly.

It was a short walk to Sidang’s house. Their home stood over the shoreline, held up by

dozens of wooden poles buried into the seabed. Weather-beaten planks, laid out side

by side without nails or lashing, formed a walkway that flexed and wobbled under our

feet. Sidang shared a single, bare room with her mother, three youngest children, and

Parker, a gray, phlegmatic tabby cat. He gave the slightest acknowledgment of our

presence before walking away, uninterested.

Sidang removed her backpack and exhaled sharply. It had been a long day. At the age

of 50, she had many years of teaching experience, but was not yet a licensed teacher.

Sidang graduated from the Mindanao State University with a degree in education, and

although she had taken the teacher’s certification exam nine times, she had yet to make

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the grade. “It’s so hard to prepare for it when I have to juggle work and my

responsibilities at home,” she said. “I don’t even know if my review books are up to

date.”

In the meantime, Sidang has been working for various education-based non-

government organizations. She was now employed by BRAC, an international non-profit

whose projects in the Philippines center around the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in

Muslim Mindanao or BARMM. With a monthly budget of P15,000, Sidang teaches

reading and writing to illiterate children: one house at a time. It’s a physically demanding

and time consuming job, but one that Sidang has grown to love.

“I just adore the kids.” Sidang said. “I see my own children in all of them, so it breaks my

heart to see that many don’t know how read and write,” Sidang said.

Access to education and literacy are longstanding problems in BARMM. A pre-pandemic

survey by the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that the region had the lowest basic

literacy rate in the country at 83 percent. Meanwhile, a 2015 study revealed that just 4 in

10 students enter elementary school in Tawi-Tawi, with only 2 graduating. The worst

educational outcomes were observed in Muslim indigenous communities like the Sama

Laut and Badjao, which are the dominant ethnolinguistic groups on the islands. On the

average, only 1 in 3 of the seaborne people were literate. They make up the bulk of

teacher Sidang’s students.

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She was up early the following morning, preparing her teaching material in the milky

half-light. Sidang assembled colorful cartolina, modules, picture books, black markers,

extra pencils and erasers, and some sweets as pasalubong or gifts for the kids. The

inert air of the pre-dawn laziness foreshadowed the effort of another hot day. Sidang

rents a small boat to reach the pondohan —mid-sea stilt house communities that dot the

region. She now sat balanced in the middle of the skiff, her books and a clear plastic

envelope placed neatly on her lap. Soon, the sun peeked behind the dark silhouette of

the island, illuminating the tops of the tallest coconut trees. The boat chop-chopped

steadily over the water. From a distance, the stilt houses looked like tall, gangly

creatures perched above the shimmering sea.

A family of four was already waiting for us as we approached the first house. Sidang

clambered up a ladder onto a wide platform and made a beeline for a 5 year-old girl

wearing an oversized t-shirt and a striped skirt. The teacher knelt down, giving the girl a

hug and a tender kiss on the cheek. “This is Geralyn, my most well-behaved student!”

Sidang gushed. She became animated with a sudden burst of energy.

Teacher and student sat down in a shaded common area. It was immaculately clean

and well-organized, with pillows, clothes, and blankets neatly folded and stacked at the

far end of the room. On a small shelf, plastic shampoo bottles and other toiletries were

arranged by height. There was no furniture. A section of linoleum printed with a Hello

Kitty design covered the floor. As Sidang taped her visual aids to the wall, two more girls

arrived on boats and joined the duo. The kids, sitting in a semicircle and gripping newly-

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sharpened pencils as long as their forearms, did not take their attention away from

Sidang. There was an eagerness in the girls’ eyes as they recited the letters of the

alphabet, as if they were unlocking the secrets of the universe with every syllable

uttered in rote.

Many of the children in these off-shore communities have never gone to school. Even

though there is a public elementary school in the nearby island, where Sidang herself

lives, going there was not an option for families who can’t afford the fuel for daily trips

on the same boats they used for livelihood. Indeed, most only venture beyond their

homes out of absolute necessity, thereby growing accustomed to a life of seclusion.

This physical and social isolation has a price, often cited as a major factor in the low

level of education in these communities.

To address the problem, Teacher Sidang’s NGO originally made a floating school

anchored near the stilt houses, a more accessible place where kids could gather for

lessons. It was a smash hit, well-used and beloved by the community. But after a while,

the school finally lost its battle with the elements.

