Mananambal

Their practice, or panambal, has a combination of elements from Christianity and sorcery which appear to be opposites since one involves faith healing while the other requires Black magic, Witchcraft, etc.

Two common methods used are herbal medicine and orasyon, healing prayers deriving from a bible equivalency called the librito.

[4] Patients that seek help from mananambals are more commonly found in the low-income class and are in isolated communities because of the payment options.

The amalgamation of folk healing and Christian spiritism may have begun at the onset of the Spanish influence in the Philippines – when Magellan converted the Queen of Cebu to Catholicism.

[7] This link with the Catholic faith is evident in their yearly quest, called pangalap, for materials used as ingredients in the concoctions for their traditional practice.

The pangalap begins seven Fridays after Ash Wednesday, prior to the Christian observance of Holy Week.

[6] Some of the rituals observed by the mananambal include: Herbal remedies are conducted in a variety of ways including decoction (tea making), expression (pounding of the plant then applying the extract on affected area), and infusion (infusing plants in water for a certain period of time then applying the result to affected areas).

These particular botanical remedies involve extracting the essential parts out of the plant material, and can be transformed into oil, ointment, and other forms of medicine.

[citation needed] A plethora of medicinal plants are used in the Cebuano region and as mentioned above, depend on the mananambal and their diagnosis of the illness.

Common plants used by mananambals are Mangagaw (Euphoria hirta) for dengue fever, Dapdap (Erythrina variegata) for hemorrhoids, Tuba-Tuba(Jatropha curcas) for arthritis, Noog-noog (Solanum) for hyperacidity, Wachichao (Orthosiphon aristatus) for kidney problems, Sabana/Labana (Soursop) for cancer, and Kipi-kipi for fatigue (Biophytum sensitivum).