Welcome to BALAY:
Hilot International Centre
A House of Filipino Indigenous Healing rooted in the Diaspora of Toronto, Canada
Balay means home.
Balay: International Hilot Centre is a community-rooted initiative devoted to the preservation, practice, and transmission of Hilot, the Indigenous healing tradition of the Philippines.
We are currently in the early stages of building this centre and are sharing our vision with the community as we prepare to grow.
Balay is a place for remembrance, relationship, and the return to ancestral ways of caring for body, spirit, and community.

Maayong pag-abot sa Balay!
Land, Lineage & Honouring
We acknowledge that we live, work, and gather on the ancestral lands of the Attiwonderonk, the Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinaabe Peoples, within the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
We honour the Indigenous Ancestors, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and land-based medicines that have cared for this place since time immemorial. We recognize that these lands hold living memory ~ of ceremony, healing, resistance, and continuity.
As a practice rooted in ancestral remembrance, we commit to walking with humility and care. We hold an intention to be in ongoing learning with Indigenous medicines, teachings, and healers ~ not to extract or appropriate, but to listen, to build right relationship, and to support the return of Indigenous healing traditions to all local communities.
May our presence here be guided by respect.
May our work contribute to repair, reciprocity, and collective well-being.
May we remember that healing is inseparable from land, lineage, and responsibility.

Our Vision
We envision a future where:
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Filipino Indigenous healing traditions are honoured and protected
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Hilot is taught with lineage, integrity, and cultural responsibility
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Healing does not happen in isolation but, in community - inspired by Bell Hooks (1999)
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Every family can reconnect with their ancestral healer wisdom
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Hilot not only heals the body, but the whole-self including the ancestors and the future descendants
Balay exists to help restore Hilot as a living, practiced tradition within the diaspora.


What is Hilot?
Hilot is the Indigenous healing system of the Philippines.
Traditionally, this healing system varies from family to family.
In the Philippines, this healing system is widely used and practiced today
It is a healing & spiritual practice that weaves together:
• Touch and body alignment
• Energy and elemental balance
• Herbal and plant knowledge
• Tawas (diagnostic divination)
• Relationship with nature, spirit, and ancestors
Hilot is not simply a modality, it is a worldview rooted in balance, Kapwa (shared inner self), and natural law.
Hilot is a re-membering of how to be in relation to the earth and to one another including our more-than human kin & relations ~ our ancestors, our future ancestors, the plants, the trees, the animals, the stars and everything...
Who We Are
MARY HERNANDEZ / Dayang Tunay na Likas
Co-Founder & Hilot Tanglaw
About Mary


JEN MARAMBA / Tulay Araw / Dayang Tala Pinagpalang Saksi
Co-Founder & Hilot Tanglaw
Jen Maramba is a Magaanito / Magtatawas practitioner with a healing lineage carried through her maternal line from Panay Island. From childhood into adulthood, she was guided by her Lola (grandmother) through the dream world, where visions, instructions, and stories were shared from her Lola’s life as a local midwife, healer, St. Anthony devotee, Aglipayan, and mother of twelve. Over time, many of these dreams and memories were quietly affirmed by family members, revealing ancestral knowledge that had long remained unspoken. Migration to Canada, assimilation, and intergenerational trauma shaped a reserved relationship to the lineage gifts within her family, yet the remembering continued through subtle and enduring ways. Jen is a certified and ordained Hilot Tanglaw Sibulan Adlaw Tala Mystic Oracle Practitioner and sits on the board of the International Hilot Association. She is also an Integrated Somatic Trauma Therapy Practitioner and Social Service Worker, specializing in both group and individual counselling. Her path has been shaped through mentorships and trainings with Indigenous healing practitioners who supported her development as a natural seer and healing facilitator. Jen weaves her lineages of healing through ritual, divination, creative arts, and ancestral care. Her practice is grounded in consent, cultural humility, and trauma-aware care, with a commitment to emotional safety, personal agency, and community accountability. She holds space for individuals and communities seeking grounded ancestral connection, somatic healing, and culturally rooted pathways of remembrance and restoration.