“One day, strong winds and waves just took it away,” Sidang said after her lesson. “The

people couldn’t do anything, they just watched it drift off into the distance.”

That was four years ago. We hopped on our boat and made our way to another group of

homes situated in a thick mangrove forest. Up a small hill on a finger of land, we arrived

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at another modest house on stilts. A dark-skinned man received us with a broad show of

affection. He had friendly eyes and deep lines along both sides of his mouth, like a pair

of parentheses. “Go right inside,” he said in Tausug. “She’s been waiting for you.”

Sidang loved all of her young students, but there was a special place in her heart for

this one. Marsila was wearing light blue printed pajamas, her long black hair neatly

gathered in a ponytail. She had slightly impish features, a wide smile, and an

unreserved demeanor.

Sitting in one corner of the house, Marsila and Sidang began their lessons. The young

girl recited with confidence and enthusiasm. Sidang brought out her picture book of

letter associations and leafed through the pages. A is for apple. B is for ball. C is for cat.

“Kuting!” Marsila exclaimed. Their own cat gave birth to four kittens recently, she

shared. D is for drum. “Tambol!” Marsila said, pretend playing on a set of invisible

drums. E is for elephant. Marsila paused, marveling at the picture.

“What is that?” she asked. “A carabao?”

Sidang laughed. “It’s not a carabao,” she explained. “It’s a very big animal with a long

nose.” Marsila’s stared on in wonder.

Marsila’s father Mansul, the man with kind eyes, earns a living by farming agar-agar, a

kind of seaweed used for food, cosmetics, and bioplastic. It is the main livelihood in

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many impoverished communities in Tawi-Tawi. Rows of seaweed growing just under the

sea surface cover hectares of coastline, thriving in places with a gentle current and

generous sunlight. Agar-agar is easy to cultivate and grows year round. But even as

local and international demand for the raw material continues to rise, small-time farmers

here earn a pittance.

Mansul only brings home around 6,000 pesos (114 USD) on a good month, not nearly

enough for the needs of his family. They scrape by. Options were limited for the man

who only finished two years of basic education. But it wasn’t just poverty that sealed his

fate early on. It was also poverty’s terrible inward twin: despair. Mansul’s father,

grandfather, uncles, and neighbors all eked out a meager existence from the sea. And

so, at a young age, too young in fact, Mansul surrendered to a gnawing sense of the

inevitable.

“I thought it would be more useful to start earning early instead of going to school,”

Mansul explained. “Why study if I would end up a fisherman too?”

But for his children, the fisherman, his face pitted and pockmarked with regret, now

permits himself to dream. “I want Marsila to be good, like the other kids who go to

school.” Mansul said. “She’s very bright. I can see that she understands the lessons

right away, without the need for repetition.”

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After class, Marsila practiced her writing under the watchful guidance of Teacher

Sidang. Hers was a tiny world, radiating from their house to the edges of the mangrove

forest, a tangled no man’s land where large crocodiles still lurked. For Marsila, each day

with Teacher Sidang was a special occasion, a break from a daily life of planting

cassava, playing with their cats, and being a dutiful daughter.

It wasn’t just Marsila’s vivacity that endeared her to Sidang. She had a kindness and

concern that seemed preternatural for her age. These lessons meant so much to the

young girl because she wasn’t just learning for herself.

She was passing on her precious knowledge to her illiterate parents too.

Marsila and her parents presently sat near the door of their single, shared room. It was

fastidiously clean and well-ordered, an emerging theme in this community, as if it were a

last defiance against the indignity of being poor. Marsila read her modules out aloud,

pausing to allow her mother and father to follow along.

Ang mga sumusunod na larawan ay halimbawa ng kulay ng itim.

Madilim ang langit sa panahon ng bagyo.

Ilan pang halimbawa ng mga bagay na may kulay itim.

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And what were these lessons for? In their advanced years, Marsila’s parents did not

think this education would be useful for further employment. Bu it could prove handy in

case they needed to sign documents, which, to the illiterate, can be a terrifying affair.

And there was another reason why Marsila played the role of teacher in their household.

It was late February, and while this remote community had not yet been gripped by the

frenzy of catch phrases, campaign rallies, and colors of the fast approaching national

elections, it was, nonetheless, a much anticipated affair.

Marsila, all of eight years-old, was determined to teach her mama and papa how to vote

on their own.

While overtly virtuous, her goal may seem trivial to an outsider. After all, there are laws

in place to ensure that those who can neither read nor write would still be able to vote.

