Budots, a Filipino take on techno dance music, rang the eardrums of locals and guests attending the Dumagat people’s Tulaog Festival this year.
The distinct sonic character of budots is formed by ethnic whistle hooks—onomatopoetically referred to as “tiw-tiw”—over fast-paced drums inspired by beats from the Tausug, Sama, and Bajau ethnic groups of Mindanao.
Multiple hours away from Mindanao though, or even days if one travels by sea, the sound of budots is making waves in the seashores of Sierra Madre in the northern Philippines.
Tulaog Festival, a celebration held for almost four decades now, is a thanksgiving festival that takes its name from the Tulaog Cave, which according to locals is the place where Makijapat, or God, resides.
Dumagats are a semi-nomadic tribe residing in the Sierra Madre Mountain Range. They come to Tulaog Cave to pray, say their thanks, their wishes, and aspirations, and remember those who have passed.
This year, I joined journalists, and Indigenous Peoples advocates in attending the festival. Our delegation arrived at Quezon Province on the morning of August 2.
Just a little past noon, we had to leave our van and take a larger vehicle more equipped to trek the terrain of the Sierra Madre Mountain Range. Almost halfway to the venue, the jeepneys we took got stuck deep in the muddy terrain.
Although there were efforts to still go for it aboard our jeepney, it just wasn’t possible. We were left with no choice but to trudge only with our slippers on and our feet soaked in the thick mud.
After over two hours of walking, we were able to arrive at the shore, where the sea breeze and smiling locals welcomed us with overwhelming warmth.
We were given some time to wash up, get into clean clothes, and have laing—a local dish made from taro leaves cooked in coconut cream.
The locals have prepared solidarity and cultural night; we enjoyed a good mix of local Indigenous songs and people grooving along to these songs, TikTok dance hits, and again, budots.
Before midnight, we were able to hit the sack. We slept under one big, giant tent made by locals that could house over 200 people.
At around 2 a.m., I was awoken by the sound of a baby crying. Apparently, the Dumagat woman sleeping across from me has given birth to her child.
In the middle of a giant tent, sleeping on top of a rocky seashore, she delivered her daughter without waking up a single soul—except the ones who assisted her, of course.
Some of us would only know about this once Antoinette, the newborn baby girl, had broken the air of silence with her first cry outside her mother’s womb.
A few hours later, as the sun rose and the light cut through the darkness, the new mother was seemingly back to normal again, only now with her newborn daughter and their little family enjoying the festivities.
The minute I got out of my sleeping bag, I stood and walked to get myself a morning coffee and have a chat with the locals. I sat down with Mikmik, the leader of a local Dumagat women’s organization.
I was asking her questions about the woman that gave birth a few hours earlier, and she had one reply: “Maybe you should be asking me this—how was Mikmik able to mobilize a pregnant woman to go to war?”
She replied to me with a question that needed no response because the answer was already obvious—this festival is not just a mere celebration; it is an assertion of their right to self-determination and an expression of their conviction to fight for their ancestral land.
Communities from different towns have gathered this year, first as a way of giving thanks to Makidjapat. But aside from being a Thanksgiving festival, Tulaog is also a platform for the Dumagats to air their grievances against the threats posed to the mountains, forests, rivers, and shores that their ancestors have long fought for.
Dumagats have a strong sense of history and heritage, giving importance not only to narratives and stories but also to real sacrifices, lived experiences, and the battles fought to keep their identities intact.
At present, almost 1,500 Dumagat families are threatened with losing their homes and livelihoods amidst the continuing construction of the Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban Dams.
A project that first came to fruition under the Marcos Sr. dictatorship in the 1970s, revived multiple times by succeeding regimes, is now rolling with funding from China through a loan via the Chinese EXIM Bank.
Tunnel boring operations started in December last year, and since has seen development at a very rapid pace. This is despite the fact that there was no genuine FPIC (Free, Prior, and Informed Consent) from the Indigenous communities residing in the affected areas.
Aside from the dubious claims of the project being beneficial to the Filipino people, and the bogus averment that the project has been greenlit by Indigenous Peoples, the project is a menacing threat to the rich biodiversity of Sierra Madre and puts the Filipino people’s economic and sovereign interests in jeopardy.
These are issues that go beyond these mountainous villages, but a concern that the greater Filipino population should be wary of.
On the last day of our visit, I thought to myself—we won’t be seeing the end of these dams anytime soon, but I was sure that the battles are about to get fiercer between the greedy proponents of the projects and the righteous owners of these lands.
This thought ran through my head multiple times, but this was not a sentiment of hopelessness, but rather the opposite. From what I saw, from multiple experiences of going back and forth to these communities, the Dumagat people are slowly building up strength, garnering the necessary readiness for a long, protracted battle against the plunder of their land.
A young Dumagat boy, Jordan, would leave me struck with these words: “My dream is unity between our people; this is where our hope lies.”
A pregnant woman, grandparents, kids, and everyone else in between were present in a reunion-like gathering; everyone knew everyone, even those from communities hours away from each other.
The unwavering spirit of the Dumagat people to fight and resist plunder and exploitation filled the humid ocean air—a presence much stronger than budots and a chord that played in harmony with the cry of a newborn child, it was the sound of a new day.
Romeo Jara is the Communications Officer of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL), a global grassroots movement of Indigenous Peoples.
