The Bantoanons have already been avid rappers centuries before rap music became popular with the likes of MC Hammer, Francis M. and Michael V.? Chanted or spoken in tilting rhythms like the modern rap, why not try this one:

Ambaw, mahuyam it timba
Aun-on kag timba?
Isag-ob sa sapa
Aun-on kag tubi?
Isabaw sa linugaw
Aun-on kag linugaw?
Ipakaon kang Ambaw
Hariin si Ambaw
Hagto sa ibabaw
Nag-uno?
Nagbaoy it troso
Aun-on kag troso?
Irapat sa kumbento
Nauno kag kumbento?
Nasira it bagyo
Hariin kag pari?
Nagbabasa’t libro.

Actually, a kind of lullaby popular during the Spanish times, it was chanted or rapped by two children, standing facing each other, alternating in the dialogue and perhaps rocking the hammock to the rhythm. But of course sans the accompanying high metallic sounds back then. Unsuspectingly simple, but isn’t the declaration about the sedentary Spanish priest quite a mouthful? The ditty as a whole being a veiled protest against Spanish forced labor policy during those times? As we know, the old Banton church, convent and their stone enclosure or muralla were all done (and likewise as the ditty suggests, their repair and maintenance) through that downright oppressive colonial imposition. Rapping subversive, anyone?

Cornelio F. Faigao’s poetic opus "The Song of the Hos-katting" published in 1936 was considered the longest poem in English by a Filipino at that time? The narrative poem, the title being derived from the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Bill of 1933, has 4,000 lines in 181 pages.

There is a Bantoanon version of the Biblical Jonah? Well, he is Manuel Festin or Lolo Awing. Accounts have it that during the height of Moro piracy in the island (although modern historians consider it now as part of what they call as the Muslim-Spanish conflict and not as mere brigandism), Awing was one of those unfortunate Bantoanons taken captive by Moro warriors in one of their raids. Although condemned to a slave’s life after his capture, he served his master well and soon gained the latter’s trust and confidence. He became his master’s constant fishing partner and later on was allowed to fish himself. This gave Awing the opportunity to plot his escape. One night, he finally packed his belongings and took his master’s outrigger northward. He landed on an island but much to his dismay, he found out that it was still within enemy territory. His lucky stars did not fail him however. Out of the blue sea, a big fish surfaced. Awing called: "If you have been sent by God, come to the shore and take me home!" Somehow, the big fish obeyed his wish and off they swam (he wasn’t swallowed by the fish though) to another island. The Spanish authorities there somehow believed Awing’s story and he was transported back to Banton by boat. Kalio talagang Bantoanon maski riin maparpar ay nabalik gihapon sa banwang gingmathan. Maski sumakay sa isra! Manuel Festin was the grandfather of Don Leonardo Festin, Romblon’s representative to the Philippine Assembly for 19 years during the Commonwealth regime. Manuel Festin Martinez, Tang Nardo’s grandchild and Romblon’s delegate to the 1971 Philippine Constitutional Convention, now a journalist and writer centennial awardee for the essay, is Awing’s namesake.

Very recently last September 19, 1999, Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin tendered a luncheon to honor the Festin Family at the cleric’s Villa San Miguel residence, said a news story from the Manila Bulletin, "for turning out three priests and three nuns." The Festin clan also includes Dr. Mario Festin, a 1998 Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) awardee; Sr. Emma Festin Fondevilla of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM), who was the first to ring the warning bell in the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo; Dulce Festin-Baybay, writer and first lady president of the Malate Parish Council, and author of Tahanan Books’ biography of Mother Ignacia; and many other clan members as distinguished as the above. Closer to home, the big Festin clan has produced two erstwhile municipal mayors, namely Silvestre Festin and Macario Festin. Mrs. Patrocinio Festin Ferrera, Banton’s incumbent chief executive is the Festin clan’s latest contribution to our political history. Incidentally, Ismael F. Fabicon, a leading Bantoanon poet and writer from whom we learned Awing’s story has also Awing’s blood flowing in his veins, his mother, the late Felipa Festin Faigao, being Manuel Festin’s great grandniece. While Cornelio, the poet, is Felipa’s elder brother. Interestingly enough, Manuel Festin, obviously a very religious and just old man, could not but have offspring as religious and devoted as their Lolo Awing.

The oldest surviving cloth in Southeast Asia was found in Banton? Known as the Banton Burial Cloth and now considered one of the Philippine National Museum’s rare anthropological possessions, it was made of dyed fine abaca fibers woven with intricate dreamlike designs. Ikat cloth weaving as the craft is called still survives in the unchristianized tribes of Mindanao, particularly the T’bolis in Cotabato. Last 1998, an old woman ikat weaver, Lang Dulay, was conferred the Gawad Manlilikha ng Bayan Awards by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) for perpetuating her tribe’s fine ikat tradition. We could only sigh with regret that ikat cloth weaving did not survive in Banton. Perhaps the fact that ikat cloth have something to do with our pre-Spanish religious beliefs and practices, burial rites being one of those, that the Spanish missionaries in their proselytizing efforts considered with prejudice as devil-inspired, was most probably the thing that worked against its perpetuation. It would then come as no surprise that what remained in the Christianized Bantoanon community were the sagurang and kubay weaving, apparently neutral crafts not associated with our indigenous religious beliefs and practices.