Under the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines, the illiterate or disabled may be

“assisted by a relative, any person of his confidence in the same household, or certain

members of the board of election inspectors” on the day of the polls.

But Marsila’s ambition reflects a larger aspiration for indigenous peoples in this region, a

community that has had a wretched experience with elections and their right to suffrage.

“They are used for cheating operations, because they don’t understand what’s written

on the ballot.” Arlene Sevilla, Tawi-Tawi civil society leader and a local college professor

explained.

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Sevilla said that in past elections, boatloads of Sama Laut, Badjao, and even Tausug

would be brought to precincts all over the province to vote en masse. Corrupt assisters,

who were mandated to help, would fill up the ballots for political benefactors instead.

Coercion and bribes weren’t even required. The warm bodies were enough. And

because many indigenous peoples here still did not have identification, lacking even a

record of birth, they were also tricked into voting repeatedly, abused again and again.

“Sometimes they are made to vote four or five times,” Sevilla said.

Sevilla, who coordinates various NGO education projects in BARMM, hopes that by

improving literacy, these communities would have some level of protection against the

treachery. “Little by little, we are trying to teach them to read and write so that they can

identify the names and choose who they want to vote for,” she said.

Sidang continues to do her part, one house at a time. We made our way to another stilt

house community, our boat puttering under a relentless, unslanted sun. Sidang shielded

her eyes from the glare, her pink hijab fluttering softly in the breeze. “I’m a little tired,”

she confessed. She took a sip from an almost empty water bottle.

We arrived at a cluster of homes linked by narrow wooden gangways. Eight children

were already gathered in an open area, eager but well-behaved. Their parents, sitting in

a loose huddle, were here for the lessons too. Presently, a middle-aged man moved

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closer to the children, settling behind one of the boys. This was father and son, learning

to read and write together.

Two of Jusali Salapuddin’s children were also part of the class. The 37-year old

fisherman was wearing his best shirt for the occasion, a white button-up with blue

patterns, its wide, pointy collars a vestige from a bygone era of fashion. He had a

sparse mustache and short, wavy hair that was overgrown at the sides. Sali, as he was

known here, only finished two years of basic education. But unlike most members of his

community, he knew how to read and write, albeit slowly and with a bit of effort. Now, he

wanted to gift that knowledge to his kids too.

Sali was also one of the few in this group who could converse in Filipino, the national

lingua franca. I sat beside him to chat, delighted by the fact that we didn’t need

translators. “I’m sorry for my poor Filipino,” he said right away. “I’m sorry for my non-

existent Tausug,” I replied. He smiled.

Sali spoke carefully and thoughtfully, as if measuring every word. I learned that his

reading, writing, and especially his language skills were mostly self-taught. After

dropping out of school, instead of becoming discouraged, Sali’s appetite for knowledge

grew even sharper. He continued to practice reading and writing with the limited

material they had at home. He could even read some English now, he said, although he

didn’t know the meaning of the words. When he started earning a bit of money for

himself, Sali bought a transistor radio in a rare trip to Bongao. By listening to the

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programs, he learned to converse in Filipino. “I liked programs about work and

livelihood,” he said. “But I especially liked listening to the news.”

His prized transistor eventually broke, and with the growing needs of his family, he had

not been able to save enough to buy a new one. Nowadays, when he had the chance,

Sali would visit the only house in their cluster with a television set instead. The device

was so rare that a small satellite dish on the roof of one’s house was a status symbol of

sorts around here. If there were enough adults around, they would prevail on the

children to switch the channel from cartoons, Sali said. He missed hearing the news.

“Why do you like watching the news?” I asked.

“Because I want to understand the world outside,” he said.

As it happens, the world Sali wants to understand is constantly changing. Sometimes it

seems, at breakneck speeds. The global information landscape is no longer defined by

transistor radios or televisions but by the internet, mobile phones, and social media. The

Philippines in particular is a social media madhouse, with tech behemoth Facebook in

particular reporting almost complete usage penetration among Filipino internet users.

Sali was not oblivious to these changes. Even here, despite poor coverage, some are

still able to go online in miraculous pockets of reception at the highest points of the

scattered islands.

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But as wealth is created, roads get choked with cars, and bespoke drinks are ordered in

cafes, Sali’s corner of the world, or rather, their circumstances, remains the same. The

fisherman said this plainly, without a hint of bitterness or rancor. “People here say our

country is poor, is that right?” Sali asked, as if he wasn’t sure that poverty was a

widespread experience. “Well, I want our country to be prosperous.”

