Teofilo Garcia

is a Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan Awardee for Hat Weaving from San Quintin, Abra. He is known for
making the allweather headgear, a well-made tabungaw, which can last up to three to four generations
if taken care of properly.

A tabungaw is a unique and functional headpiece which shields a user from the rain and the sun. It is
made of the native gourd. It is hollowed out, polished, and varnished to a bright orange sheen to
improve its weather resistance. Its inside is lined with finely woven rattan matting and the brim has a
subtle bamboo weave for accent.

Ilocano casque maker from San Quintin, Abra. He is known for crafting high quality and functional
headpiece called tabungaw.

The tabungaw that Teofilo makes is made up off native gourd called, upo, rattan and bamboo. He
combines experiments with these materials with these materials to come up with decay resistant,
elegant and remarkable tabungaws.

Ginaw Bilog

Was a Hanunoo Mangyan poet from Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro. Being a master of the Ambahan
poetry helped him understand the Mangyan soul. He was given the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan
(GAMABA) award in 1993.

Ambahan, written in baybayin, is a poetic literary form composed of seven-syllable lines. It is sung to
convey messages through metaphors and images. The songs are accompanied by guitars, fiddles, flutes
or jew's harps. The poem inspires lively chanted debates that display wit and creative imagery during
social gatherings.

*AMBAHAN is a kind of poem consisting of seven-syllable which most of the time contains
messagesabout love and friendship.

In his case, he kept the ambahan recorded both in bamboo tubes and old notebooks. He kept even the
oldest ambahan passed on to him by his ancestors and promoted them to other Mangyans so as to
preserve the oral tradtion.

Federico Caballero

Is a Sulod-Bukidnon epic chanter from Kalinog, Iloilo. He ceaselessly work for the documentation of the
oral literature, particularly the epics, of his people. He is considered as a bantugan, a person who has
attained distinction. He strives to dispense justice in the community through his work as a manughusay
an arbiter of conflicts. A GAMABA (Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan) 2000 Awardee.
is a Panay-Bukidnon epic chanter who preserved his communitys oral tradition by tediously
documenting epics of his ancestors that are in danger of appearance.

These epics which tells stories about mythical heroes and their marvelous adventures, reflects the rich
cultural heritage of Panay-Bukidnon

When his mother and grandmother died, Nong Pedring continued the tradition, documented Panay-
Bukidnons epic through the assistance of researchers and promoted cultural heritage of his people not
just within their tribe but also outside his community

Eduardo Mutuc

is an artist from Apalit, Pampanga who has dedicated his life to creating religious and secular art in
silver, bronze and wood. Handmade pieces of cherubins and other church's crafts are samples of his
works. A GAMABA (Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan) 2005 awardee.

is a metalsmith from Apalit, Pampanga, who created numerous woodcarving and metal art with religious
and secular themes.

He started woodcarving house furniture when he was 29. Then several years later, he learned the art of
silver plating because of a friend.

He did not intricate decorations for churches. In doing the metalwork, Mutuc will first draw his design
on a sheet of paper then he would transfer and carve it to a block of wood.

Samaon Sulaiman is a Maguindanaon musician from Mama sa Pano, Maguindanao. He is a master in

playing the kutyapi, a two-stringed plucked lute. The kutyapi is one of the most difficult to master
indigenous Filipino instruments, but Samaon Sulaiman was able to play it with grace and exemplary
talent. He influenced and taught other community people to play the kutyapi as well which kept the
playing of kutyapi alive in Mindanao.

In the field of music, the Magindanaon have few peers among Filipino cultural communities. Their
masters on the kulintang (gong-chime) and kutyapi (twostringed plucked lute) are comparable to any
instrumental virtuoso in the East or West. The kutyapi is a favorite solo instrument among both Muslim
and non-Muslim Filipinos, and is also played in combination with other instruments. It exists in a great
variety of designs, shapes and sizes and known by such names as kotapi (Subanon), fegereng (Tiruray),
faglong (Blaan), hegelong (Tboli) and kuglong or kudlong (Manobo).