And did you know how the rare cloth relic was found and who? Sometime in 1939, a boy Restituto Fonte by name, was the watch for monkeys in his father’s cornfield in the hills of Toctocon overlooking the sea in craggy Guyangan. A noise attracted his attention, the culprit being a monkey rampaging about his father’s farm. But to his surprise, it was of an unusual hairy white. With his bolo ready in hand, he gave the monkey a chase that in a frenzy went down a cliff and disappeared into a cave but was too steep for him to follow through. Determined to get the monkey at all costs, the boy bravely descended the precipice and into the cave where, to his disappointment, the monkey was nowhere to be found. What caught unsuspecting eyes instead were several wooden coffins filled with human skulls and bones together with the burial cloth. It was believed that the puting amo was actually some spirit of the dead that led the farmboy to the cave. Yati kina, usa yaking magbubugaw ka nakadiskubre it kaling ato igingmamarakong Banton Burial Cloth. Ako’y naging manugbugaw ra gihapon it kato.

hrough the efforts of Professor Gabriel F. Fabella later on, the relics were brought to the Philippine National Museum where they are now kept. "The oldest existing cloth, probably on the 14th and 15th centuries, associated with deformed skulls and wooden coffins in the Philippines," reads its caption in the Anthropological Division of the national museum. The wonder, however, is that the rare archaeological find here, Banton was never declared an archaeological site nor subsequent diggings and research were made on the other burial caves in Guyangan and elsewhere by our scholars and anthropologists. And hence the wanton desecration of our prehistoric heritage sites perpetrated later on by illegal treasure hunters because no due protection was given them whatsoever. The saddest part is that our concern might have caused us the loss of some other anthropological artifacts that could have been as rare and valuable as the burial cloth. Of course we would not miss anything that we did not know or never would know. But what poorer we could have been and the Filipino nation if the rare Banton Burial Cloth, for one, was lost to us forever.

The founding and establishment of the present Brgy. Yabawon in the early 1950’s was made possible due to the pioneering works during the Spanish times of the brothers Raymundo and Cayetano Faigao from Booy and Togbongan respectively. It all started first in Solocan or Syukan that was at the time a forested and uninhabited piece of land near the seashore, then a part of Nasunogan. There, the two pioneers in search for greener pastures, that is literally and figuratively speaking, went and found the place indeed an ideal pasture for their cattle. Adjacent to the shore under a sprawling balete tree was waterspring and uphill grassy valleys, the site of Yabawon proper today. The brothers Raymundo and Cayetano and sister Simona, married to Emeterio Fabella, were the offsprings of the known Faigao patriarch, Emmanuel.

Cattle raising, apparently was a thriving occupation in Banton that started during the early years of Spanish colonization of the islands. This we can presume from the accounts of Antonio de Morga in his Succesos de las Islas Filipinas in 1609. He wrote: (here we quote a Tagalog translation) "Kanugnog din ng mga pulong ito ng Luzon ang iba pang malalaki at maliliit na pulo… Na may mga dulangan ng ginto, may mga palayan at lupang palabuyan ng hayop, tulad ng Marinduque, ng Banton, ng Bantoncillo… Kabilang din sa mga nabanggit na pulo ang Mindoro." This could be the reason why the former pastures until now are still called tansa or tansahan, from the Spanish matanza which means "slaughtering" or "cattle to be slaughtered". That is even at present minus the cattle dahil siguro naubosey it matansa. Pero hariin ara kag ingsisiling nak mga ginto kuno? Perhaps Imelda Marcos could be of help.

Ichthyopagous? Nio kina, puyde kinang makaon? Definitely not for one’s stomach. But it tells something about our early Filipino diet. According to Gaspar de San Agustin (that damned friar who cast aspersions against native Filipinos), it was mainly on a fish diet that our forebears thrived instead of meat which they reserved for religious purposes and functions. In other words, they were ichthyopagous, fish eating or consuming, from the Greek ikhthus meaning fish and phagein, to eat. And you know what? The Augustinian friar blamed our diet for what he supposed as our being "poor spirited" and indolent. Now it is not anymore an issue. Our national hero, Jose Rizal, in a celebrated essay have debunked all those assumptions and proved that, if at all, Filipinos were some sort of sluggish and lazy, it was not of our nature, but because of the hot climate in these islands; and aggravated by colonial expectations whence the natives should have to provide not only for themselves but the Spanish friars and officials as well, and thus sapping their energy for sustained work. Why labor very hard when you are not the one who would reap the fruits of your sweat in the end? Another reason was the natural bounty of our islands then. Our seas literally teemed with fish of all kinds, our mountains and forests with wild roots, honey and game all there ready for taking. Clearly it has nothing to do with our "fishy" diet at all. And the racist friar? Well, everything looks yellow to jaundiced eyes, you know.

