New forum member from the Philippines
 

Hi,

Greetings from the Philippines!

I've long been lurking in this forum as an outsider, though not that often. Took me so long to decide to finally register coz I feel I don't fit in this very scholarly community. I'm no sword enthusiast/collector, just a lowly sword vendor (on ebay mostly). But recently, I found myself talking to a few of you here privately, so I figured I must join the forum as well. And Kai kept prodding me to join. So here I am.

I'm in a small city called Iligan, which used to be capital of Lanao del Norte province. The capital was moved elsewhere, but Iligan remains the business center for all of Lanao (Lanao del Sur included). Lanao is home of the Maranaos, or "people of the lake," one of the Muslim tribes in the southern island of Mindanao. Iligan is only an hour's drive away from Marawi, the capital of Lanao del Sur, and 1.5 hours away from Tugaya, where many of you know is home to Maranao swordsmiths.

I'm a journalist by profession. I used to write for a daily paper in Manila, but I can't tolerate the traffic, the floods and the rat race. My last assignment there was covering the Senate, which got me really bored. I decided to bring my family back to my hometown, and resumed my journalistic pursuits here. It was much more exciting work than Manila. But the low pay in the journalism industry in this country drove me to look for other sources income, and thus found ebay, and the Moro swords. I don't do journalism on a regular basis now, only on special assignments. I also do photography work on the side.

While I enjoy earning more on ebay, I also enjoy the readings I need to do so I could communicate well with my buyers, who usually are much more knowledgeable. And reading about Moro swords made me learn more about the history of my very own people. Unfortunately, there's not much reading materials available here. But I can see a lot of people here who know Mindanao a lot.

I'm no Maranao Moro though (how I wish I were), even though I'm living in a place that is traditionally Maranao. That's why I opted to use "tagalanao" instead for this forum, which is vernacular (for the Cebuano dialect) for "one who is from Lanao."

Hoping to an enjoyable stay in this forum.

Bobby T.

Hi Bobby and welcome. I have enjoyed your photography as a fascinating glimpse into a place most of us will never go.

Best,
Manny

welcome and kamusta po kayo, bobby t.!
we are not scholars here (well, i can assure you i'm i'm not) lol, but you will find some very, very knowledgeable members here. hang and ask around, wag kang mahiya!!! i'm sure with your unique position being in mindanao, we could learn a lot from you.

btw, do you still travel to gensan and deal with hajji nur?

Manny, why not come to our place so I can show you around? If forum members would love to organize an educational visit to Tugaya, I'd love to show them around. But in the meantime, hope these pictures will do ...

http://www.pbase.com/timonera/tugaya

Bob

Spunjer,

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I don't purposely travel to GenSan to meet Haji Noor. That's 11 hours drive away! But I'm frequent in the Davao / GenSan / Sarangani area for journalistic and other pursuits, so I get to meet him often. Sometimes, he sends me blades more than I could handle. :-) But lately, I go to Marawi almost every week to meet another Cadi who's as prolific as Noor.

Bob

Hi Bobby, Have enjoyed your site & bookmarked it some time ago. Great photos, good to see you posted the link for everyone to enjoy. Don't be shy about posting more photos here, especially smithing. Thanks Bill

Hi Bobby,
Welcome to this forum and thanks for the amazing pics.
Regards from Spain.

Welcome Bobby T. Great to have you here.

Steve Ferguson

Welcome, Bobby! :)

Hi Bobby, welcome to the forum. I believe we had some communication a while back when your auctions first started showing up on eBay.
As one photojournalist to another, my sincerest compliments on your photography. It is a great photo essay on modern traditional craft in the Philippines. I hope you have found someone to sell it to. :) Have you considered trying one of the big boys like National Geographic. I can't attest to your writing skills yet, but your photography is up to their standards.

See, that didn't hurt, did it? :)
 

Hi Bob,

Welcome!

