Gameplan: Keeping up with the Tinglayans

MANILA, Philippines – In travelling, especially backpacking, sometimes taking a detour takes you to the right place. Gameplan hosts Julian, Ton and Amanda learned just that when a landslide road block led them to stay in Tinglayan, a town southwest of Tabuk, Kalinga.

“It was perfect because we hadn’t realized that there was an ordination of a priest. And this ordination apparently doesn’t happen very often. The last one happened 12 years ago,” Julian said.

Because of this, the Tinglayans were very busy preparing for a grand celebration with more than a thousand expected visitors from the different villages of Kalinga. The event consisted of a mass, and a traditional dance where the males played music with gongs while the females danced.

The biggest sight however, was when everyone started falling in line for lunch. Thousands of locals traveled all the way to Tinglayan to partake in the huge celebratory feast. “Some people didn’t even sleep to make that food. They were just happy to be able to say that everyone was fed and everyone was full,” Julian observed.

“The whole network of people, of the mountains, connected and all went to to one place to experience and watch this event happen. And what’s nice about that is everyone has that mindset that I should help the whole group. And that’s just one aspect of the culture that I’m learning from the first day,” he shared. – Rappler.com