Traditional Healers of Siquijor: Understanding the Mananambal

Siquijor is known throughout the Philippines as the island of healers—and of witches. Depending on who’s telling the story, the island’s reputation ranges from sacred to sinister. The truth is more nuanced and far more interesting.

For centuries, Siquijor’s healers have practiced traditions that blend herbalism, massage, prayer, and spiritual intervention. They’re called mananambal (singular: mananmbal)—a Visayan term meaning “one who heals.” Their practice predates Spanish colonization and persists today, adapted but unbroken.

This guide helps visitors understand the tradition and engage with it respectfully.

The Context

Why Siquijor?

Several factors concentrated healing traditions here:

Isolation: Siquijor’s separation from larger islands preserved practices that disappeared elsewhere as Spanish colonization and Catholicism spread.

Environment: The island’s forests provided medicinal plants. Healers knew which leaves, roots, and barks treated which conditions.

Oral Tradition: Knowledge passed through families and apprenticeships without written records, creating tight-knit healing lineages.

Reputation: Over time, Siquijor’s fame attracted patients from other islands, reinforcing the specialty.

The Dark Reputation

Not all Siquijor practitioners are healers. The island is also known for:

• Mangkukulam (sorcerers/witches)
• Mambabarang (those who send insects to attack enemies)
• Barang (dark magic, curses)

This dark reputation makes some Filipinos fear the island while attracting others seeking powerful intervention.

Reality check: Most residents are ordinary Catholics. The dark practitioners, if they exist, are few and private. The healing tradition is far more visible and accessible.

Catholicism and Traditional Practice

Most mananambal are Catholic. They attend mass, pray to saints, and see no contradiction with their traditional work. This syncretism developed over four centuries:

• Pre-colonial animist practices
• Spanish Catholic overlay
• Combined into something unique

Their prayers invoke both God and older powers. Their healing sessions may begin with Catholic prayers and end with practices the Church wouldn’t endorse.

The Healing Practices

Hilot (Therapeutic Massage)

The most common and accessible healing form:

• Manipulation of muscles and bones
• Treatment of sprains, pain, and tension
• Often combined with heated oils or herbs
• Wide range of practitioner skill

Many visitors experience hilot without realizing it’s “traditional healing”—it’s simply massage by another name. But skilled hilot practitioners diagnose through touch and treat conditions invisible to Western massage therapists.

Bolo-Bolo

The most famous and visually striking technique:

The Process:

1. Glass of water placed on affected body area
2. Healer blows through bamboo straw into water
3. Dark substance appears in water
4. This is said to be the illness removed

The Skeptic’s View: The dark substance likely comes from the straw or healer’s mouth. The ritual creates theatrical proof of invisible work.

The Believer’s View: The healer genuinely removes illness through spiritual means. The dark substance proves what they always knew was there.

The Experience: Regardless of mechanism, patients often report feeling different afterward—lighter, relieved, hopeful. Whether this is placebo, psychosomatic, or something else is undetermined.

Herbal Medicine (Lana)

Many healers prepare:

• Healing oils (coconut-based with infused plants)
• Tinctures and decoctions
• Poultices and compresses
• Ingested remedies

The plants used have often been studied by ethnobotanists and sometimes validated. Other remedies rely on belief or tradition without pharmacological basis.

Spiritual Consultation

Beyond physical ailments, healers address:

• Life decisions and dilemmas
• Relationship problems
• Business matters
• Spiritual disturbances
• Protection from harm

In this role, they function as counselors, using intuition, experience, and claimed spiritual guidance.

Orasyon (Prayer/Incantation)

Many treatments include:

• Latin prayers (often imperfectly remembered from colonial-era teaching)
• Cebuano prayers
• Older chants of unknown origin
• Written prayers (anting-anting) on paper or cloth

The power is believed to reside in the words themselves, spoken correctly, at the right time.

Finding and Visiting Healers

The Tourist Circuit

Some healers have become semi-professional tourist attractions:

• Located easily (signs, tours)
• English-speaking or with translators
• Fixed prices or clear donation expectations
• More theatrical presentation

These are legitimate practitioners who’ve adapted to tourism. The experience is genuine but tailored.