Now, please post those Kampilan pics! :D

Regards,
Kai

Mabuhay Bob! :D Glad you finally took the plunge. Now you can swim in the murky waters with the rest of us. :o Your insights and experience can teach us more than you know. :) Please share more pictures and knowledge with the rest of us "scholars"( :rolleyes: ).

Hey Bob! is that you?
Finally, you've made it!!!

I welcome you my friend!

I'm looking forward to see more
lovely photos from you.

Now, post those Kampilan pics!!!



"spousal Sec."

nechesh,

i'm just a third rate writer in a third world country, as you'll soon find out in my posts. my writings appear good only in the newspapers and magazines coz i have good editors. :)

national geographic, wow! that's beyond my dreams. but how i wish!

yeah, we talked about 2 years ago, i guess.

bob

You gotta dream bobby, you gotta dream! :)

Bobby,

Thanks for the offer of hospitality and the link. I would love to take you up on it one day.

Salamat,
Manny

Hi Tagalanao,

Welcome!! :)

I wish u the best in the forum and in life. Really nice photography u got there. Thanks for sharing the photos and i agree with nechesh, u have a high skill in photography.

Regards,
Rasdan

Welcome Bobby T, its been a long time since we communicated so its good to find you hear. A great friend of mine is from Marawi and some day I'll make it out there again to the majestic sites, perhaps cross paths with you on the way. btw Lake Lanao is at a high elevation and enjoys a cooler climate also worth checking out the museum at MSU Mindanao State University.

Welcome
 

Welcome Bobby, I enetered the forum much as you have after much lurking and studying, It has fired a passion in me that I didn't know I had.

Iligan you say, we still fly supplies in there for our guys on the ground in Marawi. Just returned from 7 months in the Philippines and was lucky enough to get to Mindanao twice. First time to Marawi and a smaller town on the east coast of Lake Lanao called Tampuran. The second time all the way down in Lanao Del Sur in a little town called Malibang.

At a function in the Town of Tampuran I was talking to HRH The Sultan of Butic Nash Adur and he told me there was an American living near there that was trying to write a history of Mindanao. I have a contact to some professor there I'll try and dig up and send you.

Loved the photos- phenominal. Probably a smart choice to get out of the journalism field also considering your geography.

Favorite memory of those trips (besides the people) was flying over (helo) what we thought were birds but soon realized was a school of flying fish in the middle of Lake Lanao

Again Welcome
Dan

Thanks for the photos. I'm delighted to see the traditional handicarafts still being produced, and with good quality. Don't see that kind of quality nowadays.

bobby,

welcome to the forum.

i wish the other lurkers who are also based in mindanao will join us here.

for the benefit of all here is a simple road map of mindanao.

when i was still with the government, i took several trips from zamboanga to iligan via public bus. travel time was over 14 hours. :mad:

general tip for blade hunting: maranao and maguindanao pieces are found starting from iligan city going to the east. tausug, samal, and yakan pieces are found in areas west of iligan city, starting in the city of pagadian going south.

carlo

Here's a virtual tour of the Aga Khan Museum at the Mindanao State University campus in Marawi, to those who haven't gone there yet. There's also a museum at the Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro (1.5 hours away from Iligan, opposite side of Marawi, where Mabagani once taught, though in a different university) with Moro weapons.

Dan,

Wow, your troops in Marawi! I did see a few of them last month, when US Embassy folks asked me to use some of my pictures for a photo exhibit on Muslim Life at the King Faisal Mosque compound also inside the Mindanao State University campus. There were some US soldiers, too.

You got the names of towns wrong. :) Must be difficult for an American ear to get the spellings right. Hehe ... It's Tamparan, not Tampuran. Malabang, not Malibang (and don't ever say you're going to Malibang, coz you'll hear everybody laugh!). Butig, not Butic. This used to be site of a big camp of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), next only in size to the central headquarters in Matanog in Maguindanao. I've visited the camp a few times doing journalistic work.

