Controlled chaos on Palawan islet

By Redempto D. Anda
Inquirer Southern Luzon
3:43 am | Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/23137/controlled-chaos-on-palawan-islet


BLESSES ISLAND Mangsee is a 23-hectare islet in the Sulu Sea thats part of Balabac,
Palawan. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
MANGSEE ISLAND, Balabac, PalawanIt will take just about the time to smoke a stick of
cigarette to get into Malaysian waters on a twin-engine speed boat. Given less than a pack, and it
will get you to Kudat City in Sabah.
Here in Mangsee, the locals live on oodles of smuggled Malaysian food and supplies which are
openly traded in village stores or shipped to Zamboanga City. Getting these from across the
maritime border is easier than obtaining them elsewhere.
There is something about isolation that accounts for the way its inhabitants livea sort of
controlled chaos amid a sea of uncertainty and opportunityin the least accessible and arguably
most ungoverned of Philippine remote islands.
Mangsee is a 23-hectare islet in the middle of the Sulu Sea, closer to Sabah, Malaysia, than to the
southernmost Palawan town of Balabac where it belongs administratively.
Romeo Ong, an engineer in Balabac, places at about 48 kilometers the distance between
Mangsee and the town proper of Balabac. The latter, is 268 km southwest of Puerto Princesa,
Palawans capital city.
For all intents and purposes, however, Mangsee is its own country with its own set of informal
rules and social norms, cut off from the rest of the archipelago, either by its sheer distance or the
absence of basic social services.
Blessed island
The official crime statistics is zero, said Pistoh Hamja, the village chief and the highest public
official in these parts. This is not counting the illegal activities, from smuggling to dynamite and
cyanide fishing, which are rampant but are not logged in police blotters.
To begin with, there is simply no police blotter to talk about, and the sole semblance of law and
order is exercised by a Marines detachment.
Commercial establishments are packed with goods like chocolate candy bars, cooking oil and
television sets, which are sold to locals and occasional visitors.
The telecommunications service is run by a Malaysian firm and international rates apply to calls
and text messages to mainland Palawan or any part of the Philippines.
There is no customs agent in this village to either restrict or oversee the trade, and the towns
treasurer comes occasionally to collect business taxes from establishments.
Hamja would insist on calling this place a blessed island, pointing out that citizens of Mangsee
are happy and that water can be dug just about anywhere on the island.
We help one another and disputes are resolved peacefully in the village, he said.
Outbreak
What Hamja forgets to cite is that nobody drinks the water anymore after talk among locals
spread that it is contaminated with E. coli bacteria.
Even the mayor of Balabac, when he comes here to visit, brings his own water for bathing, a
resident who asked not to be named told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
In 2000, the place was hit by an epidemic that killed around 200 people in a span of about two
weeks, in what was believed to be caused by cholera. The fatalities were mostly children of the
predominantly Sama Muslim tribe.
One day, a family buried two of their children. The next day, the mother was wailing over the
death of a third child. It was such a devastating time and a lot of people left this place in fear,
said Marilou Isko, a migrant of 30 years who came from Zamboanga province.
Aquifer contaminated
The outbreak was contained after health authorities arrived on the island and cautioned the locals
against drinking contaminated groundwater.
Waste management is nonexistent on the islet where residents get their water from an aquifer.
Household wastes go directly into the ground, contaminating the water. The village center itself
is congested and surrounded by five separate burial grounds.
People came back after the outbreak was contained. The islet has less than 10,000 residents, with
a growing number of children.
Residents still face health risks but they have learned to accept their lot. If you are poor and you
get sick, your family is resigned to the reality that you can die any moment, Isko said.
No doctor
Medical emergency service is one major concern that the village council is trying to address,
Hamja said.
There is no doctor on the island. The closest to a medical facility that is available is a lying-in
clinic, which is equipped with an oxygen tank and has a midwife who is available on call.
We help each other. If someone needs to be transported to a hospital, we make sure a boat will
be available, he said. The preferred choice for medical evacuation is still Kudat in Malaysia.
Hamja said residents were awaiting a 100-KVA generator promised by the provincial
government to provide centralized electricity service in the village.
Clan-based trade
What makes Mangsee bearable for certain kinds of people are the economic opportunities it
offers.
The economic activities are mostly illegal and very entrenched and clan-based, said Maj. Neil
Estrella, spokesperson of the Western Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Interest rates in the village are exorbitant. But traders dont mind the high interest rates because
they know they can cover it with the profit they make, Estrella said.
Preferred currency
The preferred currency is the Malaysian ringgit and the peso is undervalued in the villages black
market.
As the only law enforcement institution in Mangsee, the small detachment of Marines cannot
just do the functions of other government agencies, Estrella said.
Our primary mandate is to guard against external threat. Our people there are trained for war.
We simply are not set up to do the work for all other government agencies, including customs
and immigration, he said.
Estrella described the situation on the island as controlled chaos.
Human smuggling
Estrella declined to name key personalities involved in the illegal trade but expressed concern
over recent persistent local reports that identify Mangsee as a take-off point for human
smuggling of undocumented Filipino workers into Malaysia.
In early December last year, authorities busted an attempt to smuggle six Filipino women into
Sabah using the neighboring islet of north Mangsee as a takeoff point.
Estrella disclosed the results of the investigation but indicated that human smuggling into Sabah
was more than just isolated cases as claimed by its village chief.
We will soon crack the whip and hopefully put a stop to this, he said.
Blast fishing
While the countrys fisheries laws are replete with provisions banning the use of explosives,
Hamja justified the practice.
We passed a resolution allowing it only for domestic use. We allow it on humanitarian grounds,
especially when people need fish to celebrate an occasion, he said.
But in the (disputed) South China Sea (West Philippine Sea), thats where we go to do blast
fishing, Hamja added.
The most successful businessmen in Mangsee are engaged in the dried fish trade. Those with
little capital to engage in the risky business of fish trading are compelled to borrow, usually at
interest rates beyond 40 percent.
A lot of people here, especially those holding public positions, get rich from trading goods and
fisheries products. Those who are already poor only get poorer, a local resident who asked not
to be identified said.
Hamja said illegal fishing, especially the use of cyanide for catching live fish, was no longer
widely practiced.
The buyers in Zamboanga have stopped accepting fish caught with cyanide because they were
the ones who incurred losses after the fish die within days from purchase. Now they only want to
buy live fish caught with hook and line, he said.
Marine sanctuary
Still, Hamja claimed that the narrow passage in front of the island had been successfully
rehabilitated after his administration had declared it a marine sanctuary during the first of his
three-year term as village chief.
Hamja is completing his third and final term as village chief, and talk around the village is that
he is planning to run a second time for the mayoral post of Balabac after failing in his first try in
the last local elections.
The only time we see the government is when theres an election and some candidates come
here to ask for votes, said an exasperated businessman.
As a Marine officer, who has observed the affairs of Mangsee closely, Estrella said the islands
politics was both the source of the problem and its potential.
Business and politics in Mangsee are intertwined. It will take a strong political will from the
national leadership and our key local leaders to straighten up things out there, he said.