Our Bantoanon ancestors, unquestionably, were likewise ichthyophagous. Up until sometime, Bantoanons selling their, say fowls, chicken and eggs to buy tunsoy (dried fish) and pakasam (fish paste)? And having for their daily table the usual utan and inaslom only during parugo, bawi, and buhat rituals? Although at present these practices with shadows of their pre-Spanish provenance are now replaced with more mainstream religious rituals of folk Catholicism such as the pakasay, pabunyag, parasay, katapusan and, of course, the ubiquitous fiesta. It would appear that it was not merely due to our characteristic thrift and frugality but practically has its deep historical and cultural underpinnings as well. Nowadays, vegetarianism is growing quite popular for health reasons. Perhaps we have just to look back to our past to be convinced. Nanggiginuyang kuno kag mga tawo it kato. Kag karne para sa ato mga maguyang it kag mga adlaw ay angay yang kang Amang, sa agta, liwinri ag iba pang mga yaut.

Banton’s population density when the island was first mentioned in Spanish accounts? Miguel de Loarca in his Relacion de las Islas Filipinas in 1582 has put it at 200. That number would correspond to, more or less, 6,000 souls. That was almost four centuries ago and how Bantoanons have grown in number since then would be shown by the fact that they are now all over the Philippines, in places with large concentrations of them like Mindoro, Marinduque, Batangas, Quezon, in Manila and suburbs, and, of course, in Odiongan, Calatrava, Concepcion and Corcuera, originally Bantoanon settlements. Kabuar (prolific) talaga ka Bantoanon.

And Banton’s population in 1903, five years or so after the controversial Treaty of Paris was signed? According to the Census of the Philippine Islands conducted by the United States Bureau of Census that year of which the results were published in 1905, back then Banton itself had a population of 3,051. And here they are broken by places, precursor of our present barrios or barangays, as follows: Poblacion, 912; Balogo, 84; Mahaba, 22; Mainit, 124; Malabiga, 213; Mas-ing, 139; Nasunugan 238; Say-ut, 47; Sibay, 155; Solocan, 217; Togbungan (now a sitio of present Mainit), 90; Tambac 105; Togbongan, 239; Tumalum, 194; Tungonan, 217. How were they distributed by sexes? Males, 2019; and females 1934. The population of Concepcion (Sibale) then under the jurisdiction of Banton and which had 992 inhabitants were included in these numbers, making Banton’s population 4,043 all in all.

The same census shed some light about how Bantoanons back then fared literacy wise. It has counted 645 illiterates as against 251 literates, those were of ages 21 and over. Clearly, considered literates were those that could at least read, write and count as those having superior education, whatever that means, were classified separately. The number? Only 1. Sio ara sida? Most probably the parish priest or curra parroco. This was way below Romblon having 61; Despujol, 33; Odiongan, 27; Looc and Badajoz having11 each; while Cajidiocan and Corcuera both having 3 each. But this dismal literacy situation was not to count for long. Given Bantoanon’s love for education and our unflinching determination vis-à-vis the subsequent establishment of a public school system in the island, there was indeed no reason why our literacy rate would not increase. The rapid rise of literacy in Banton gained a stronger momentum after Liberation with the founding of the Banton High School in 1948. A brainchild of the late Prof. Gabriel F. Fabella, the school that celebrated its golden anniversary in March 1998 provided the much needed impetus making the Bantoanons far, far advanced literacy wise and as far as the number of professionals we have now are concerned than it was in 1903.

As we begun with a rap, here is another Bantoanon folksong with a tune of its own actually, but forget about it for now, and again, try rapping this one to your heart’s or art’s desire:

Okasyon nak kali’y dapat ikaglipay
Tanang mamamaryo’y tipon sa libutan
Okasyon nak kali’y para sa inra
Mga hinigugma nak nagpapanguma
Ato higugmaon tanan-tanan sinra
Asa inro braso ka ato pag-asa

Refrain:

Biga ag balinghoy, singapor, apali
Ubi ag kinosoy, araro, batag ag kamote
Tanan-tanan ay pagkaon
Pamahaw, paning-ugto ag paninghapon
Kada nganiy ato higugmaon
Ka pagkaong mga tangkon
Tanan-tanan kina produkto’t mangunguma
Ka armas ay suyot, bayoneta ag bareta
Ka kalaban ay kogon, gaos ka igingbabala
Produkto’t nagpapanguma
Imaw nato it pag-asa

Inggwa ra gihapon it kanta ka mga manananggot. Puyde gihapong ig rap.Buko yang ugaling sa tumbo it sanggutan.

Pagkaaga-aga sa pagbati pa
Takyos ka sanggot, baliton sa ganga
Pag-abot sa tumbo, syumangkay sa paywa
Lamano ka sayor ag magkortesiya
Maado rang gador kaming manananggot
Ingwa’t rali-ralian kung waya’t ikamukmuk
Laloey kung inggwa it sumsumang pugot
Indi mamalayan ka inra pag-yagok.

 

Volume III No 1