I've ridden on a helo, too, crossing Lake Lanao. This was during the war in Lanao in 2000, as I actively covered it for a Manila paper as the hostilities started in the town of Kauswagan in Lanao del Norte, just 15 minutes from my home. We could feel the ground shaking when Air Force planes drop bombs in Moro rebel strongholds.

AFAIK, American troops were actively involved in Lanao in the early 1900s, led by Pershing. I heard there was fierce fighting in the coastal town of Bayang in Lake Lanao, similar in scale as those in Bud Dajo and Bud Bagsak of Sulu.

Bobby T.

bobby,

thanks for the pics!!! love that sarimanok! just wondering tho; did you take those pictures of moro weapons inside the museum? if so do you have close-ups of those sandatas. would be nice if you can post them as well ;) :p .

as you can see, the majority of us can just dream of being there. maybe the next time i'm there we can hook up? once again, i truly appreciate you finally becoming a member of this forum.

also, thanks for that little bit of history...

Carlo, I love driving all over Mindanao, especially now coz most of the roads are paved (except the way to your Zamboanga). Most of those highways in the map, I've driven them all, except to Zamboanga, of course. My wife has forced me to avoid the buses, especially starting the late 1990s when bus bombings became more frequent. :( October last year, for a photo assignment in the Zambo-Basilan-Tawitawi area, I tried the Iligan-Zamboanga bus, leaving Iligan at 1a.m. It was torture! I promised myself never to take that trip again until the roads are paved. On my way back home, I tried my usual route - fly from Zambo to Cebu, then take the boat to Iligan, or Cagayan de Oro.

Coz of the picture I've acquired driving all over Mindanao through the years, I've started work on this Mindanao photo gallery ...

www.thelandofpromise.com

... in the hope that I can sell prints. But I haven't updated it yet in 2 years, and couldn't get the time to put shopping carts.

Wow, I didn't know that! Next time I'd be in Pagadian, I'll look for blade shops there. In Iligan, you can't find old blades, only recently made ones from Tugaya. In Marawi, not much old blades, too.

Bob

I can't take good closeups coz there's separating me and the blades.

Yeah, sure! Whoever comes here and wants to go to Marawi / Tugaya, I can show you around. As long as you're adventurous and willing to take some risks. :)

If you open Cato's book, I personally know some of the people mentioned in the Preface. Jam Maridul is a Tausug who studied at the Mindanao State University in Marawi at the same time I was in college at MSU's Iligan campus. Cesar Padilla is publisher of the Mindanao Scoop, a weekly paper in Iligan that I edited from 1998-2003. Al Quirante, I accompanied him in coverages to Marawi when I was starting out in journalism in the late '80s fresh from college. He taught in Marawi in the 60s and 70s, I think, and thus fluent in the Maranao dialect.

Maybe if I were here in Iligan when Cato visited Lanao, I may be in his Preface, too. :D I started as a journalist here in Lanao in '87 until '92, then moved to Manila to write for a daily paper (if you heard about the Philippine Daily Inquirer) and to be with my wife, who was taking her residency and fellowship at a hospital in Manila. We came home in '97, and I resumed covering Lanao.

BobT

Love the pictures, Bob, especially of the museum goodies. Are there closeups of the kampilans?

Welcome
 

Welcome Bobby, I enetered the forum much as you have after much lurking and studying, It has fired a passion in me that I didn't know I had.

Iligan you say, we still fly supplies in there for our guys on the ground in Marawi. Just returned from 7 months in the Philippines and was lucky enough to get to Mindanao twice. First time to Marawi and a smaller town on the east coast of Lake Lanao called Tampuran. The second time all the way down in Lanao Del Sur in a little town called Malibang.

At a function in the Town of Tampuran I was talking to HRH The Sultan of Butic Nash Adur and he told me there was an American living near there that was trying to write a history of Mindanao. I have a contact to some professor there I'll try and dig up and send you.

