ABOUT
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Full name: Ginaw Bilog
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Date of Birth: January 3, 1953
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Date of Death: June 3, 2003 (aged 50)
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Nationality: Filipino
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Language: Mangyan
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Residence: Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro
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Occupation: Poet (Ambahan Genre)
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Moniker/Titles/Awards: Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (GAMABA)
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or National Living Treasure Award (December 17, 1993) awarded by then-president Fidel V. Ramos,
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Medium/s: Poetry etched on Bamboo
One of the first three (3) outstanding artists in music and poetry to receive GAMABA (or the National Living Treasures Award), when Bilog received his award in 1993, he was dressed in typical Mangyan garb of loincloth and a blue type of jacket, wearing as well an easy smile.
Ginaw Bilog was a prolific Mangyan poet of the ‘ambahan tradition of the Hanunoo Mangyan of Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro, and is recognized for the preservation of his people’s tradition.
According to philosophy-question.com, Ginaw Bilog was recognized and proclaimed a National Living Treasure “for faithfully preserving the Mangyan script and poetry by writing it on bamboo, and by promoting it on every occasion. So that the art will not be lost but preserved for posterity”.
He died on June 3rd, 2003 at the age of 50. Ginaw Bilog, during his time, was a prolific poet of the ambahan tradition. A tradition that has been practiced by the Hanunoo Mangyan of Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro. He practiced the ambahan tradition to convey messages of courtship, advice, and even farewell notes.
The Hanunuo Mangyan syllabic script is a variation of a script called Surat Mangyan. This is one of the two variations, one being the Buhid Mangyan. These two Mangyan groups who have different languages and cultures both survived because of how they engraved their poetry into bamboo.
One researcher named Antoon Postma was able to collect over 20,000 ambahans which can be accessed through the Mangyan Heritage Center’s library. Ambahan was known to portray the Mangyans’ values, so given the importance of the poetic expression in their works, composers of ambahans do not sign their names to them.
DEATH
Bilog died on june 3, 2003 due to a lingering illness, at the age of 50 years old. He left behind five (5) children, with the eldest at 27 years old at the time of his death. He was buried near his house in Kalaya, an hour’s trek from Bait. He was said to have requested not to be buried at once and asked for at least three days more in case he ‘awakens’ from death.