Will the Healing Island of Siquijor still have healers?

Siquijor is proudly called the Healing Island.

But lately, one question has been on my mind:

Who will be the healers 30 or 40 years from now?

Many people still believe that traditional healers should work for free, for very little, or only for voluntary donations. Perhaps it’s time to reexamine that expectation in today’s world.

Can a young person realistically dedicate years to learning this path while also building a future for themselves and their family?

Traditional healers do not become healers overnight. They spend years learning from elders, studying medicinal plants, gaining practical experience, and preserving knowledge passed down through generations. That knowledge is earned through dedication, discipline, and a lifetime of learning.

When an elder passes away without an apprentice, we lose knowledge that took a lifetime to acquire and may never be fully recovered. This conversation is not only about supporting healers—it is about preserving a living body of knowledge for future generations.

Perhaps, over time, we have confused humility with poverty.

Humility is a virtue. Poverty is not.

A healer should never exploit people. That principle should never change. But neither should we assume that preserving a tradition requires those who carry it to struggle financially.

If we expect years of learning, dedication, and service from future healers, how do we expect them to sustain that commitment?

If we truly want Siquijor to remain the Healing Island, then we must also make it possible for the next generation to carry this tradition forward.

Because traditions don’t survive through admiration alone. They survive because each generation makes it possible for the next to inherit them.

As I reflect on this, I think of my own teachers.

The man in the photo is Lolo Badeh, one of my traditional healing teachers and the father of Ate TC, who also became one of my teachers.

I was fortunate to learn from both of them.

Lolo Badeh devoted much of his life to preserving and sharing the healing knowledge entrusted to him. I am grateful to have been one of the people he chose to teach.

The knowledge they shared with me was not learned overnight. It was passed from one generation to the next and entrusted to those willing to learn.

Like every healer, they also faced the realities of everyday life. They had families to support, responsibilities to fulfill, and practical needs to meet. Their calling did not exempt them from those realities.

Having learned from them, I can say that this conversation is not abstract for me. It comes from personal experience and from a deep respect for the tradition they entrusted to me.

That is why this conversation matters to me.

I hope that, decades from now, there will still be elders willing to teach—and young people willing and able to dedicate their lives to learning—so that Siquijor’s healing traditions remain a living tradition, not just a story we tell about our past.

I share these thoughts with deep respect for all the healers who came before us, those who continue to serve today, and those who may one day choose to carry this tradition forward.