Editorial: More than a folk tale

FIDELA, a stay-out cook, leaves early to prepare meals for her employers and the breakfast and lunchtime patrons that frequent their roadside eatery.

Lately, she suffers from stomach ulcer after frequently failing to eat her meals on time, as well as from partaking of the eatery’s generally fried and spicy fare.

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As the pains usually strike at night and Fidela, a working single mother, rarely has spare money to stock antacids and antispasmodic medication, she relies on “folk” remedies used by her elders. She drinks copious amounts of “lawt” and “kamunggay”.

The former is the broth that floats to the surface when a pot of rice comes to a boil.

The latter is horseradish or moringa, whose pungent and spicy sap is known in her Camiguin barrio to be a miracle plant after saving local alcoholics whose severe ulcers make them vomit and defecate blood. In Cordova, where Fidela lives, the vegetable is so common, anyone with a hankering for “kamunggay” soup can get the stalks for free from neighbors.

For Fidela, though, the quickest relief from the gnawing pain of an ulcer attack came after she was able to get young leaves from a “lagnob” tree she saw growing in a vacant lot.

Also known as “lamnog” or “timbog,” this is a small tree with shiny, spear-shaped leaves. In Camiguin, its sap is boiled and poured on the bite of a centipede to counteract the poison.

To relieve her midnight pains, Fidela only has to “hawb (warm an object without letting this touch the flame)” the leaves and wrap the still warm leaves around her abdomen with a piece of cloth. She sleeps soundly and wakes with no trace of the ulcer pangs.

Unlike “kamunggay” leaves, though, which she can stock for a day or two, the “lagnob” remedy requires “udlot (young leaves)”. One day, she went to the abandoned lot where the tree grew, only to find that there was only a stump left. The boy clearing the area said the lot was sold, and its owner ordered it cleared for use.

Tragic myopia

It is not just for the Fidelas of the country that the loss of that “lagnob” tree is of tragic proportions.

At present, when the health of many reels from lifestyle changes, environmental hazards, and the inaccessibility of a public health system, the loss of a “lagnob” tree stands for the destruction of natural endowments and the even more crucial loss of knowledge that builds on what’s indigenous, available and free.

Take, for instance, the “mangagaw”. A brew of all the weed parts, except for the flowers, is a folk remedy to counter the effects of dengue fever. According to Sun.Star Cebu in its Sept. 4 banner article by Rebelander S. Basilan and Bernadette A. Parco, with Princess H. Felicitas and Rizel S. Adlawan, 5,056 cases of dengue have been reported as of Aug. 28, 2010.

This is higher by 25 percent than the number of cases recorded in the same period last year.

Yet, health officials are cautious in encouraging the public to use “mangagaw” in the absence of tests conducted to establish its medicinal effects.

Why are government agencies dragging their foot in studying “mangagaw,” given the dengue mortalities and the public funds spent to prevent and treat this disease?

Practical economics

“Mangagaw” is known as “salingkapao” in the uplands of southern Cebu. According to teacher Nene Baylosis of Barangay Guadalupe in the uplands of Alegria, “salingkapao” has always been used in their community to treat those with intermittent fevers of a few days’ duration or longer.

Before the rise of dengue cases, city dwellers lumped this plant with the other weeds that proliferate in ditches, streets and any ground. With a hairy and reddish stem and reddish or green flowers, “mangagaw” yields a white sap when its stem is broken.

Euphorbia hirta is known as “tawa-tawa” in Luzon, as well as “gatas-gatas,” “botobotonis” and “salopung,” according to a 1982 book, “Binisaya nga Pagpa-nambal”.

In updating an earlier work that compiled the plant lore used by Southern Leyte health workers, author Gary Saulnier wrote that his 1982 edition discusses the medicinal uses of 129 plants, only 1.6 percent of the approximately 8,000 medicinal plants in the country.

Barangay health workers like Saulnier have amassed data that show each plant having more than one use, with other functions possibly not yet documented. “Mangagaw,” for instance, is used to treat diarrhea, skin irritations, bleeding wounds, asthma and eye wounds, as well as improve lactation.

Guided by these field testimonials, why is no research being done to test these plants and certify them for wider use?

Why is herbal lore not taught in subjects like health and home economics? Education officials want to push for a 12-year basic education cycle to prepare graduates for employment and global competitiveness.

Why can’t education also equip students with other life skills, such as valuing health and indigenous medicinal lore? “Ang maayong panglawas maoy katungod sa tanang mga tawo, dili sa adunahan lang (Good health is the right of every person, not just of the wealthy),” wrote Saulnier.