GAMABA

• The Contemporary Traditional Art: Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan identifies the GAMABA awardees in the Philippines and their contributions to contemporary Philippine arts.
• GAMABA artists' role is to pass on their artistic knowledge to the community, inspire them, and ensure that the aspects of their cultural identity continue to thrive.
• Traditional arts are grounded in culture, spirituality and religion, and also the environment.
• Tradition can evolve and become contemporary, and contemporary art can incorporate traditional elements.
• The production process of traditional and contemporary art forms in the Philippines is related to.
• Teofilo Garcia is a farmer in the town of San Quintin, Agra Province where he tends a plot of land filled with enlarged upo or gourd.
• Garcia is known for transforming his harvest into durable hats.
• Each upo or tabungaw (in Ilokano) is hollowed out, polished and varnished.
• Garcia was instrumental in fortifying tradition through six decades worth of persistent practice.
• Garcia trained the youth to value tradition and ensure its upkeep.
• Garcia was awarded as one of the GAMABA artisans in 2012.
• The Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan or the National Living Treasures was institutionalized in April 1992 through Republic Act no. 7355.
• “Manlilikha ng Bayan” shall mean a citizen engaged in any traditional art uniquely Filipino whose distinctive skills have reached such a high level of technical and artistic excellence and have been passed on to and widely practiced by the present generation in his/her community with the same degree of technical and artistic competence.
• 12 individuals have received this distinction from the time of establishment.
• Deprived of their bounty of land, indigenous groups are prompted to seek short-term employment in a money economy.
• The awardee must have consistently performed or produced over a significant period, works of superior and distinctive quality.
• Land areas are converted into sites for tourist consumption, leading to ecological damage due to combined natural disasters and tourist mobility.
• Dances and rituals are staged for an external audience rather than traditional observance, diminishing the quality of art forms native to the community.
• The awardee must possess a mastery of tools and materials needed by the art, and must have an established reputation in the art as master and maker of works of extraordinary technical quality.
• The awardee must be an inhabitant of an indigenous/traditional cultural community anywhere in the Philippines that has preserved indigenous customs, beliefs, rituals and traditions and/or has syncretized whatever external elements that have influenced it.
• The awardee must have engaged in a folk art tradition that has been in existence and documented for at least 50 years.
• Converting the natives to a foreign religion have caused members to forsake their indigenous rituals and traditions, leading to a syncretism of indigenous ways with the Christian tradition.
• Mining and infrastructure projects, such as the construction of dams, oil and mining companies evict people from their dwellings and severely damage the environment.
• The awardee must have passed on/or will pass on to other members of the community their skills in the folk art for which the community is traditionally known.
• Militarized zones arrest people’s ability to create art and prevent communal gatherings, where exchanges and passing of knowledge can take place.
• Traditional art is based on indigenous people’s cultures that are largely honed by oral tradition.
• Things produced are usually found and used in people’s home.
• Haja Amina Appi won for her mat weaving in 2004.
• The site of dissemination and knowledge transfer is neither in the formal spaces for a museum nor a theater.
• Masino Intaray won for his lyrical poems (kulilal, basal, and bagi), musical accompaniment, epic chant, and storytelling in 1993.
• Federico Caballero won for his chanting the sugidanon epic of the Panay Bukidnon in 2000.
• The process of creation is shared among the community, appealing to broader aspects of life.
• Performances are done in a group as part of a ritual or way of affirming one’s cultural identity or sense of belonging.
• Sumaon Sulaiman won for his playing kudyapi in 1993.
• Eduardo Mutuc won for his silver plating of religious and secular art in 2004.
• Teofilo Garcia won for his gourd casque making in 2012.
• Alonzo Saclag won for his Kalinga musical instruments, dance patterns and movements associated with rituals in 2000.
• Uwang Ahadas won for his Yakan musical instruments in 2000.
• Darhata Sawabi won for her pis siyabit weaving in 2004.
• Magdalena Gamayo won for her inabel weaving in 2012.