"The Story Behind our Emblem"

Before going to the topic that I am going to discuss, I might give you first give you hints about the words ethnicity tradition, and culture.

ethnicity-  is defined as someone's cultural background or where they came from.

tradition-  the passing down of beliefs, attitudes legends, customs or rituals, and information, from generation to generation, especially by the utterance of mouth or by practice and done over and over

culture-  is a word that defines the way certain groups of people live and the way they do things such as their beliefs, behavior, opinions or views, moralities, and customs that they have acquired from their history and shared by the community.

Basing on the image I presented above, this is what we call "hangga" in our dialect, meaning, a shield 🛡️  used by our ancestors during tribal conflicts and headhunting and for protection many years ago. It was then carried by our modern civilization as a trademark on most of our local government emblems like the Municipal Capitol, Provincial Capitol, Universities, organizations and is even locally printed and designed on the shirts of the residents in here.

This is to signify that we value our ethnicity, culture, and tradition. We find this shield a symbol of how strong we and our ancestors are. It is also reminding us that we are born from the warriors of yesterday. They stand and ready to fight anyone that comes within our boundaries to infiltrate and colonize and give rise to slavery. They are ready to protect their children so they won't become slaves of tyrants.

Aside from the record, when speaking of a shield, we believe to be protected from harm. A warrior uses a shield to protect himself and someone from harm. By being used as an emblem meaning that the user meant to defend.

Our National Police has the logo of a shield if you notice., obviously because they are absolutely our protectors they are meant to serve and defend us from harm.

Until today we always use the armor shield as addition ornamentation during our annual celebration in our municipal and provincial festivals.

In addition to the shield, mountains were added to the images. It represents that we are living in a mountainous location. others are the terraces of paddy fields defining us being farmers.

Another one that is more common in our seals is the bonfire. It doesn't mean literally of the image alone. Apart from being the native way of cooking using firewoods, it also symbolizes our groups of elders called the "umato", they are pure men that form a group per one location/purok/sitio in a certain community/barangay. So in a single barangay, there are 3 or more of these groups, each assigned for every neighbor barangay to entertain. There is a place for these men to meet called the " ato", an empty open house with an elevated roof where they always burn firewood and make bonfire every time they meet in that place. Women are not allowed to trespass in the ato.

These serve as local moderators that are responsible for peace-pact over tribal conflicts and local issues within their vicinity.

How about you, what things do you find that symbolizes your community?

👉pictures needs to be zoomed to have a closer view. I compiled them in a collage to minimize downloading of images.

>xzeon<