And now, another elections was looming. Sali and the others, despite decades of

unfulfilled promises and neglect, were still keen to cast their vote. With lives that

seemed perpetually adrift, twisting on fitful waters and helpless against the cold

indifference of fate, this was one of the few things that seemed within their control.

Making a choice. It was an anchor in rough seas, a proof of existence, a validation.

Their voice could shape the nation’s destiny too. They mattered. This thing that comes

around every three years had to matter, right? It was indefatigable hope, one they

jealously protected.

“I want someone who can run this country well. I want to choose well,” Sali said. “But

how can I do that if I know so little?”

Not everyone shared Sali’s ideals, not even in this small community. Elections in many

parts of the country have been historically transactional, providing a crushing advantage

to those with the most money, power, and influence.

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NGO coordinator Sevilla believes in the transformative power of education in pursuing

election reforms too. We met at the Buan Elementary School, situated at the highest

point of the island barangay. It was their foundation day and a short program was

organized to showcase the dancing talents of teachers and students alike. Small plastic

bottles of soda and rice cakes were passed around, the sugary treats boosting the

friendly atmosphere.

Beyond literacy and a grasp of current events, Sevilla believes that election education

should be institutionalized and taught as early as elementary school. As a former poll

clerk and member of the Board of Election Inspectors, she witnessed, first hand, the

small-time corruption that distorts people’s attitudes toward politics. Elections, Sevilla

noted, were known locally as harvest season or anihan, a time to collect money from

politicians in exchange for votes, before they were forgotten once more until the next

election cycle.

“I tell them, three years [before the next polls] is a long time. Will the 1000 pesos (20

USD) you received for your vote make up for all those years under a bad leader?”

Sevilla said. “We should explain to people, especially kids, that votes that are given

freely, to sincere and deserving candidates, will give them more prosperity in the long

run.”

Sevilla acknowledged that such well-entrenched practices as vote buying will not go

away quickly. Talk is cheap, especially for people with needs. But election education

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makes for better citizens in other ways, too. After all, what good is voting without proper

discernment?

“When people know what their rights are, what basic social services they’re entitled to,

they will learn to ask for it. Because if they don’t know their rights, they will not demand

it,” Sevilla said. “They would just accept life as it is.”

But who will provide that education? Would those who benefit from the status quo lift a

finger?

On May 9, 2022, Bongbong Marcos, son of deposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos

Sr., won the presidency via landslide. It was the culmination of a bitter and combative

campaign that saw supporters of Marcos and his closest rival, Vice President Leni

Robredo, clashing passionately on social media.

On election day, not a few waited long hours in polling places after a more than usual

number of Vote Counting Machines malfunctioned. Instead of entrusting their filled-up

ballots to election officers who would feed them to the machines at a later time, many

chose to wait and do it themselves, fearing fraud. Thousands of kilometers from the stilt

house communities Sidang frequented, people were protective of their votes too.

Marcos won Tawi-Tawi by an overwhelming margin, getting over 82 percent of votes. In

Barangay Buan, voter turnout was an astonishing 97 percent.

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Robredo did not contest the election results, asking her supporters to “respect the

decision of the majority.” Critics and observers however have raised concerns over

possible election fraud, the alleged non-transparent Automated Election System, as well

as the climate of disinformation that attended the polls. It was a campaign marked by

the unmistakable rise of vloggers, influencers, aggressive memes, and emotionally-

charged videos short on facts and long on hyperbole.

And so, while Sali lamented the scarcity of information in their small community, in other

parts of the nation, people are drowning in it. Perhaps the two worlds are entangled.

Perhaps the dearth and deluge of information are just two sides of the same, worrisome

coin. Because a world where truth seemed optional, subject to clicks and likes,

competing for our limited attention spans, is also same world in which profound

inequalities still exist, giving rise to venomous dissatisfaction.

Marsila is spared the agony of self-reflection for now. Her father, Mansul, was able to

vote in the last elections unassisted, a small victory for the family, and also teacher

Sidang. Before parting ways during our brief visit in February, I asked Marsila what she

wanted to have in their home.

“A solar lamp!” She exclaimed. “I’m going to be a teacher, so I’ll need to read at night.”

“And also to keep away the scary monsters in the dark.”

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