Loved the photos- phenominal. Probably a smart choice to get out of the journalism field also considering your geography.

Favorite memory of those trips (besides the people) was flying over (helo) what we thought were birds but soon realized was a school of flying fish in the middle of Lake Lanao

Again Welcome
Dan

Sorry, didn't take closeups, coz of the glass. Even if I did, I knew I won't be happy with the results. My photographer mind was working more than my interest in swords.

Bob

The Battle of Bayang May 1902 marked the first of the large scale campaigns by the American forces in Mindanao near the so-called end of the Philippine-American War. During the hundred year anniversary I heard there were talks of rebuilding the old forts to commemorate the event.
After my stay, part of my exhibit ended up at Capitol University in Cagayan de Oro, if you get a chance to visit, there's old photographs and a chronicle of the fighting throughout the occupation.
Can you post a nice pic of the lake overlooking the MSU campus?

I was in Bayang twice last year, doing a photo essay on "rido" (clan wars) for a Manila magazine. Looks like there was no rebuilding there. What I did see were an entire village abandoned coz all the houses were set on fire. The warring factions were on opposite sides of the village, and the government has put a platoon-sized contingent of Philippine Marines to prevent further bloodshed. Before the Marines, this abandoned village became their battleground. Now, they only do sniping coz one village is on lower ground facing the lake, another is atop the hills directly across. A few weeks before my visit, a newly married woman was hit in the chest by .50 caliber machine gun fire. On my 2nd visit, just hours before, enemy from higher ground also fired their guns toward the underdogs in lower ground.

I swore I won't go back to that place again as I experienced the scariest moments of my life there. :(

Hope we're still on topic here ... :) But I oblige, coz if there's someone to be warned by the mods, it should be Mabagani being the senior member. Hehehe ...

Top photo is the view of the lake from MSU's golf course. 2nd pix downtown Marawi taken from the same angle. 3rd is the famous "Sleeping Lady," the mountain across Lake Lanao, which can also be viewed from MSU on a cloudless day.

Bob

Way to go Marco!! :D :D

Nice historical backdrop..lol, tnx, I lived on campus during my stay, still as pristine as ever yet just beyond the lake...

A NEW MEMBER IS ALWAYS WELCOME. THE FORUM IS MADE UP OF SCHOLARS,COLLECTORS,DEALERS, ADVENTURERS AND EVERYTHING ELSE IN BETWEEN. WE CAN ALL LEARN AND OFTEN CONTRIBUTE BY ASKING A QUESTION,SHOWING OUR COLLECTION OR MAKING A COMMENT. THE SCHOLAR WITH MANY DEGREES IS A IMPORTANT SOURCE OF INFORMATION BUT HE GOT MUCH OF HIS INFORMATION FROM REFRENCES OR THE GUY WHO LIVED IN THE VILLAGE AND KNEW THE TRIBAL HISTORYS AND BELIEFS OR MADE THE ARTEFACTS. WE ALL SHARE A INTEREST IN ETHINOGRAPHIC HISTORY AND ARTEFACTS AND THE IMPUT FROM EVERYONE IS VALUABLE ESPECIALLY FROM SOMEONE WHO IS IN A AREA WHERE HE CAN DO ACTUAL FIELDWORK TO SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW. WE ALSO HAVE A LOT OF FUN HERE :D WELCOME!

