MANILA -- The potential locked up in the island of Mindanao -- in its resources, its environment and, perhaps most importantly, its people -- is just waiting to be tapped.
Few people or companies are willing to take on the mammoth task of trying to give a better life to the indigenous people of the "wild south," which could accurately describe the Philippines' second-largest island. Even fewer would be interested in the job unless there was a large profit in it for them, which is why someone like Dorian ("everyone calls me Dorsky") Sicat makes such a refreshing change.
An honorary "datu," or tribal elder, of the Manobo tribe, 52-year-old Sicat is attempting to secure public and private money to help the highland tribe overcome years of exploitation and stand on its own two feet again.