Jose Abad Santos, Davao Occidental is surrounded by Indigenous groups of Blaan, Manobo and Sanger tribes that utilized traditional herbs and spices used for culinary dishes. This study attempts to survey and document the traditional knowledge and use of herbs and spices for culinary purposes and their therapeutic relevance for medicinal purposes. A combination of methods: ethnographic sources, scientific literature, and analysis of field data obtained through semi-structured interviews in local communities were conducted with 15 key informants from each barangay from September 2021-September 2022. The guidelines prescribed in the Code of Ethics of the International Society of Ethnobiology were followed during the field study, and its compliance was confirmed by the Ethical consideration of the Code of Ethics from the Annual General Meeting of the International Society of Ethnobiology (ISE 2006). A total of 37 herbs and spices distributed in 35 genera and 22 families were used to address 22 herbs as culinary, 11 used as spices and 4 used both herbs and spices. The family Fabaceae, Malvaceae and Zingiberaceae was best represented with 3 species followed by Brassicaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Moraceae, Poaceae and Solanaceae with 2 species representatives. There were five values used to quantify the plant importance: use value (UV), relative frequency of citation (RFC), relative importance index (RI), informant consensus factor (ICF), and fidelity level (FL). The use-value (UV) and informant consensus factor (ICF) were employed to determine the relative importance of the spices, their culinary and medicinal uses of the informants’ knowledge. Moringa oleifera, Cymbopogon citratus and Triticum aestivum Linn garnered the highest Use Value of one (1). Most of the identified species ranged its ICF of one (1). The highest ICF (1) was observed with in the 11 Herbs and spices. Qualitative analysis on the presence or absence of a phyto-chemical should be conducted to all identified herbs and species particularly Kolowratia elegans Presl.