Museums in Mindanao
 

Bob and Mabagani, Thanks for the corrections, seems like every map I read has a different spelling for the town names and trying to keep up with baranguays was a full time task that I never mastered.
I had known of the museum at Marawi through this forum and it was the one stop I really wanted to make, unfortunately due to time constraints and political sensitivities I was not allowed access to the town of Marawi itself, maybe someday when I'm a civilian.
Magabani, you make good points about previous US involvement in Mindanao, I just gave a short class to my guys that are scheduled to rotate down there about the proud history of the Mindanao peoples and the complicated interactions of all the stakeholders down there. I can only hope that it prepares them to be sensitive to all sides of the issues that they will have to deal with. The trepidation of US involvement, due to past history, was evident in most conversations I had with local officials. My dearest hope and the goal of our involvement there is to help create stable economic development and convince everyone (local and AFP) that a government responsive to the needs of its people is a must regardless of who's in charge.
Of course I always threw in references to the incomparable craftmanship found no where else in the world, in the hopes that the old traditions and weapons will not die out.
I found in all my conversations that the history I learned through this forum and simply knowing the correct terms for things immediately elevated my credibility both with the locals and the AFP. Thank you all for that.

Dan

Dan, next time you come around here, we should get in touch. As a journalist, I also get to talk to a lot of Moro officials and ordinary folks. Way back, I did some series of articles for my former paper (Phil. Daily Inquirer) on the peace efforts and the attempt of international donors, like your USAID, to improve the lot of the Moros. Last year, an Italian development agency asked me to do their sort of end project report here in Lanao del Norte. They showed me sample publications, complete with graphs and tables, but we found them boring. So I suggested we do it the jouralistic way, like a magazine. I did both photos and text. This was my output, PDF file compressed in Zip ...

http://www.timonera.com/pix/movimondo.zip

BobT

dan,
i hope you enjoyed your stay in the philippines. like i said before, it's too bad that i didn't get to meet you in person, maybe next time...do you have any idea when you're gonna be visiting again???


on the lighter note, are you converted krisman now? :D :D :D :D :D

When I was there the university held a tour of US historical sites within and around the city, the main resort there had planned to use the route to attract Americans if the political climate ever stablized. I remember a base from almost a hundred years ago still standing and used as offices. An interesting fact as the US neared the end of its occupation and readied the Philippines for independence was that there were Moro leaders whom protested to the US Congress and wanted the Morolands to remain part of the US rather than controlled by Filipinos. Its true as we go back into history we begin to gain a deeper understanding of current circumstances and how to resolve issues. Thanks for listening.

Krisman
 

Spunger, Well I did come back with two kris and two gunong and the one kris IS the best piece in my collection (till my other Dha arrive from Mark). Not converted but definately an enthusiast. Sorry I missed you also however where you were was much more interesting than were I was.

Bob, with your permission I'd like to pass on your article to our guys who are going to leave in a few weeks as well as our Civil Affairs coordinator down there. We are continually looking for for Non Government Organizations who have the experience we lack and whose efforts we can support. The more we can convince the the Philippine forces to support these efforts the better the stability of the region, we have found that a concerted effort, executed in coordination, has a much better sustainability factor than individual efforts.
Surprising that it was an Italian company. One who became a great friend of mine down there was one Armando DeRossi who has lived and worked in the area for 30 years and besides his construction company runs a NGO called Peace and Prosperity for the Philippines, he also was named a Sultan for his humanitarian efforts throughout the region, in fact it was at his invitation that I was allowed to participate in the events at Tamparan and Malabang.

Will I get back down there, hard to say but possible, my boss has just extended me another 18 months here in Japan, partially because of my experience in the area and the fact that my unit has the mission for the near term. i hope so and the next time I'll fight harder to get out of the office and amongst the people. You'll be one of the first to know - guaranteed!

Dan

Sure, no problem. I did give a hard copy of that to one of your embassy boys who's Pinoy (Filipino) when we met in Marawi a month ago. I just hope he showed it to his boss. The embassy's public affairs office also used a lot of my photos for their Muslim Life in the Philippines magazine.[/QUOTE]

If you saw that picture of the Italian who was also "enthroned" a sultan in that Movimondo publication ... shortly after that magazine was printed, he was kidnapped. :( Although released within 24 hours coz the MILF and the Marines joined forces against the abductors. That Italian was pulled out from the country immediately. He was such a great friend; we worked closely together for that project.

Hope to see you then, and show you around Marawi's padian where you can buy all the blades you want. :)

BobT