Mabal

Mabal is the art of making a traditional Blaan cloth. The fiber used is abaca or hemp freshly stripped and air-dried.Colors used are from endemic plants grown by the Blaan tribe in their backyard garden.The whole process of making the cloth is very tedious task. The secret of the unique designs rests upon the weaver's dream inspired by their spirituality and respect towards the interrelatedness of human and their environment.

However, this traditional skill is feared to vanish and be forgotten by the new generation (tubad) of the Blaan tribe .To address this problem, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) initiated a program called the School of Living Tradition (SLT). It is basically geared towards transferring the traditional skills to the new generation (tubad) so as to preserve the culture. The picture shown above is the SLT located in Lamlifew, Datal Tampal,Malungon, Sarangani Province facilitated by the Indigenous Peoples Development Program (IPDP).Photo taken by Cocoy Sexcion.