Topography of memory in Tubig-Indangan, Tawi-Tawi

By Noel Galon de Leon

Tubig-Indangan is a small island in Tawi-Tawi, home to the Badjao, a people who have learned to live where the sea never stays still. They build their houses on stilts and raise their children above the tide, yet they are often left unseen by the country they belong to. When I first set foot on the island with colleagues from UP Visayas and friends from MSU Tawi-Tawi, I felt as if I had entered a sacred silence. The sea shimmered under the morning light, the sun stretched softly across the horizon, and the air smelled of salt and wood and time. Small boats swayed beside the pier. Children, barefoot and fearless, leapt into the blue water, their laughter breaking the stillness like a hymn.

A man waved at us from the mouth of the old mosque. His face was carved by years of wind and salt. “Welcome to Simunul,” he said with quiet pride. “This is where Islam first reached the Philippines.” Behind him stood the Sheikh Karimul Makhdum Mosque, the oldest in the country, first built in 1380. Its four ancient wooden pillars carried not only the weight of the roof but also the long memory of faith that had survived storms and forgetting.

Inside, the mosque was dim and cool. The floorboards whispered under my feet. I removed my shoes and felt the air shift. I thought of all the prayers that had been uttered here, the hands that had touched these same walls. A young imam spoke softly to me. He said people come not only to pray but to remember where everything began. His voice was calm, but his eyes carried something deeper—a quiet insistence that faith must also resist disappearance.

Outside, the village moved to the rhythm of the tide. Women washed clothes by the water and hung them in the wind. Men prepared their nets for fishing. Children balanced on narrow walkways, their laughter echoing across the sea. Everything seemed simple, but simplicity here was never easy. Life in Tubig-Indangan was shaped by patience, by hunger, by resilience. The people have learned to listen to the moods of the ocean, to accept both its mercy and its cruelty.

When the call to prayer began, the island grew still. The imam’s voice rose from the mosque and traveled through the air, carrying with it centuries of devotion. The waves seemed to pause, the birds hovered in the wind, and even the children stopped to listen. The sound was more than a call to faith. It was a bridge between the sea and the sky, between the living and the remembered.

That evening, as we shared our last meal in Tawi-Tawi, the stars glowed fiercely above the quiet sea. The villagers’ lights flickered on the water like small prayers. I thought of Sheikh Karimul Makhdum arriving here more than six hundred years ago, crossing unknown waters to plant the first seed of Islam in this land. That seed has survived not because of monuments, but because of people who keep believing even when the world turns away.

The Badjao have endured centuries of displacement and neglect, yet they continue to live with grace. They teach us what it means to belong to both land and water, to find meaning in motion, and to anchor faith in survival. Their existence itself is a form of prayer—a resistance against being forgotten.

As our boat left the shore earlier, I looked back at the mosque, a memory I wanted to keep from this island. The four wooden pillars stood firm against the dawn, witnesses to everything the sea had taken and returned. The wind carried again the faint echo of the call to prayer, floating over the waves like a promise.

Tubig-Indangan is a memory that breathes, a geography written by salt and struggle. It reminds me that faith, like the sea, is both fragile and infinite. And now, I will share a poem I wrote while I was in Tawi-Tawi:

Topograpiya ng Alaala sa Tubig-Indangan, Tawi-Tawi

May sugat ang bata sa tuhod.
Nakita ko ito bago makasampa
sa bangkang sasakyan mula sa Tubig-Indangan.

Hindi naman dumudugo
ngunit alam kong sariwa pa.
Namumula ang balat,
parang bagong hiwa ng araw sa umaga.

Nais ko sanang bigyan siya
ng tsokolate
na iniabot sa akin ng tindera sa Tawi-Tawi
noong nakaraang araw,
ngunit nagmamadali ang mga kasama ko
kaya hindi ko nagawa.

Sa kasingkasing ko alam kong maghihilom
ang sugat sa mga darating na araw.
Gagamutin ito ng alat ng dagat,
ng init ng araw,
ng ngiti ng buwan
sa gabing bantay sa kanyang pagtulog.

At habang tinutunaw ko sa dila
ang tsokolate pabalik ng Tawi-Tawi,
naisip ko kung pangarapin kaya
ng isang batang Badjao
ang maging doktor
upang gamutin ang sariling sugat
na inukit ng kasaysayan
sa balat ng kanyang pagkatao.

O baka maging makata siya,
na tutulaan ang sugat sa tuhod
habang nangangarap na makalipad
at yakapin ang buong isla
ng Tubig-Indangan
para sa mga katulad niyang bata
na paulit-ulit nating binibigo.