MALUSO, Basilan — For generations, Sama-Bajau women in this coastal community have turned strips of pandan leaves into colorful tepoh mats.
Now, the same centuries-old craft is doing something far bigger than decorating homes.
It is helping women earn their own income, keep an Indigenous tradition alive, send children to school—and, in some cases, secure the legal documents that can determine whether families can fully access government services.
At the center of the effort is Sibiya “Inah Biri” Bahali, a master weaver who learned the craft from her mother and grandmother when she was just 13 years old.
Today, she is helping pass that knowledge to a new generation of Sama-Bajau women in Maluso, Basilan.
A simple drying facility changed the way they work
One of the biggest obstacles facing the weavers sounds surprisingly ordinary: rain.
Traditional tepoh weaving begins long before the actual weaving starts. Pandan leaves must be prepared, colored and properly dried before they can be turned into mats and other products.
When weather suddenly changes, the drying process can be delayed—slowing production and cutting into the income of families already living on limited resources.
That is why a newly provided drying facility has become such an important piece of infrastructure for the Magtetepoh Women’s Organization.
Bahali said the facility allows the women to better estimate how long it will take to prepare materials and complete their products.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, working with Relief International and with support from the Government of Japan, has provided livelihood assistance that includes tools, raw materials and infrastructure intended to make the weaving operation more reliable.
The women are no longer weaving only mats
The traditional pandan craft is also evolving.
Members of the Magtetepoh Women’s Organization now transform woven material into products such as bags, purses, accessories, backpacks and laptop cases—giving the women more goods they can potentially market beyond the traditional mat business.
UNHCR said the organization is made up of dozens of women, with Bahali serving as one of the community’s key figures and trainers.
That matters because traditional mat weaving has faced a problem familiar to many Indigenous crafts across the Philippines: fewer young people are interested in learning a skill that requires considerable time and physical labor.
The latest report said Bahali has seen more women becoming interested in learning the craft, raising hopes that tepoh weaving can survive another generation.
For some mothers, weaving means rice on the table
The livelihood impact is immediate.
Several Sama-Bajau women interviewed in the community described weaving not as extra spending money, but as income that directly affects what their families can afford.
Cecille Damdani, once dependent entirely on her husband’s earnings, began producing woven products and said the additional income helps ensure that her family can at least afford rice regularly.
Another weaver, Farhana Manuel, uses part of her earnings to help buy fuel for her husband’s fishing boat and to contribute to her younger sister’s education.
For families whose traditional livelihoods remain closely tied to fishing and the sea, even modest additional income can make household finances less vulnerable to bad weather, weak catches and other disruptions.
But the UN project is also tackling a problem far beyond poverty
The most important part of the initiative may not be the mats at all.
UNHCR’s involvement is connected to its Initiative in Promoting Digital Birth Registration, which seeks to help vulnerable Sama-Bajau families obtain legal identity documents while reducing the risk of statelessness.
Some Sama-Bajau communities have historically faced difficulties obtaining birth certificates because of poverty, displacement, geographic isolation and aspects of their traditionally mobile, sea-oriented way of life.
Without official birth registration, people can face barriers when trying to enter school, receive health services, obtain other government documents or access social assistance.
UNHCR said strengthening livelihoods is therefore connected to legal identity: when families have more stable income and fewer financial obstacles, obtaining civil-registration documents can become easier.
Bahali herself has become an advocate for registration, encouraging families—particularly those with unregistered children—to obtain documentation.
UNHCR said she ensured that her own children and grandchildren were registered with the local civil registrar.
Basilan is building an entire center around the tradition
The livelihood program is part of a wider effort already taking shape in Sitio Teheman, Maluso.
Earlier this year, the Sama-Bajau Weaving and Cultural Center officially opened in the community through an initiative led by the Claret Samal Foundation Inc. in partnership with the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation.
The center provides a permanent place where Sama-Bajau artisans can weave, develop products, display their work and sell pandan creations including mats, hats, bags and pouches.
It is also intended to function as a cultural classroom where younger Sama-Bajau can learn weaving techniques, stories and traditions from older generations.
Even the building was designed around Sama-Bajau identity.
According to the Philippine Information Agency, its architecture draws inspiration from traditional Sama homes built on stilts, while elements of the façade reflect the appearance of interwoven pandan strips.
An inaugural exhibition inside the center featured 11 Indigenous weaving patterns, highlighting designs tied to the community’s environment, relationships and collective memory.
A tradition once at risk is becoming an economic asset
That transformation may be the most significant part of the story.
For years, Indigenous crafts around the Philippines have faced the same difficult question: How can communities convince younger generations to preserve traditional skills when those skills cannot provide a dependable livelihood?
Maluso’s Sama-Bajau women may be developing one answer.
Instead of treating weaving only as heritage that must be protected, partners are trying to turn that heritage into an income-producing industry—one supported by better facilities, product development, education and access to markets.
At the same time, the livelihood effort is being connected to something even more fundamental: recognition before the law.
For Bahali, weaving represents a chain stretching from her grandmother and mother to the women she now teaches.
Every strip of pandan that passes through their hands carries part of that history.
But if the latest initiatives succeed, the next generation of Sama-Bajau girls may inherit something their grandmothers did not always have: not only the knowledge of how to weave, but a stronger economic reason to keep weaving—and the legal identity needed to pursue opportunities far beyond it.
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