The Maguindanao kutyapi is one of the most technically demanding and difficult to master among
Filipino traditional instruments, which is one reason why the younger generation is not too keen to learn
it. Of its two strings, one provides the rhythmic drone, while the other has movable frets that allow
melodies to be played in two sets of pentatonic scales, one containing semitones, the other containing
none.

Though it is the kulintang that is most popular among the Maguindanaon, it is the kutyapi that
captivates with its intimate, meditative, almost mystical charm. It retains a delicate, quiet temper even
at its most celebrative and ebullient mood.

Aside from kutyapi, Samaon is also proficient in kulintang, agong (suspended bossed gong with wide
rim), gandingan (bossed gong with narrow rim), palendag (lipvalley flute), and tambu

Alonzo Saclag is a master of dance and performing arts from Kalinga. He did not receive any formal
education in performing arts but still he mastered the choreography and musical instruments of Kalinga
just by observation and practice. As a young boy in Lubuagan, Kalinga, Alonzo Saclag found endless
fascination in the sights and sounds of day-to-day village life and ritual. According to his son, Robinson,
he received no instruction, formal or otherwise, in the performing arts. Yet he has mastered not only the
Kalinga musical instruments but also the dance patterns and movements associated with his peoples
rituals. His tool was observation, his teacher, experience. Coupled with these was a keen interest in a
passion, if you would the culture that was his inheritance.

Saclag is also a founder of Kalinga Budong Dance Troupe that tours around the world to represent and
introduce Kalinga performing arts and he proposed the broadcast of Kalinga folk songs in local radios. He
lobbied that the abandoned capitol building be turned into a museum that contains Kalinga artifacts
including traditional musical instruments like gangs or the Kalinga gong. In 2000 The NCCA (National
Commission for Culture and the Arts) declared Alonzo Saclag as a GAMABA (Gawad ng Manlilikha ng
Bayan) Awardee or (National Living Treasure).

While the unwritten laws and epics chronicle their victories as a people, their artifacts afford us a
glimpse into their day-to-day existence. One such artifact is the Kalinga gong or the gangsa, the making
of which is a disappearing trade. He has endeavored to revive this dying craft. And to hold these and
other treasures, he lobbied for two years with the provincial government to grant funds to convert the
abandoned Capitol Building into a museum. His persistence was finally rewarded when, with support
from the provincial government and other patrons, the Lubuagan branch of the National Museum was
established

His own wife Rebecca who faithfully follows him wherever his travels take him, says this is his mission:
to continue to nurture and uphold the Kalinga culture, the birth right of his children. And his children
who have joined him in his travels and performances, and though they match his commitment and his
dedication, he acknowledges, with a playful grin, that his nine children have yet to equal his graceful
movements.
Uwang Ahadas

A Yakan, a people to whom instrumental music is of much significance, connected as it is with both
agricultural cycle and the social realm

He was awarded for his dexterity in playing Yakan musical instruments such as the kwintangan, gabbang,
agung, kwitangan kayu, tuntungan among others. He has a deep knowledge of the aesthetic possibilities
and social contexts of those instruments.

Uwang Ahadas is the exemplary musician of the Yakan of Lamitan,Basilan whose expertise dwell in
playing the indigenous instrument called kwintangan kayu. This instrument is composed of five wooden
logs of different sizes, arranged from shortest to longest, and hung horizontally. This is being played
after the plating of rice to serenade the palay. The music coming from the kwintangan kayu is believed
to cause bountiful harvest. Uwang Ahadas teaches his community people the skill of playing the
kwintangan kayu to preserve the indigenous music. He started at teaching his children and later on
passes on his skills to people beyond the borders of his community. Uwang Ahadas, despiites having a
ddefect in his eyesight and dimming vision, managed to preserve and promote the music of the Yakan
even if it means tiresome traveling from places to places.

