PASSING LANES

Cordillera fashion
Jorge Pawid

Congress missed the exquisite and attractive fashion show by former Mt. Province Congresswoman Josephine Dominguez depicting the native colors of the Cordillera. She gave way to her husband in 2004.

Baguio representative Mauricio Domogan, who traces his roots to the backwoods of Mt. Province did continue to wow his counterparts with his sporting of traditional native G-strings at the same time displaying the native colors in the Halls of Congress.

This time, however, the former city mayor has rationalized the need to show his G-strings and long legs well-carved from years of walking the many miles of the manicured golf courses of John Hay and the Baguio Country Club. In fact, it is also known in golf circles that he once teed off dressed in a G-string several years back as a public official.

Domogan said that his donning the G-string is a way of dramatizing the plight of the people of the Cordillera including Baguio City . Of course, this aside from showcasing the native colors and his masculine features.

This fashion show of native colors in Congress, we were told, was actually started by the late Congressman and Governor Alfredo Lamen during his term as representative of the old Mt. Province in Congress.

Lamen was a handsome heavyweight standing 5’10’’. He usually wore the G-string with matching coat without any shirt under and military issue pair of shoes topped by a Stetson cowboy hat.

We came to learn that Lamen became a celebrity overnight especially when in G-string, he took the floor of Congress to deliver a privilege speech demanding for the abolition of the National Bureau of Investigation after he was reportedly arrested by NBI agents the day before in a gambling joint along the sunset strip of Manila Bay .

We were told that the wearing of cowboy hats since then became a fashion tool among politicians and aspiring ones gunning for elective posts.

Even squats with protruding bellies and barely standing below five feet tall followed the fashion statement of Lamen and started sporting cowboy hats. This made and continues to make them look like clowns in the land of the Lilliputians.

During the hearings by the Commission on Appointments for members of the defunct Cordillera Regional Consultative Commission for autonomy in 1988, we witnessed its soon to be chairman in the person of Abrino Aydinan stand before the members of Senate and the House of Representatives in a barong and G-strings displaying the Ifugao colors.

Aydinan would soon wear barongs lined on the frontal left with one-inch native colors. It would soon be adopted and variated by many designers. It is now a common sight in Cordillera offices where men’s barong uniforms are adorned with a touch of Cordillera native colors.

Credit must be given to Domogan for wearing G-strings in public occasions. He has succeeded in bringing consciousness among the young Cordillera natives for the need to preserve native traditions. He must have been in native festivities where in these modern days, the hosts wear their native attire only during the cultural rites.

The Baguio solon soon gained a follower in comebacking Ifugao governor Teddy Baguilat Jr. An Ifugao-Gaddang meztiso, the bachelor Baguilat took his oath as governor in 2001 wearing a Kiangan G-string. Maybe in his oath-taking ceremonies this week before his return to the Ifugao capitol this July, he will again wear that G-string.

Lamen, Domogan and Aydinan had other followers. Among them is former Mt. Province board member and former Tuba councilor Brian Aliping. During the initial Impakabsat Displays of Cordillera products in Metro Manila malls by the Department of Tourism and Trade and Industry, Aliping completed the events donning the Mt. Province G-string and headgear. He was swamped by photographers and overshadowed the product displays.

Like Aliping, others have followed. Not necessarily politicians, Bong Cawed was known to dress in G-strings on city cultural festivities. Like Lamen, he was tall and dark. But I never saw him wear a cowboy hat.

Other town officials in the Cordillera’s six provinces and Baguio City occasionally put on their native colors. We now have coats (americanas) and lady’s gowns made up of native material. Some are even of the same color and designs as that of curtains and seat covers found in government offices.

Other native colors have found themselves as table clothes. These same material and color also make up native clothing for some.

We also saw some people having the native cloth that is reserved exclusively by Ibaloys as blankets for the dead into material for clothes designed for the living. Hehehe. What would be next in Cordillera fashion?