The case for

Mengal Festival

Historical analysis and its implication on culture identity

By: Gil B. Zipagan II

           

Introduction

           

            Cultural practices, such as the traditional celebration of festivals, always mirror the uniqueness of every ethnicity in the country’s regions. It is on the practices that we can see how every ethnic groups are represented, hence the critical role of building the cultural identity.

            In October of 2016, Mengal Festival was born into the arms of Echague. Young and new, the festival became an immediate depiction of the rich and vibrant culture of the Yogads. However, years before Mengal was pronounced the town’s official trademark festival, the long celebrated Bacao was an integral part of the municipality’s practices.

            This sudden shift of celebration seem to present a case on the cultural representation of Echague. The festivals’ elements and properties are far from one another and thus poses serious queries on their cultural implications.

Limitation of analysis

            The analysis will only cover the immediate historical relevance of the festival to building cultural identity and will not cover an in-depth study on other areas such as- one of the information gathered in the research for instance is that the Yogad people doesn’t have yet any cultural costumes compared to other ethnic groups. Further, the paper only covers the general culture identity development of Echagueñans with regards to the festival, and not on particulars such as the ethnic links to Gaddangs and other relations.

Background of Echague

                Echague is a 1st class municipality located in southern Isabela Province. It is bounded on the north by the towns of San Isidro, Alicia, Angadanan, and San Guillermo, on the east by Dinapigue, on the south by Quirino Province, San Agustin, and Jones, and on the west by Santiago City. It has a total land area of 680 square kilometers and is politically subdivided into 64 barangays.

Echague is one of the main corn producers of Isabela.

Antecedent historical condition

            Echague’s Culture and Tourism chairman, Mr. Louie Simbe narrates, that long before Echague became for what is now its current state, it was called “Camarag” by the native tribes situated in the wide area of land which stretches from Reina Mercedes, Naguilian, Parecelles to Diadi Nueva Vizcaya. This wide range of territory is dominated by the Itawis, Ybanags, Igorots, Gaddangs, Ifugaos, and the Yogads.

            The Spaniards arrived and after a successful conquest, the lands were rearranged into the typical Spanish-poblacion structure. The political lands became submerged with Spanish culture until such time, the number of Tagalogs, most populated ethnic group from Middle Luzon, came to trade in the new situated town and outnumbered the natives.

           

            For years, the Spaniards have seen the ability of Echague’s lands to cultivate corn. Together with Ilagan, Echague became known as one of the major producers of corn in the North-east region. Though several of colonial powers tried to occupy the country, Echague’s condition changed a minor- including the restructures occurred in its political areas.

Bacao and Mengal

            The celebrated corn producing capacity of Echague birthed the Bacao Festival. With over 680 square kilometer land- area, more or less 65% is capable of farming. In that percentage, about 29.4% is planted with corn. In fact, according to Provincial records, Echague is one of the municipalities that contributes to Isabela’s national corn supply of about 21% corn production.

            “Bacao” came from the Yogad term, meaning “corn”. But when Ilagan was pronounced as the corn capital of the Philippines in 2015, Mr. Simbe stressed that though Echague is one of the major contributors of national corn production, it is inappropriate to celebrate a festival similar to Ilagan. “Mammangi” and “Bacao” have the same concepts in terms of celebrating the glorious harvest of corn.

            As a result, the Cultural office of Echague decided to conceptualize a festival that is culturally and historically centered. “Mengal” was born into the old town of Echague.

Mr. Simbe stressed that the term “Mengal” was an international term. He said that even

in Pakistan and parts in the Indian subcontinent, they call their leaders as “Mengals”. This is in contrast to the popular belief that Mengal is Yogad term and therefore, wasn’t exclusive to the said ethnic group and doesn’t exclude the rest of the indigenous people in Echague. It just happened that about 60% of the population of the ethnic tribes are Yogads.

