Governing the Rest Day: Gender Roles, Indigenous Political Institutions, and Community Health Resilience in the Bontoc Practice of Tengao

Abstract

This paper explores how gender roles influence observance of the local rest day (tengao) in Bontoc Community of Bontoc Ili, Mountain Province, and recontextualizes these insights within disciplinary issues of public administration, politics and governance, health. When seen from this perspective, tengao is recognized not just as a cultural tradition, but also as an indigenous, informally institutionalized system of local governance composed of a body of customary rules which are enforced and followed by members of the community, a recognized decision-making authority (the ato), enforcement tasks, and a set of health-protective practices that resemble a local public health and disaster preparedness ordinance. Therefore, the research has four key objectives: first, to determine the types of governance and enforcement tasks carried out by male and female persons; second, to estimate the impact of this division of labor gender-wise upon the level of social harmony and the state of preparedness of community health; and third, to show changes of the level of political involvement based upon gender in different times. The researchers have chosen a qualitative, ethnographic method of the study based on field observation and interviews with selected informants who are the elder men and women within the community, its heads and residents. These data were interpreted according to the ethnographic technique proposed by Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater (2012). It was found that a system of a leader through whom both a hierarchy of subordinates and the subordinates themselves accept the authority (tengao) is at the heart of a locally recognized system of compliance and obedience. Men with formal deliberative and rule-proclaiming powers are through the ato (the traditional council) and the latter functions as the primary traditional legislative and law enforcement authority in the community, while women take on the community's first-line work monitoring, ensuring compliance, and protecting resources, roles that are similar to those of the health department workers and animal and pest control officers in modern governance. This gendered yet complementary split of political work that leads to social order, collective accountability, and adaptive capacity are the main components of community resilience that is based on their own ways of dealing with health matters rather than formal state institutions. The study also describes the change in gendered political participation in that women are taking greater part in the performance of the traditional ensalang (the public proclamation of the rest day) which is a sign perhaps that the community is broadening, gradually, the circle of who can have public power that is a community decision. The results of the paper point to areas that have to do with local governance, gender-inclusive politics in indigenous communities, and the official recognition of customary institutions that can contribute to planning activities related to health and preparing communities for disasters.