Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts, Inc.

SLTs are community-based schools that facilitate the transmission of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Practices IKSPs from Indigenous Elders to Indigenous Youth of the same ethnolinguistic group. In the Philippines, the SLT is a flagship program of the National Commission for Culture and Arts or NCCA. In the province of Agusan del Sur, the Agusanon-Manobo – Schools of Living Traditions is a collaboration among the NCCA, the Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts, and specific Agusanon-Manobo communities or sectors in the municipalities of Bunawan, La Paz, and Esperanza. The courses taught in the Agusanon-Manobo SLTs are wide-ranging and include those on Indigenous language, ancestral domain, customary law, leadership, gender, embroidery, weaving, beadwork, musical instruments-making and performance, chanting, dancing, traditional housebuilding, spirituality, environmental protection, food, and plant medicines.

Himig, Tula at Galaw ng Ninuno or Philippine Traditional Music, Poetry and Movement Webinar Series is an online program that brings together a number of Philippine Cultural Masters and Practitioners who wish to pass on some of their knowledges to learners across ethnic and cultural boundaries; Facilitators, some of whom may be the Cultural Masters’ long-standing students who are able to bridge languages, concepts, pedagogies, and technologies; and new Students. Often taking place in February of each year, the Philippine Arts Month, HTGN in 2025 offered online courses on the Maguindanaoan Kutiyapi (2-string lute), Maguindanaoan Kulintang (gong chime set), Yakan Pansak (dance), Tausug Langka Kuntaw (martial arts-dance style), Panay Bukidnon Subing (jaw’s harp), Panay Bukidnon Tambol (skin drum), Hiligaynon Komposo (sung oral tradition from Western Visayas), and Ibanag Berso (sung oral tradition from Northern Luzon).

The Alima Eco, Agri, and Heritage Park Development is a land-based program situated in Barangay San Teodoro, Bunawan, Agusan del Sur, Caraga Region, Northeastern Mindanao, Southern Philippines, in a confirmed peatland that is part of the floodplains surrounding the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary. It is a collaboration among the Nono family that is devoting its property towards educational, cultural, artistic and scientific purposes, specific Indigenous Culture Bearers, the Tao Foundation Trustees and Friends in the Philippines and the United States, and scientists in the Philippines, Germany and other parts of the world. The effort seeks to contribute to ecosystems restoration and biodiversity conservation by putting into conversation the frameworks and methods of indigenous and modernist sciences. Alima is a Cebuano-Visayan verb that means “to nourish,” to sustain,” to nurse,” “to foster,” “to heal.”

This documentary film follows Dr. Grace Nono as she visits her teachers of chant in Mindanao these last two decades. These teachers are Talaandig Chieftain and epic chanter Datu Migketay Victorino in Bukidnon; T’boli epic chanter and tau m’ton bu (ritual specialist) Mendung Sabal in South Cotabato; Agusanon-Manobo baenud-uman Bae Angela Placido in Agusan del Sur; and Blaan chanters Elia Capeon and her elders in Sarangani.

This documentary film was a project of the Department of Foreign Affairs-Office of Public to commemorate the Philippines’ 2022 National Literature Month, Araw ng Kagitingan, and Earth Day. DFA’s partners were the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples, and the Tao Foundation that produced this documentary about a number of Philippine ritual specialists and healers, specifically, the Talaandig Baylan, Blaan Nongaru, Panaynon Babaylan, Batangas-Tagalog Manunubli, and Ifugao Mumbaki, and their counterparts in the Philippine diaspora in the United States, in South Korea, South Africa, Kenya, Malaysia, and Mexico.

PAMATI is a Cebuano-Visayan verb that means “listen,” and noun that means “feeling.” It refers to a gathering of a small group of Philippine faith tradition leaders and adherents: Indigenous, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, who come together in dialogue and mutual listening as a basis for seeing the dignity of the other. Conversations take place across languages and take the form of stories, chants and music, dance, arts and crafts, nature immersion, and ceremony, intended to help give voice to historical trauma, and to heal enmity and separation. Also participating in Pamati are a small group of mostly Philippine and Philippine-descended scholars, artists, healers, peace advocates, regenerative agriculture practitioners, gender activists, environment and social justice workers who are interested to listen, learn, and share. Promoting mutual listening that privileges the voices of the historically marginalized, the invisible-lized, and the inaudible-lized, PAMATI is a Tao Foundation program in partnership with a number of ritual specialists and community leaders, as well as partner organizations that include the Center for Babaylan Studies, GINHAWA Growth in Wellness and Wellbeing Associates, the Institute of Spirituality in Asia, the Carl Jung Circle Center.

PAMATI 2017

Photos of PAMATI 2017

PAMATI 2015

Photos of PAMATI 2015

When the National Commission for Culture and Arts called for proposals to enhance Philippine traditional music instruments in 2021, the Tao Foundation, in cooperation with partner organization PASAKK, a number of Agusanon-Manobo indigenous leaders headed by Polding Tawide from the municipality of La Paz, and professional luthier Adolfo Timuat, proposed to revitalize and enhance the Agusanon-Manobo Kudlong (2-string lute), Kogot (fiddle), Takumbo (struck zither), Sayuroy (plucked zither), Kobing (jaw’s harp), Paendag (long bamboo mouth flute), Lantuy (short bamboo mouth flute), and Gimbae (double-headed skin drum). The revitalized musical instruments are now being taught in the Agusanon-Manobo Schools of Living Traditions.