The Local Network

More traditional practitioners work from home:

• No signs or advertising
• Known through word of mouth
• Primarily serve local patients
• May be reluctant about tourists

Finding them requires:

• Asking your accommodation owner
• Speaking with older locals
• Patience and respectful inquiry

Making Contact

If connected with a traditional healer:

• Approach with humility
• Explain your interest (curious, seeking help, doing research)
• Ask if you may visit
• Inquire about appropriate times
• Ask what to bring

Some will decline tourist visits. Respect this.

The Session

What to expect:

• Simple home setting
• Initial conversation about your concerns
• Prayer or ritual preparation
• The treatment itself
• Advice for afterward
• Exchange of donation

Duration: 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on complexity.

Donation: ₱200-1,000 typical. May be fixed or by suggestion. Ask if uncertain.

Etiquette and Respect

Before the Visit

• Dress modestly (no shorts, tank tops)
• Bring cash in small bills
• Ask about bringing offerings (candles, eggs sometimes requested)
• Prepare questions if you have them
• Come with open mind, not judgment

During the Session

• Follow instructions given
• Ask permission before photographing
• Don’t challenge or mock practices
• Participate to your comfort level
• Be patient—sessions may not follow schedule

After the Session

• Thank the healer sincerely
• Give donation discreetly
• Follow any advice given (or consciously choose not to)
• Don’t share criticism publicly that could harm their reputation

Different Perspectives

The Believer’s Experience

For those who believe:

• Healers channel genuine power
• Illnesses are removed or addressed
• Prayers and rituals create protection
• The tradition is sacred knowledge

The Skeptic’s Experience

For skeptics:

• The rituals engage placebo effect
• The attention and touch are themselves therapeutic
• The cultural experience has value regardless
• The tradition represents fascinating anthropology

The Middle Ground

Many visitors find:

• Suspending judgment is possible
• The experience has unexpected emotional impact
• Understanding increases without requiring belief
• Something happens, even if mechanism is unclear

Ethical Considerations

Exploitation Concerns

Some worry tourism exploits the tradition:

• Commodifies sacred practice
• Creates performative healing
• Disrupts practitioner-patient relationships
• Prices out local patients

There’s validity here. Conscious visitors can minimize harm by:

• Paying fairly
• Not treating sessions as entertainment
• Respecting privacy
• Seeking authentic rather than tourist-oriented practitioners

Health Concerns

Risks exist:

• Patients delaying medical care for treatable conditions
• Ingesting unregulated substances
• Emotional manipulation of vulnerable people
• Financial exploitation

Visitors should:

• Maintain perspective about what traditional healing can and can’t do
• Never ingest anything they’re uncomfortable with
• Seek medical care for medical problems
• Be alert to pressure tactics or guilt-based extraction

Cultural Preservation

The tradition faces pressures:

• Young people prefer modern careers
• Apprentices are fewer
• Knowledge may be lost
• Tourism shapes practice in potentially distorting ways

Respectful visitation may actually support continuation by providing economic incentive for practitioners and demonstrating external value of traditions.

A Visit to Remember

The house sits off a dirt road outside San Antonio. No sign. A neighbor directed me here after three conversations established I wasn’t seeking curses or love potions.

The mananambal is 72, her face creased by sun and time. She learned from her grandmother, who learned from hers. She doesn’t know how far back the line goes.

She asks what brings me. I say curiosity—honest but incomplete. She nods. She’s seen tourists before.

For an hour, she talks about her work: the plants she knows, the prayers she learned, the patients who come from Cebu and Manila seeking help that hospitals haven’t provided. She doesn’t promise miracles. She says she helps when she can.

She offers hilot. Her hands find tension I didn’t know I carried. She murmurs in Cebuano—prayer, or something older. When she finishes, I feel different. Lighter? More present? Something.

I leave ₱500 in the envelope by the door. She thanks me by name, though I never gave it. Probably mentioned by whoever referred me. Or perhaps something else.

The road back to San Juan feels different than the road out. The experience has done something—exactly what, I can’t name. But it’s real.

For public healing gatherings, see our Holy Week guide or full moon experiences. For wellness-focused alternatives, check our yoga retreats guide.