• HISTORY
  • PHASE I
  • PHASE II
  • PHASE III
  • PHASE IV
• VISION, MISSION, OBJECTIVES
• TRUSTEES, OFFICERS, & STAFF

History

IV. Fourth Phase: 2015 to 2020: Following the 2012 destruction of Balay Agusan by super typhoon/hurricane Pablo, the officers of the Tao Foundation raised funds for the center's rebuilding. With the help of Give2Asia, Sanctuary Fund, and friends from North America and the Philippines, these were able to rebuild Balay Agusan so that it can again host a new cycle of programs.

Balay Agusan is envisioned as a space or house (balay) where students of Philippine ancestral traditions from local, national and global sites can meet, learn from, and cultivate sustained relationships with Cultural Masters from Agusan and other parts of the Philippines. It is a space where the flow and transmission of ancestral knowledge in the areas of music and arts, healing, spirituality, environment, gender, peacebuilding, takes place, and where exchanges between local and global, cultural and scientific, embodied and academic knowledges are encouraged, towards the mutual enhancement of all. All this is consistent with "agusan" that means conduit, or channel through which water and/or spirit flow.

Since 2015, the Tao Foundation has focused on two major programs:

The Agusan del Sur – School of living Traditions is a non-formal learning facility situated in Balay Agusan where Cultural Masters from different communities in Agusan del Sur transmit to the local youth their knowledge of 1) language and performing arts (chant, musical instruments-making and performance, and dance); 2) arts and crafts (embroidery, traditional house-building); 3) health/ healing, environment, and spirituality; and 4) history, governance, gender, customary law, territory, structure, mediation and peace-making.

PAMATI ("listen" and feeling" in Visayan) is a Summer Gathering and occasion to listen to Cultural Masters from different parts of the Philippines speak about their experiences about ritual, healing, gender, the environment, music, dance, oral history, and peacemaking.

PAMATI 2015: Listen to Waters and Songs of Ancestors was co-convened by the Tao Foundation, the Center for Babaylan Studies, GINHAWA (Growth in Wholeness and Wellbeing Associates, Inc.), and the Institute of Spirituality in Asia.

PAMATI 2017: Listen to Bodies, Songs and Waters was co-convened by the Tao Foundation, the Center for Babaylan Studies, GINHAWA (Growth in Wholeness and Wellbeing Associates, Inc.), the Jung Circle, and the Institute of Spirituality in Asia.