Reminder for the ‘taga-baba’

I remember the many occasions when I would walk along Burnham Park trying to evade the routes where tourists, wrapped in their jackets, were taking selfies. I secretly cringed at those who paid around P100 to have photos taken while wearing Igorot traditional attire with matching props like a spear or a Cordillera shield.

Being Baguio residents, we usually call visitors or tourists “taga-baba,” since they come from the plains. However, my friends and I use another term, “TGBB.” TGBB and taga-baba are used in different contexts. Taga-baba is more general and neutral-sounding for any lowlander who visits the city. TGBB, on the other hand, is for lowlanders who are rude and most of the time insensitive toward their surroundings. It’s similar to calling rude white American ladies “Karen.”

Aside from bringing traffic that makes it extra difficult for residents to move around the city, some TGBBs bring with them unnecessary remarks and insensitive questions about locals and the indigenous community that make it really hard for locals to welcome them with warmth:

“Do the Igorot really have tails?”

“Is it true that the Igorot are ‘daks’?”

“Do the Igorot behead people?”

These are just a few of the many absurd questions you would hear from many TGBBs. Not only are these questions offensive to hear because they are uninformed queries, but they also remind the indigenous peoples (IPs) of the Cordillera of the historical misconceptions and injustices that have been haunting them for generations now.

I was 15 years old when I went to Baguio to study. I barely had any idea about the local culture. I only knew there were IPs, specifically the Igorot, in the Cordillera region. Naïve as I was, I had a very specific imagination of what an Igorot was—one who wore the traditional attire with all those intrinsic patterns on textile. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. I realized this was such a limited perspective. The Igorot wear “modern” clothes, they know what a cell phone is, and they eat at fast-food restaurants with spoon and fork.

One of the first lessons I had to learn about them, and maybe one I will never forget, is that what they wear should not be called “costumes.” These beautiful traditional garments should be appropriately referred to as indigenous attires, not costumes, because the cultural context of these materials is in accordance with the practices of the indigenous community and not merely used as props.

Back in 2016, I read news about police dispersing a rally of IPs in front of the US Embassy in Manila. They were protesting the military presence in their ancestral lands. The posts were filled with comments, not only questioning the violence that occurred, but also calling out why the indigenous protesters wore indigenous attires. These commenters said this was disrespectful to the culture of IPs, which was silly: How could it be disrespectful when the attires were worn by the IPs themselves?

“Culture, not costume.”

These indigenous attires are heavily attached to the identity of our IPs, and they cannot be separated from it. The hardships, the discrimination, and the marginalization that our IPs have to suffer are being experienced in their communities while they wear these indigenous attires. Unlike a costume, they can’t just remove them any time they want to, or once things go uneasy and uncomfortable for them. It’s an identity they wear, and embedded in these garments are the struggles they constantly face as a historically oppressed sector in our society.

TGBBs mistakenly regard these attires as costumes, as if they are just pieces of garment worn on social occasions or costume parties. But around the world, IPs wear their indigenous attires to defend their land, life, and resources from destructive projects. IP protesters make their attires even more honorable by wearing them with dignity and pride as they fight for their communities’ rights.

What is more frustrating is the appalling audacity of some TGBBs to tell IPs what or what not to wear. This TGBB behavior is one of the major problems IPs face every single day—having somebody else make decisions for them. For decades now, our IPs have been consistently fighting for their right to self-determination, their right to decide for themselves, their right to freely determine their political status, and their right to pursue their economic, social, and cultural development. To tell them what they can and cannot wear in a protest is a blatant disrespect of their rights.

The taga-baba and TGBBs at Burnham Park wearing indigenous attires for a photo-op must be happy to “experience” what it is like to be an Igorot clad in beautiful garments. The irony, however, is once their photos are taken, they remove these garments and forget how IPs are still marginalized and oppressed.

So, a gentle reminder to the taga-baba, including myself as I have already left Baguio: The least we can do when we visit their land is to be sensitive. We should not reduce their culture to a mere spectacle. Next time, when we take a photo wearing their indigenous attire, let’s honor it by wearing it with pride and dignity. It’s an attire that comes with centuries of struggle. And, please, they’re not costumes.

*  *  *

Japheth G. Tobias, 21, is a communication graduate from the University of the Philippines Baguio and is now working in Metro Manila.