Photo: The Batak Language
The Philippines, a country in Southeast Asia, consists of 7,641 islands and has both Filipino and English as their official language. Like many of the countries in south-east Asia and Oceania, the Philippines is affected by endangered cultures. The Batak people of the Philippines islands are slowly diminishing. Named for being the ‘people of the mountains’, the Batak tribe was forced to move from their former settlements near the coastline when settlers began to arrive in the Philippines. To this day, the Batak people live off of hunting and gathering and continue their ancient traditions despite the vast and exponential change during the past few centuries. With the diminishing resources and depleting population, the Batak people have begun to “intermarry with outside communities for survival“. (1) The tribe has experienced food scarcity and the increase of outsider populations consuming their land. These have impacted their culture and it’s starting to vanish. The Batak have been severely impacted by the outside world, from the settlers that displaced them on their island in the early colonial days to the capitalism that continues to control the greater Philippine nation. The Batak people are considered to be in poverty and hence have a hard time finding work and functioning in a capitalistic society. This means that most of the tribe struggles with malnutrition and depleting numbers in the population. The Batak people continue to follow as many traditions, like their methods of hunting and gathering as I stated above and their consistent use of their dying language. All in hopes of saving their community. According to The Ethnic Groups of the Philippines, there are many groups attempting to help re-establish the Batak language and help the Batak regain independence, but due to a lack of food supply and population, the Batak tribe is continuing to vanish.
If you wish to learn more about the Batak tribe:
1Uncharted Philippines | A Vanishing Tribe: The Batak People of Palawan
Who are the Batak People? | Ethnic Groups of the Philippines (ethnicgroupsphilippines.com)
Want to learn more about the Philippines?
INQUIRER.net | Philippine news for Filipinos
Latest News | Philippine News Agency (pna.gov.ph)
The Manila Times | News | Opinion | Philippines | Asia | World