When a paella of cultures, magic, religion, and the medical needs of a people merge, alternative therapies will likely offer a motley bag of of options, from near-mainstream to new-age to way-out fringe.

There is the new-age fringe, heralded by countless gurus mongering through the cybermarts and profusion of health magazines, flooding the information grapevine with newest in 'naturalceuticals' and life-extenders, catering to the urban and burgis markets. For the hapless user trying to get an edge on health and longevity, it can be a bewildering challenge maneuvering through a cyber-supermarket of noni-juices, snake oils, crystals, magnets and countless supplements.

Most of Philippine alternative medicine will qualify for a "Fringe" classification.

Many of the folkloric therapies (tawas, tapal, lunas, kudlit) with its varied prayer-form ingredients (bulong, orasyon) common to the alternative armamentarium of healing modalities and often first-line therapies in rural health care, would easily qualify as "fringe" to the urban-suburbanites and burgis, attuned to the traditional western modalities of healthcare. (See: Miscellaneous Therapies)

Steeped in religion, healing practices abound in its own alternative litanies and liturgies, with its accouterments of icons, amulets, and prayer items (Santo Niño, palaspas, tiuyuy) .

This section will feature other modalities that have endured and acquired distinct Filipino flavors and applications. Some are old and rural. Some uniquely, tribal, like "Boni." Some new, with urban-burgis appeal. I have included therapies and modalities from the "Miscellaneous Therapies" section, first-line rural therapies. Anting-anting is included in this section; urban-fringe and rural-mainstream, it has cultist, mystical, and esoteric elements that lend to it a fringe classification.