In spite of the dimming of his eyesight, he has devoted his life to teaching of Yakan musical traditions. By
the age of 20, he had mastered the most important of the Yakan musical intruments, the kwintangan
among them.

Masino Intaray

is a gifted poet, bard artist, and a musician. This man from Makagwa Valley, Palawan is also a prolific
and pre-eminent epic chanter and story teller. He was given in 1993 the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan
Award (GAMABA) for his outstanding master of various traditional music instruments of the Palawan
people such as basal, kulilal and bagit

Born near the head of the river in Makagwa valley on the foothill of Mantalingayan mountain of Palawan

Living in the highlands of southern Palawan together with the Batak and Tagbanwa, (are the major
indigenous cultural communities of Palawan)

Also plays the aroding (mouth harp) and babarak (ring flute) -Prolific and pre-eminent epic chanter and
story teller -Part of the traditional artists of the highest order of merit

Bagit

The bagit, also played on the kusyapi, is strictly instrumental music depicting the rhythms, movement
and sounds of the nature, birds, monkeys, snakes, chirping of insects, rustling of leaves, the elements
and the like.
Basal

Basal is a kind of musical ensemble played during the tambilaw, a ritual of rice sharing among the
Palawan people as an offering to the Lord of rice, and during the tinapay, arice wine drinking ceremony.
Basal is composed of the gimbal or tabular drum, sanang or pair of small gongs, and one to agungs or
gongs with wide tunes. Non-musical instruments like the stamping of feet or the percussion dance are
also one of the components of the basal ensemble. Basal keeps the rituals and ceremonies of the
Palawan people lively.

Kulilal

The kulilal is a highly lyrical poem expressing passionate love sang with the accompaniment of the
kudyapi ( two-stringed lute), and pagang (bamboo zither).

Their most important rituals such as the tambilaw and the tinapay are forms of vast and lavish sharing,
particularly of food and drinks, skills and ideas. The tambilaw is a collective cooking and sharing of rice
which is a ritual offering to the Lord of Rice, Ampo't Paray, while the tinapay is the rice wine drinking
ceremony. It is during such occasions that the basal, or gong music ensemble, plays a vital role in the life
of the community. For it is the music of the basal that collectively and spiritually connects the Palawan
with the Great Lord, Ampo and the Master Rice, Ampo't Paray. The basal enlivens the night long fast of
the drinking of the rice wine, bringing together about one hundred guest under the roof of the kolon
bangwa (big house).

WEAVING

Haja Amina Appi

is the master mat weaver of the Sama indigenous community from Ungos Matata, Tawi-tawi. Mat
weaving is one of the treasured traditions of the Sama people. Their mat is made up of Pandan leaves
which undergo tedious processes from stripping, to sun drying, to dyeing up to weaving, she produced
unique and magnificent mats. Haja Aminas mat designs are complicated and creatively crafted with an
interplay of hues. The tradional mat weaving of Sama will near be lost because Haja Amina already
taught her female descendants the art of mat weaving. Like the other, National Living Treasure
Awardees, she passionately preserves her peoples traditional art.

Magdalena Gamayo
 is an Ilocano master weaver who came from Pinili, Ilocos Norte and a 2012 Gawad sa Manlilikha ng
Bayan awardee. Her expertise dwell in weaving high-quality Ilocos textile called abel. It is a kind of
blanket made up of cotton weaved in different patterns. She started weaving at the age of 16. Her years
of practice, eye for details, creativity, and innate skills caused her to produce excellent quality abels. Her
handiwork were distinguishable to other abels since they are finer, with more thread counts, and more
intricate up to 5 thread colors. Even today at her old age Magdalena consistently produce well-crafted
abels. To preserve the art of abel weaving in Ilocos, she mentored community people including her
cousins daughter-in-law and her sisterin-law

Magdalena has taught herself the traditional patterns of binakol, inuritan(geometric design), kusikos
(spiral forms similar to oranges), and sinan-sabong(flowers), which is the most challenging pattern. She
has also taught herself to recreate designs, which is a useful skill particularly when she is only able to see
the design but does not have a sample of how it is done.

