Ifugao ‘Pa-ot Festival’ sheds light on plight of woodcarvers

BAGUIO CITY – More than 50 years ago, skilled Ifugao woodcarvers settled on Asin Road in what is now Barangay Tadiangan, Tuba, Benguet, six Km  away from the heart of this city. With its lush forests, raw materials for making handicrafts and other wood based furniture have always been available.

Baguio City was then slowly becoming a favorite summer vacation spot for local and foreign tourists, and wood handicrafts such as small keychains made of pinewood branches, wood-carved lions and eagles, and life-sized cordillera hunters and maidens.

They make up a host of souvenir items as the public market.

When the demand for these items increased, more and more Ifugao carvers flocked to the village hoping to boost their income.

“I am the third generation of this Ifugao woodcarving village,” said Roberto Pahitong, vice president of the Sinco Badang Association, an organization formed by the woodcarvers themselves to keep their woodcarving livelihood intact.

Woodcarvers like Mang Roberto have attracted the curiosity of tourists who want to see them at work.

To further promote Benguet town’s identity as the main hub for the woodcarving industry, the first Pa-ot Festival was held in the village last May 22-24.

Aside from the woodcarving competition, cultural dance performance competitions and rattan weaving competitions were also held including the traditional back-strap weaving, “tapuey” (rice wine making), traditional games such as “akkad” (stilt race) and “binnayo” (rice pounding) and the famed downhill wooden scooter was also performed as part of its opening ceremony.

However, Mang Roberto said the woodcarving industry in the province is facing problems especially with the government’s implementation of the total log ban. “We have to go to the lowlands and buy raw materials especially the Acacia variety. Permits from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources is not that easy,” he said.

He also defended their craft, saying “We do not log for big concessionaires.” Mang Roberto’s sentiments are strong not just because of the income woodcarvers like him derive from raw wood, but because his group hopes that the government can do something to keep the culture of wood carving alive.