Epic Singers by Claudio V. Tabotabo (November, 2004)

Sometimes they are called minstrels, chanters, singers, troubadours, bards, rhapsodists, lyricists and balladeers. In the world of the Subanun (cultural communities of Zamboanga peninsula) they are called gumananen. It is derived from the Subanun word guman, - Subanun epic. Whatever the title, these are the people who recount the life and deeds of a hero.

This writer had met two epic singers in the provinces of Zamboanga del Norte. The two minstrels sung different epic poems but they had one common lament, the death of the epic.

Filipino tradition is now in the verge of death. Young people in the rural villages are not anymore interested to listen to the song of the minstrel. No one likes to hear the stories from the ancient past. Television, radio and other forms of modernization had replaced the ancient art. Young villagers now look at the tradition of their birth as inferior to those they have seen on T.V. Consequently by all means they try to ignore and hide what is native.

Folklorist Manuel Arsenio had already voiced out the saddening effect of the lost of the traditions. Tradition if completely forgotten makes the Filipino the people without identity. We try to appear westerners when by all means we can not be. Some Filipinos even spend thousands of pesos to improve their appearances and to be looked after their American models. If this is not a demonstration of stupidity, this is exactly an expression of ignorance. And if there are people to be indicted for all of this, it should be those in the advertising companies or the whole TV industry itself. They shattered the mural of the true Filipino selfdom.

It was 1995 when I met the Subanun minstrel in Sindangan, Zamboanga del Norte. They were old and very much affected by the fact that none in their village could continue the travel of the epic from the generation in the far away past to the next generation.

The woman-minstrel further grieved that the nightly singing of guman and the celebration of buklug (seven-day festivity) were forcibly became irregular when her barangay was declared No Man's Land. With the other villagers, she had to move and sleep in the congested Elementary school of the barrio. This happened several times. She said, one time she saw an airplane soaring in the sky and when it was gone a column of smoke bellowed from her village. When she came back to the village everything was rumpled. The natural cycle of life in the village is disturbed which is another stampede to the travel of the tradition.

Urbanization is creeping to the pockets of mountains, at the same time, cannons pound the whole island of Mindanao. All this forged into a heat that burns the ancient Asian tradition.

But more terrifying than the pounding of cannons is the passion of some Filipinos to appear like a westerner.