The emergence of Mengal as identity and its implication

            Mengal assessed

The historical accounts verify that the nature of being a Mengal is always associated with the term “warrior”. The early tribes that dominated Camarag were fearsome warriors during the time of Spanish conquest. This historical scenario is best demonstrated in the native dance “Bayle de bakal”, which tells a story on how the Yogads defended the area during the Spanish conquest, Christianization of the pagans and the reconciliation between the two groups.

With this in mind, in the context of the current Christianized society, a Mengal is rather a negative connotation of resentment against the said religion. Historical accounts tell us that the people dominated Camarag were pagans. However, as the traditional dance of Bayle de bakal, it goes to show an old depiction of the early people’s interpretation of how they regarded the event. In a sense, there was a reconciliation with regards to the negative connotation. As Mr. Simbe stressed, the Mengal’s representation then is rather a picture of humility and humbleness.

            According to Mr. Simbe, one of the known Mengals was Kapitan Tercero. This person was said to have led the people of Camarag against the Spaniards. Be it a myth or not, according to the Cutural office, this plays an important symbolic role for the current people of Echague. However, the question is, who among the vast people is being represented?

            This critical point of information is vital to understanding on cultural identity. That is to say that it’s not about the superficial and vivid image that it projects but rather the in-depth implication of being represented by Tercero, who basically is popularly known as a Yogad. Tercero’s popularity has made him center of what is now known as Mengal-ity and thus presents a crisis in representing the entirety of Echagueñans.

            Representation crisis

            If it is about the representation of the general Echagueñans, then Tercero, though a Mengal, is not an accurate symbolism. Aside from the fact that there’s a great dispute on his existence; Tercero is only, if real, representing the Yogads who defended Camarag from the Spaniards. There are 5 other ethnicities without accurate representation on the Mengal tradition.

            Further, the usage of Mengal is more likely to fall under the influence of the Yogads and is relatively far from other ethnicities. So that, if Mengal is to represent Echague as culturally and historically centered, then it must embody the true nature of being an Echagueñan.

The flexibility of Mengal is still undefined. Unlike the usage of Filipino- which is in reality Tagalog, there is a mandate by the Constitution to be expanded through the adoption of local dialect vocabularies to be incorporated with the usage. In a similar scenario, Mengal-ity must be able to cover the core identity if it is to represent the town.

Summary and Conclusion

            From the gathered facts, the reason why the Cultural office of Echague shifted to a new celebration is due to the pronouncement that Ilagan is the Corn Capital of the Philippines. Despite of the shift, Echague continues to provide Isabela the quantity of corn production that makes the province one of the top producers of the commodity.

            Because of Echague’s significant contribution to the corn industry, Bacao was reduced to a town fiesta and still celebrates Echague’s glorious harvest of the said product. The shift to Mengal was a realization of a culturally and historically centered festival which honors the rich and vibrant past history that reflects the people of today. However, several problems were encountered.

            As presented in the paper, there was a representation crisis that should cover the general identity of what is meant to be an Echagueñan. There must be an in-depth research that would determine the accurate identity. This suggests that Mengal should be more flexible in order to accommodate the representation of its constituents.

            Tradition reflects culture. Whatever that transpires in ritual dances for example, are vital to the development of historical interpretations. Not because something is to be observed, but the articulation of hands say something about the parts of reality of a certain historical scenario. Therefore, superficial interpretations doesn’t actually tell what culture is. There must be an in-depth immersion with the available facts to accurately tell how something became what it is.

            The case for Mengal is presupposed from the idea of cultural representation. But before it must be said as the corporate identity of the people of Echague, it must first embody all the necessary nature, characteristics and practices that reflects the true meaning what is meant to be a Mengal- a more flexible and profound historical and cultural analysis.

Bibliography

•            Online

https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Source:Brief_History_of_Echague,_Isabela

https://provinceofisabela.ph/index.php/municipalities/fourth-district/2013-07-10-15-14-05

https://www.ironwulf.net/2017/07/13/echague-yogad-tribe/

• Interview

Mr. Louie Simbe, Cultural and Tourism Chairman, Municipality of Echague