Siquijor is widely known in the Philippines for its traditional healers, called mananambal, and for a Holy Week gathering that puts their work in the public eye. This article summarizes what published sources say about the practice, the festival and the island's reputation, without judging the effects of any ritual.
\n\nIn Visayan usage, mananambal means a traditional healer and panambal means the practice of folk healing. Reference sources treat the word as close to the Tagalog albularyo and link the term especially with Siquijor and Bohol. News and travel accounts describe healers who treat physical, emotional and what locals regard as spiritual complaints, using knowledge passed down in families, and stress that they see themselves as healers, not witches. Many blend inherited methods with Catholic prayer. A 2012 Cebu Daily News profile of a Siquijor-born healer based in Mandaue City, for example, describes her calling on Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary and using the rosary.
\n\nPhilippine outlets such as ABS-CBN, GMA and the Inquirer describe a Healing Festival held annually during Holy Week and promoted by the provincial government. Reports give different start years, from 2006 to 2010, so the start year is uncertain. One 2022 report says about 150 healers gather at Mt. Bandilaan, the island's interior highland.
\nThe reported sequence follows the Lenten calendar:
\nOutlets differ on details. One places the arrival of healers from the Visayas and Mindanao around Palm Sunday, in San Antonio. Dates move each year with Easter, so confirm the schedule with the provincial tourism office.
\n\nThe Spaniards are said to have called the island Isla del Fuego (Island of Fire). The usual explanation is the glow of fireflies in its molave trees. Travel features trace the island's reputation to the babaylan, the shaman-healers of the pre-colonial Visayas. A provincial tourism staff member quoted in a 2025 heritage feature describes the healers as heirs of the babaylans, the community's spiritual leaders before the arrival of the Spanish. One travel guide adds that such practices were discouraged under colonial rule but persisted. Another writer adds that isolated inland communities with limited access to modern health care kept folk medicine in use. Travel writers also note that the island was long linked with sorcery, and that some Filipinos from other islands still prefer not to visit.
\nToday the provincial government markets Siquijor as the 'Healing Island'. A 2010 Philstar feature described the 'Mystical Siquijor' brand as a way to stand apart from neighboring beach destinations. One recent report counts more than 300 healers across the six municipalities, with at least one in every barangay.
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