Bauko

27/03/2024

landslide in Alab, Bontoc in case you would be passing by the area

02/03/2024

Time to visit Bauko

14/02/2024

she may be less than a hundred years old, ngem isunan ti legendary tattoo artist ti Buscalan

How did Whang-od's era as a most sought after tattoo artist in the Philippine Cordilleras begin?

Perhaps it started in 2009 when she was featured in a Discovery Channel episode of a tattoo documentary series that covered several Southeast Asian territories.

Maybe that time nobody knew she would get this popular. So at that time, nobody really cared about the details. Her age for one as recorded in the official birth certificate was an estimation. It was a common practice, because few or none of her contemporaries knew exactly when they were born under the Gregorian calendar.

Who said she was the last tattoo artist? That requires further digging, but we now know that travel agencies and magazine writes and vloggers want to sell a story that would be a hit. A little spice here and a little more over there and a story emerged.

Is it a consolation that they did not turn her into a warrior princess who never got to marry her true love under the light of a rice harvest full moon?

Her journey as we know it is not her real journey. It is merely a story of a woman based on a real person. But the story plucked from this real person is getting further away from the truth as each jeepney load of tourists arrive in the village.

11/11/2017

And then suddenly we look alike

10/10/2017

Nen pa pukis mo

12/07/2017

Kalinga Congressman is now Mountain Province caretaker congressman

15/03/2017

Fagfagto during the Lang-ay

Fagfagto was a mock war where adolescents threw stones at each other from across the Chico River. This Samoki vs. Bontoc war game gave the participants bumps on their heads which was supposed to be a sign of how big the locmog would be when they were harvested.

This year, would participants get big camote or big bukol on their tangken ulo?

Find out by being in Bontoc this April and join the revival of the fagfagto during the Lang-ay.