A Journey to Basilan, Where Cultures Co-Exist in the Heart of Connection

In the southern island of Basilan, we discover their intertwined themes of Habi, Halal, and Hilom: weaving, cuisine, and wellness.

When you traverse the wooden walkways that connect the stilt houses along the mangrove-lined shores of Basilan, you begin to grasp something essential about the island’s spirit. The weathered planks and bamboo poles, lashed together by hand, form above-water arteries that link clusters of homes: floating neighborhoods that embody the Sama people’s seaward way of life. Their vessels, called papet, have no outriggers, their prow and stern rising in arcs like crescent moons.

From Fuego Fuego beach, a pantan (bridge), stretches out into the sea, an invitation. Over the centuries, Isabela has grown into a community of many tongues, with the Tausug, Chavacano, Yakan and others living side by side. More endeavors are soon arriving to seek to deepen this cross-cultural understanding by showing how co-existence has always shaped the island’s identity. 

Inland, the landscape reveals another story of convergence. Rows of rubber trees stretch in ordered lines, tracing their beginning to 1904 when an American planted the first sapling. An era of prosperity followed, as plantations flourished and drew migrants from across the Philippines to work the land that produced the “white gold” of the global tire industry. Though Basilan’s rubber trade has since waned, the first plantation in Baluno still stands. Some trees are at least seven decades old, their trunks scarred from  a lifetime of tapping. On younger trees, plantation workers demonstrate how they score diagonal cuts across the bark, letting the sticky, milky latex drip into an old glass vessel that still bears the B.F. Goodrich logo. 

In the practice of daily life, indigenous beliefs have found resonance with the Islam that the first Muslims brought, which believed in the spirit of all creation. An imam leads a rice planting ritual, carrying traditions tied to land and season; a Yakan youth, their face painted in tanyak tanyak, celebrates the pagtammat or graduation from Qu’ranic studies. These traditions have been described as folk-Islamic, but for many families, these are simply the practices that survived through generations, finding their home in Islam.

For Malaysian model Suganya, who had never been to the Philippines before this Vogue Philippines shoot, a week in Isabela de Basilan was an unexpected revelation. Riding papets, walking beneath the canopy of rubber trees, shooting by waterfalls, and sharing meals with her Tausug and Yakan hosts, Suganya was engulfed in the embrace of the island’s welcome. When the shoot wrapped, she had tears in her eyes, sharing with the team how Basilan reminded her so much of where she had grown up, a small town where life moved more gently. “Basilan brought all of that nostalgia flooding back. Being surrounded by a team that felt like family, in a place so rich in culture and beauty, made my experience feel less like work and more like stepping back into the comfort of my grandparents’ village,” she says. “It felt like I was returning home, even though I was far from it.” Though Suganya had crossed seas to be here, a simple pantan, of wood and warmth, brought her home.

Photographs by KARL KING AGUÑA. Fashion Editor by DAVID MILAN. Styling by RENÉE DE GUZMAN. Model: Suganya at The Models Lab KL. Producer: Julian Rodriguez. Makeup: Booya Mocorro. Hair: JA Feliciano. Photography Assistants: Rojan Maguyon and Sela Gonzales. Videographer: Marko Bonifacio.

Special thanks to Mayor Sitti Djalia Hataman, Marian Pastor Roces, Iñigo Roberto P. Roces and Maria Fe Quiroga for research consultancy, curators of TAOINC, Pane Gadayan, Arriana Kani Jupakkal and the Isabela de Basilan Tourism Department.