Magdalenas handiworks are finer than most abel her blankets have a very high thread count and her
designs are the most intricate and can sometimes take up to five colors. Making sure the right colored
threads are spaced evenly and keeping accurate count is a challenge that Magdalena has always
unerringly met. The beauty of her designs lies in how delicate the patterns are, and yet how uniform the
weave. Magdalenas calloused hands breathe life to her work and her unique products are testament to
how machines can never hope to equal the human art.

SALINTA MONON

Salinta Monon is a Bagobo textile weaver from Bansalan, Davao del Sur. She started weaving at the age
of 12 through the guidance of her mother. The traditional Bagobo fabrics which are made up of abaca
fibers is the product of Salinta. Due to her high-quality textiles and their intricate designs, Salinta
garnered the reputation of being the best weaver in her community. She spent all her life weaving and
preserved the art of the Bagobo.

Salinta Monon had watched her mothers nimble hands glide over the loom, weaving traditional Bagobo
textiles. At 12, she presented herself to her mother, to be taught how to weave herself. Her ardent
desire to excel in the art of her ancestors enable her to learn quickly. She developed a keen eye for the
traditional designs, and now, at the age of 65, she can identify the design as well as the author of a
woven piece just by a glance.

She used to wear the traditional hand-woven tube skirt of the Bagobo, of which the sinukla and the
bandira were two of the most common types until the market began to be flooded with cheap machine-
made fabrics. Now, she wears her traditional clothes only on special occasions. Of the many designs she
wears, her favorite is thebinuwaya (crocodile), which is one of the hardest to make. When she has work
to finish, Salinta isolate herself from her family to ensure privacy and concentration in her art. At the
moment, she does her weaving in her home, but she wants nothing better than to build a structure just
for weaving, a place exclusively for the use of weavers. She looks forward to teaching young wives in her
community the art of weaving for despite the increasing pressures of modern society, Bagobo women
are still interested in learning the art.

LANG DULAY

Lang Dulay is a Tboli artist from Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. She is considered as a traditional weaver of
tnalak" or tinalak" cloth in her community. Her art is considered excellent because of the fine even
quality of the yarn, the close interweaving of the warp and weft, the traditional forms and patterns, the
chromatic integrity of the dye, and the consistency of the finish. She was a GAMABA (Gawad sa
Manlilikha ng Bayan)1998 awardee

Tnalak is a kind of fabric made up of fine abaca fibers weaved wth different designs which reflect the
tradition of the Tboli. This cloth was once being bartered in exchange for horses but due to
commercialization, the tnalak became popular and became the source of income of Tboli weavers.
Many consumers demanded non-tradional design of the tnalak and weavers choose to make modern
designs because they are more expensive than the traditional ones. However, Lang Dulay still chose to
produce the traditional tnalak to preserve the tradition and the story of the Tboli

Using abaca fibers as fine as hair, Lang Dulay speaks more eloquently than words can. Images from the
distant past of her people, the Tbolis, are recreated by her nimble hands the crocodiles, butterflies and
flowers, along with mountains and streams, of Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, where she and her ancestors
were born fill the fabric with their longing to be remembered. Through her weaving, Lang Dulay does
what she can to keep her peoples tradition alive

Lang Dulay knows a hundred designs, including the bulinglangit (clouds), the bankiring (hair bangs), and
the kabangi (butterfly), each one special for the stories it tells. Using red and black dyes, she spins her
stories with grace. Her textiles reflect the wisdom and the visions of her people.

Before the 1960s, the Tboli bartered tnalak for horses, which played an important role in their work.
Upon the establishment of the St. Cruz Mission, which encouraged the community to weave and
provided them with a means to market their produce, the tnalak designs gained widespread popularity
and enable weavers like Lang to earn a steady income from their art. However, the demand also
resulted in the commercialization of the tnalak industry, with outsiders coming in to impose their own
designs on the tboli weavers.

