Palawan & Mimaropa

Palawan holds some of the oldest evidence of people in the Philippines. The Tabon Caves on the west coast have yielded human remains tens of thousands of years old, and the Manunggul Jar, a burial jar with a boat of souls on its lid, is a national treasure. Mindoro may be the Ma-i of early Chinese records, and its Mangyan peoples developed their own scripts, traditionally incised on bamboo.

Spain claimed the islands from the late 16th century but held them loosely. Southern Palawan was long under the influence of the Sultanate of Sulu, and raiders from the south attacked Mindoro, Romblon and the Palawan coasts so often that forts and fortified churches such as those at Taytay and Cuyo were built to shelter townspeople. Puerto Princesa was founded as a naval station in 1872. Under the Americans, Culion became a leper colony from 1906 and Iwahig near Puerto Princesa an open prison farm, both still in existence in changed forms.

The Second World War left its marks. US aircraft sank Japanese ships in Coron Bay in September 1944, and in Puerto Princesa Japanese troops massacred more than a hundred American prisoners of war that December; the Allies then landed on Mindoro. Vietnamese refugees later settled in Palawan too. In recent decades the region has seen disputes over mining — the 1996 Marcopper spill on Marinduque's Boac River among the worst — and the 2023 oil spill off Oriental Mindoro, while the features the Philippines holds in the disputed Spratly Islands form Palawan's municipality of Kalayaan, all of them also claimed by some or all of China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia.

The region is a patchwork of peoples. Tagalog is the common language of Mindoro, Marinduque and much of Palawan's migrant population, Romblon speaks several Visayan languages, and Palawan's own include Cuyonon, from the Cuyo islands. The Tagbanwa, Palaw'an and Batak live in Palawan's forests and coasts, and the Tagbanwa hold ancestral-domain rights over Coron Island and its lakes, several of which are sacred to them. In the south, around Brooke's Point and Bataraza, there are Muslim communities with ties to the Sulu tradition.

The Hanunuo Mangyan of Mindoro keep ambahan, short poems in seven-syllable lines traditionally incised on bamboo in their own script. Marinduque's defining custom is the Moriones festival of Holy Week, when masked and costumed penitents play Roman soldiers and re-enact the story of Longinus, the soldier who pierced Christ's side. Romblon is known for carving its marble into statues, tables and souvenirs.

Many of Palawan's people are migrants from Luzon and the Visayas or their descendants, which gives Puerto Princesa and the towns a frontier character. The province's strong environmental identity, built around its protected forests and reefs, is a point of local pride.

About 3 million people live in the region, some two-fifths of them in Palawan. Puerto Princesa, with around 300,000 people spread over one of the largest city areas in the country, is the region's biggest city; Calapan in Oriental Mindoro, the regional centre, has around 150,000, and San Jose in Occidental Mindoro, Boac in Marinduque and the town of Romblon are small.

Farming and fishing support most households: Mindoro grows rice, bananas and calamansi, and Palawan's coasts supply fish, seaweed and live reef fish. Tourism has transformed El Nido and Coron from fishing villages into busy resort towns, bringing jobs as well as pressure on water, waste and building rules; nickel mining in southern Palawan and on Romblon's Sibuyan Island divides communities.

Daily life is slower than on Luzon. Many roads are recent, power supply is less reliable in remote areas, and outer islands depend on boats for goods, school and health care. Debates over development, conservation and the rights of Indigenous communities are constant.

Palawan's food leans on the sea. Grilled fish, squid and crab are staples, and kinilaw, raw fish cured in vinegar or calamansi, is common along the coasts, sometimes made with coconut milk, onions and local spices. Tamilok, the long shipworm found in mangrove wood, is eaten raw with vinegar and onion as a local dare.

Rice comes with almost every meal, as elsewhere in the Philippines, and fish is grilled, fried or simmered in sour broths. In Oriental Mindoro most people farm or fish, and markets are stocked with local produce. Mindoro's kitchens use its calamansi and bananas in drinks and snacks, and the coastal towns serve fresh fish and seaweed salads. Marinduque is known for uraro, crumbly arrowroot cookies. Across the region, carinderias serve adobo, sinigang and rice with fish, and tuba, coconut sap wine, is drunk in the villages.

Northern Palawan is the headline. El Nido opens onto Bacuit Bay, where island-hopping tours visit lagoons and beaches beneath limestone cliffs. Further north, Coron town on Busuanga looks across to Coron Island, with Kayangan Lake and other lakes sacred to the Tagbanwa, while Japanese wrecks in the surrounding bays are among the best wreck dives in Asia. Culion's old colony and the Calauit safari park, stocked with African animals in the 1970s, lie nearby.

Central Palawan centres on Puerto Princesa. The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, takes boats into a river cave that flows directly into the sea from Sabang. Honda Bay's islands, Port Barton's quiet beaches and San Vicente's long strand lie up the coast. In the south are the Tabon Caves, and in the Sulu Sea, far offshore, Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site visited only by liveaboard boats.

Mindoro's Puerto Galera has Sabang and reefs on the Verde Island Passage, and off the west coast Apo Reef Natural Park, the country's largest reef system, has sharks and manta rays. Inland, Mounts Iglit–Baco Natural Park protects the tamaraw, a small buffalo found only on Mindoro. Marinduque has its capital Boac and its Holy Week Moriones, and Romblon has marble workshops and Sibuyan's forested Mount Guiting-Guiting.