Our Indigenous tribes were rich in culture and traditions, sadly, we Filipinos ourselves was lack of knowledge about it, and how important it was for the identity of the nation. There are a lot of traditions and cultures that are unable to practice or be created nowadays because no one in their family or tribe member inherits those tribe practices and traditions. There are a lot of dying traditions and art in the Philippines including art that features in the video; the Batok and Wasay.

 

Nowadays, Batok is popular for the local and foreign tourists, they trek for a couple of hours to reach the Buscalan, Tinglayan, Kalinga in Cordillera, where the Butbut tribe is located. In the Butbut tribe, Whang-od was known as the "last mambabatok". However, Whang-od manages to pass the Batok tattoo tradition to her niece, where she trained and luckily more than willing to continue the tradition. Unlike in the Batok tradition, Wasay was in the reverse situation, in the video there are scenes were said that no one inherits the making of the Wasay making, there are some people who continue to create the Wasay with modern equipment, which is different from it was done before. The modern equipment makes the process simple and easy, they can produce a lot of Wasay but the true meaning and tradition of it will be never the same. 

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There are a lot of dying art, tradition, and culture here in the Philippines, even the government trying to survive them, it was hard as our country faces a lot more problematic issues that cover this kind of issues. It takes so much courage and passion to continue a dying art, tradition, and culture. For a few months, through this subject, I found people that I started to respect. From Pabalat to this last activity, I was inspired and amazed at how passionate and dedicated these people are to their beloved craft that even how hard it was for them to survive a day, they still wholeheartedly continue the passion they have in their heart. Doing different Philippines crafts, makes me understand the real meaning of passion and being passionate. It also introduced me to the creativity, passion, and hard work of the Filipinos, this makes me more proud to be a Filipino. 

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