User:Bingrandy/Malaiba

Malaiba (Mala-iba) is a coastal village in the municipality of San Jose de Buenavista province of Antique, Philippines. Majority of its 1,515 residents (2007 NSO Census of Population) are into fishing or fish-selling as means of living which made it the municipality's major source of fish products. While considered as an economically-challenged community typical of a fishing village, its residents enjoys easy access to educational and health services having a community health center and health care personnel of its own and an elementary school that both offers free services. Early childhood development facilities like a day care center are also in place. St. Anthony's College, the only private tertiary educational institutions is also just a walking distance from the barangay center. Barangay (village) roads are generally well-paved including its secondary barangay roads. It has its own concrete basketball court, being converted into a covered gymnasium, where communal activities and celebrations like binayle (benefit dance/open disco), cultural shows and contests are being held. The San Juan Spring is the most accessible and the only source of drinking water of the residents until recently (1990s) when a centralized piped water system was made available to the community.

History/Legend

Older folks of Malaiba talk about Agustin Sumandi when asked on how the village was founded. He is believed to be the local leader who led residents to institute means of averting Moro raids the late 1700’s. The clearing of vegetation in the area to ward off Moro raids led to the establishment of a community which is part of Tubigon (a description of a swampy place) which is then part of Hamtic. The village got its name when a group of Moro raiders attacked the church in what is now Barangay Maybato Sur and took the huge bell from the church’s belfry but did not went further when their boat sank in the sea of what is now Malaiba. Malaiba is a Spanish word which means “bad deeds”, referring to the raiders’ act. The entire Tubigon was called Malaiba then until 1790 when it was named San Jose. The village though retained the name. The village is also used to have a watch tower near the creek called “Puro” by the locals.

Some stories described the place as a former settlement of Malay people led by the legendary Datu Sumakwel. The beetle nuts, considered by the Malay society to be of high social significance, have its plantation along the San Juan creek which is part of the village.

Problems and Issues

The village’s shoreline, being a public land, became a settlement area both for residents and immigrants from mountain and farming areas of the province who were attracted by the bounty of the sea. This caused overcrowding and inevitable consequences like health and environmental problems. The village leadership instituted programs and activities like putting up of public toilets and legislating related ordinances against waste to counter the problems. The village has managed to get an award of being the cleanest and greenest barangay in the municipality and in the province in the 2000s when the contest was carried out.

Despite accessibility to basic government social services, many residents who were born in or came to the barangay as economically poor struggled daily to make their standard of living better. Bigger family size of poor families is seen as a bigger factor of the incidence of lingering poverty. Since fishing as a livelihood is seasonal in nature, fishing-dependent residents are struggling to make ends meet during typhoon seasons. They do milkfish fry gathering and subsistence shore fishing during these hard times. Typhoons also cause risks to coastal residents’ properties and lives but left without other choice, they opted to stay along the shore and rebuild their houses after the typhoon.

Despite these poverty-related problems, many residents have managed to send their children to school even up to college to become well-accomplished professionals in different fields like seamanship, business, and government service. Most of these professionals though, preferred to reside somewhere else since the village is already overcrowded. Noteworthy though is that these professionals had remained intimately connected with the village and are active in helping the village and the residents attain a better wellbeing.