MANGSEE ISLAND, Balabac, Palawan—It will take just about the time to smoke a stick of cigarette to get into Malaysian waters on a twin-engine speed boat. Given less than a pack, and it will get you to Kudat City in Sabah.

Here in Mangsee, the locals live on oodles of smuggled Malaysian food and supplies which are openly traded in village stores or shipped to Zamboanga City. Getting these from across the maritime border is easier than obtaining them elsewhere.

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There is something about isolation that accounts for the way its inhabitants live—a sort of controlled chaos amid a sea of uncertainty and opportunity—in the least accessible and arguably most ungoverned of Philippine remote islands.

Mangsee is a 23-hectare islet in the middle of the Sulu Sea, closer to Sabah, Malaysia, than to the southernmost Palawan town of Balabac where it belongs administratively.

Romeo Ong, an engineer in Balabac, places at about 48 kilometers the distance between Mangsee and the town proper of Balabac. The latter, is 268 km southwest of Puerto Princesa, Palawan’s capital city.

For all intents and purposes, however, Mangsee is its own country with its own set of informal rules and social norms, cut off from the rest of the archipelago, either by its sheer distance or the absence of basic social services.

‘Blessed island’

The official crime statistics is zero, said Pistoh Hamja, the village chief and the highest public official in these parts. This is not counting the illegal activities, from smuggling to dynamite and cyanide fishing, which are rampant but are not logged in police blotters.

To begin with, there is simply no police blotter to talk about, and the sole semblance of law and order is exercised by a Marines detachment.

Commercial establishments are packed with goods like chocolate candy bars, cooking oil and television sets, which are sold to locals and occasional visitors.

The telecommunications service is run by a Malaysian firm and international rates apply to calls and text messages to mainland Palawan or any part of the Philippines.

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There is no customs agent in this village to either restrict or oversee the trade, and the town’s treasurer comes occasionally to collect business taxes from establishments.

Hamja would insist on calling this place “a blessed island,” pointing out that citizens of Mangsee are “happy” and that water can be dug just about anywhere on the island.

“We help one another and disputes are resolved peacefully in the village,” he said.

Outbreak

What Hamja forgets to cite is that nobody drinks the water anymore after talk among locals spread that it is contaminated with E. coli bacteria.

“Even the mayor of Balabac, when he comes here to visit, brings his own water for bathing,” a resident who asked not to be named told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

In 2000, the place was hit by an epidemic that killed around 200 people in a span of about two weeks, in what was believed to be caused by cholera. The fatalities were mostly children of the predominantly Sama Muslim tribe.

“One day, a family buried two of their children. The next day, the mother was wailing over the death of a third child. It was such a devastating time and a lot of people left this place in fear,” said Marilou Isko, a migrant of 30 years who came from Zamboanga province.

Aquifer contaminated

The outbreak was contained after health authorities arrived on the island and cautioned the locals against drinking contaminated groundwater.

Waste management is nonexistent on the islet where residents get their water from an aquifer. Household wastes go directly into the ground, contaminating the water. The village center itself is congested and surrounded by five separate burial grounds.

People came back after the outbreak was contained. The islet has less than 10,000 residents, with a growing number of children.

Residents still face health risks but they have learned to accept their lot. “If you are poor and you get sick, your family is resigned to the reality that you can die any moment,” Isko said.

No doctor

Medical emergency service is one major concern that the village council is trying to address, Hamja said.

There is no doctor on the island. The closest to a medical facility that is available is a lying-in clinic, which is equipped with an oxygen tank and has a midwife who is available on call.

“We help each other. If someone needs to be transported to a hospital, we make sure a boat will be available,” he said. The preferred choice for medical evacuation is still Kudat in Malaysia.

Hamja said residents were awaiting a 100-KVA generator promised by the provincial government to provide centralized electricity service in the village.

Clan-based trade

What makes Mangsee bearable for certain kinds of people are the economic opportunities it offers.

The economic activities are mostly illegal and very entrenched and clan-based, said Maj. Neil Estrella, spokesperson of the Western Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Interest rates in the village are exorbitant. But “traders don’t mind the high interest rates because they know they can cover it with the profit they make,” Estrella said.

Preferred currency

The preferred currency is the Malaysian ringgit and the peso is undervalued in the village’s black market.

As the only law enforcement institution in Mangsee, the small detachment of Marines cannot just do the functions of other government agencies, Estrella said.

“Our primary mandate is to guard against external threat. Our people there are trained for war. We simply are not set up to do the work for all other government agencies, including customs and immigration,” he said.

Estrella described the situation on the island as “controlled chaos.”

Human smuggling

Estrella declined to name key personalities involved in the illegal trade but expressed concern over recent persistent local reports that identify Mangsee as a take-off point for human smuggling of undocumented Filipino workers into Malaysia.

In early December last year, authorities busted an attempt to smuggle six Filipino women into Sabah using the neighboring islet of north Mangsee as a takeoff point.

Estrella disclosed the results of the investigation but indicated that human smuggling into Sabah was more than just isolated cases as claimed by its village chief.

“We will soon crack the whip and hopefully put a stop to this,” he said.

Blast fishing

While the country’s fisheries laws are replete with provisions banning the use of explosives, Hamja justified the practice.

“We passed a resolution allowing it only for domestic use. We allow it on humanitarian grounds, especially when people need fish to celebrate an occasion,” he said.

“But in the (disputed) South China Sea (West Philippine Sea), that’s where we go to do blast fishing,” Hamja added.

The most successful businessmen in Mangsee are engaged in the dried fish trade. Those with little capital to engage in the risky business of fish trading are compelled to borrow, usually at interest rates beyond 40 percent.

“A lot of people here, especially those holding public positions, get rich from trading goods and fisheries products. Those who are already poor only get poorer,” a local resident who asked not to be identified said.

Hamja said illegal fishing, especially the use of cyanide for catching live fish, was no longer widely practiced.

“The buyers in Zamboanga have stopped accepting fish caught with cyanide because they were the ones who incurred losses after the fish die within days from purchase. Now they only want to buy live fish caught with hook and line,” he said.

Marine sanctuary

Still, Hamja claimed that the narrow passage in front of the island had been successfully rehabilitated after his administration had declared it a “marine sanctuary” during the first of his three-year term as village chief.

Hamja is completing his third and final term as village chief, and talk around the village is that he is planning to run a second time for the mayoral post of Balabac after failing in his first try in the last local elections.

“The only time we see the government is when there’s an election and some candidates come here to ask for votes,” said an exasperated businessman.

As a Marine officer, who has observed the affairs of Mangsee closely, Estrella said the island’s politics was both the source of the problem and its potential.

“Business and politics in Mangsee are intertwined. It will take a strong political will from the national leadership and our key local leaders to straighten up things out there,” he said.

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