love the land we live for

 It is said you can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you have been. In less than a hundred years we have gone from a planet of abundant resources to an age of having to conserve and protect what is left.

As we celebrate agriculturalists this month, we are made aware of the central role of agriculture in many aspects and sectors of our lives.

The workers, producers and stewards are also the current custodians of not just agriculture but also the environment and our biodiversity. Along with the ecosystem and sustainability, all are closely linked and entwined.

#BAO at the Negros Museum entrance

We are proudly #BAO: the unbowed carabao — beloved by Filipinos as faithful partners in life. The carabao or kalabaw is a water buffalo endemic in Southeast Asia. Aside from helping our farmers plow the fields, this majestic creature is our source of transportation, milk for sweets and meat for meals.

Its every part honored and valued — from head to tail and down to its hooves. Horns, bones, hide and hooves are all raw materials for tools, fashion and home accessories. Its symbol is imprinted in our national bills, coins, stamps and monuments. Proudly paraded in our mascots, body armor, children’s songs, jokes, and vernacular jargon.

Let us examine how the carabao has shaped Philippine national consciousness even only as our unofficial symbol. We offer you a way of rethinking how national animals are made visible within narratives of our nation.

#BAO, trusty companion & provider

Art and imagery that depict Filipino traditional agricultural and rural life in our islands often portray the carabao or water buffalo. Whether working or at rest, we are treated to this animal in various aspects — usually out in the fields that they till.

Despite the carabao’s centrality to Philippine agricultural history, cultural production, and everyday life — data and reports have mostly approached the animal as labor, property, or economic resource. Rather than as a national symbol with deeper purpose and meaning.

Working in the Field by Fernando Amorsolo, 1965

Literature and art help paint a fuller picture of the creature’s position in Philippine culture and history. Complicated as that is, its relationship with the Filipino folk can be even more so.

To Spaniards, the carabao was a valuable animal. To Americans, the carabao was a hardworking yet dangerous natural machine. To the occupying Japanese armed forces, the carabao was a bigger threat. To Filipinos, the carabao seems to be all of the above and more.

Studies of Philippine national animals have tended to focus on rare, endemic, or endangered species — reinforcing the focus on conservation — leaving working animals often ignored or invisible.

Untitled (Carabaos), Vicente Manasala, 1966

As a result, the cultural and historical significance of the carabao remains largely unexamined — even as it figures widely in literature, law, folklore, and visual culture.

In honor of this month’s agricultural celebration, let us shine our spotlight on the carabao and allow it to take its long awaited bow.

DID YOU KNOW?

The water buffalo was already present in the Philippines by at least 500 BCE. Multiple fragmentary skeletal remains were recovered from the upper layers of the Neolithic Nagsabaran site in northern Luzon.

a carabao sled (kangga) in the Philippines (c. 1899)

Their butchered remains are carbon dated and show their use in ancient art and ornamentation. Red slipped pottery, spindle whorls, stone adzes, and jade bracelets. Several similar artifacts to those found in Neolithic Austronesian archeological sites in Taiwan.

During the Spanish colonial period, native labor and fieldwork produced plantations of rice, sugar, and other cash crops and commodities that were exported throughout the 19th century. Under the guardianship of the Catholic Church and Spain’s royals, they formed a powerful bloc to monopolize local labor and production in the region.

This imposed stability and continuity of Spanish authority in the Philippines for more than 350 years. The Spanish curia and gentry brought us many useful arts and crafts — masonry, architecture, weaving, coffee, sugar, and the Christian religion.

a family returning with carabao & cart — Gerow D. Brill, 1900–1902

Much of what was forced upon the country then are still in practice even to this day — for better or otherwise, it had several benefits too.

In 1898, the Philippines was sold by Spain to the United States for $20 million. While most Filipinos believed they were fighting for their freedom and we being liberated by the Americans. The following year, the War for Philippine Independence — the Filipino against American war erupted.

Rivalries among local leaders and lack of arms were no match to repel the new invader and we lost that war too. More than 200,000 civilians died and one of the biggest casualties was the carabao. A tenth of the total population of carabao were eradicated in this war.

paired carabao art deco sculptures, Bacolod City Lagoon Park

Filipinos soon forgot this initial American betrayal and embraced the United States in another round — with the arrival of MacArthur and Hollywood. Turning away the Japanese at even greater cost to both the Filipino and carabao populations — resulting in much more death and destruction.

WE RISE, STEADY AND STRONG.

Today, most Filipinos are proud English speakers and it is our main medium of instruction in local schools across the country. Our form of government is patterned after the United States. Santa Claus and Superman are heroes we marvel at and emulate. Hamburgers and hotdogs are on our tables too with many new fast food options and iterations.

homeland sugarcane fields — Kabankalan, Negros Island Region

We also have better sanitation and vaccines. Once again, the good plays into the not so much — as they all entwine through the years. Layered and nuanced, deeply imbedded or hardly ever defined.

As a people, Carabao English is now part of our expanded vocabulary — used every day as different forms of is in other parts of the colonized world. In true Filipino form, local humor has created many hilarious and convoluted puns, twisting word usage in unique and inspired ways.

The Filipino, ever proud in our clever achievements continue to thrive in our patriotic valor — here and abroad we are spread far and wide. Generous and hospitable always, we teach our family, friends, and the world what it is we love most about being Filipino. Mabuhay!

By: Bhakti Issa Urra