The tuai trees teeming in Tampakan, South Cotabato may be a gold mine.
Honesto Baniqued, president of the National Agribusiness Corporation (Nabcor), Thursday said that “many local and foreign food chains are looking for the best organic salad ingredients and tuai leaves could be the ingredient they are looking for.”
He said he learned that tuai leaves, which are endemic to Mindanao and parts of Austronesia, were used for centuries as salad ingredients by the B’laan tribe (current population 13,000) living in the Tampakan, South Cotabato uplands.
The sap of the tree is believed to have medicinal properties, which explains why the B’laan has been using the red sap as tea to cure diarrhea and a number of ailments, he said.
For the B’laan, tuai is a tree of life that is generally believed to be the abode of spirits guiding the community to survive in the harsh South Cotabato highlands.
Known scientifically as Bischofia javanica, tuai grows straight up to more than 20 meters, with the leaves scattered in branches that spring out about a dozen feet from the base.