Darhata Sawabi

is a weaver of pis syabit - the traditional cloth tapestry worn as a head covering by the Tausug of Jolo,
from Barangay Parang, in the island of Jolo, Sulu province. The community of weavers recognizes her
expertise in the craft, her bold contrasting colors, evenness of her weave and her faithfulness to
traditional designs. Devoted full time to her craft. She taught interested young generations to pass on
the tradition. A GAMABA (Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan) 2005 awardee

In Barangay Parang, in the island of Jolo , Sulu province, women weavers are hard at work weaving the
pis syabit, the traditional cloth tapestry worn as a head covering by the Tausug of Jolo. This is what
weve grown up with, say the weavers. It is something weve learned from our mothers. Darhata
Sawabi is one of those who took the art of pis syabit making to heart

The families in her native Parang still depend on subsistence farming as their main source of income. But
farming does not bring in enough money to support a family, and is not even an option for someone like
Darhata Sawabi who was raised from birth to do only household chores. She has never married. Thus,
weaving is her only possible source of income. The money she earns from making the colourful squares
of cloth has enabled her to become selfsufficient and less dependent on her nephews and nieces. A
hand-woven square measuring 39 by 40 inches, which takes her some three months to weave, brings
her about P2,000. These squares are purchased by Tausug for headpieces, as well as to adorn native
attire, bags and other accessories. Her remarkable proficiency with the art and the intricacy of her
designs allows her to price her creations a little higher than others. Her own community of weavers
recognizes her expertise in the craft, her bold contrasting colors, evenness of her weave and her
faithfulness to traditional designs.

Pis syabit weaving is a difficult art. Preparing the warp alone already takes three days. It is a very
mechanical task, consisting of stringing black and red threads across a banana and bamboo frame to
form the base of the tapestry. At 48, and burdened by years of hard work, Sawabi no longer has the
strength or the stamina for this. Instead, she hires one of the neighboring children or apprentice
weavers to do it at the cost of P300. It is a substantial amount, considering the fact that she still has to
spend for thread. Sawabis typical creations feature several colors, including the basic black and red that
form the warp, and a particular color can require up to eight cones, depending on the role it plays in the
design.

Whang-od Oggay

Maria Oggay, Whang Od, Wang Od is a Filipina tattoo artist from Buscalan Tinglayan, Kalinga,
Philippines. She is believed to be the last mambabatok (traditional Kalinga tattooist) from the Butbut
people in Buscalan Kalinga and the oldest tattoo artist in the Philippines. She has been tattooing
headhunters and women of the indigenous people of Butbut in Buscalan Kalinga for more than 80 years
but the Butbut warriors who used to earn tattoos through protecting villages or killing enemies no
longer exist.

She never married and has no children. She has been doing the batok, the traditional hand-tapped
tattooing, to headhunters who earned the tattoos by protecting villages or killing enemies . Aside from
them, she applies tattoos to women of the Butbut people in Buscalan Kalinga.
Her tattoo ink is composed of the mixture of charcoal and water that will be tapped into the skin
through a thorn end of a calamasi or pomelo tree. She was tattooed when she was a teenager. Each of
her arms took one day to be finished and her family paid bundles of rice for it. When her tattoo was
completed her father killed a pig to celebrate it. This ancient technique of batok that dates back a
thousand years before her time is relatively painful compared to other conventional techniques. She
uses designs found in nature and basic geometric shapes.

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is set to award the country's oldest tattoo
artist "Whang-od" or Maria Oggay, the "Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (GAMABA) or the National Living
Treasures Award. Ferdinand Isleta, NCCA-Cultural Communities & Traditional Arts Section chief, said
they have been finalizing the documents to accompany the records for the award for signing by
President Rodrigo Duterte soonest.