FOLAYANG BITES HIS WELL-EARNED SILVER MEDAL; HE EARLIER BESTED HIS KYRGYZ OPPONENT ON HIS WAY TO THE FINALS.
Igorot wushu athlete Eduard Ayangwa Folayang bagged a silver medal during the soon-to-be-concluded 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. Folayang, who we earlier included in the 8th installment of The List, bested his opponents from Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Iran on his way to the finals. Unfortunately, he was up against a Chinese athlete in the final round and so had to settle for silver. The Chinese invented wushu so its kind of hard to beat the masters in their own game. But, who knows, maybe China will include wushu as an official sport in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and maybe Folayang will beat his Chinese opponent (in China at that) and win the ever elusive first Olympic gold medal for the Philippines. We can dream, can’t we? Ha ha. For the record, Folayang bagged a bronze medal in the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea.
Other Igorots who participated in the Asian Games are (from left): Estie Gay Liwanen (judo), Rexel Nganhayna (wushu), and Dick Takiban (body-building). They were not as successful as Folayang but there is always another day and another competition. Nganhayna, by the way, won a silver medal in the 2002 Busan Asian Games.
Photos courtesy of: Doha Asian Games site and the Unofficial Asian Games Blog.
congratulation amin tako ti igorot masapol pakita tako ti napigsa ti cordilliera your the best igorot in the world pigsayin tako champion igorotak sige pa masapol ado ti pakita pa ingat kayo ti amin ti igorot
I have a son who is training to be a boxer . His mom’s parents come from Sabangan and Besao. My parents are Ilocanos who migrated to Baguio 60 years ago.
We were discussing manny pacquiao , his achievements and then his ethnicity . For whatever reason the writer brought it up and this was my reply:
Pacquiao’s face is Austronesian , Malay to be exact . Many people , particularly Filipinos and American Indians have to realize that the word Indio does not come from the word India nor from that country of the same name.
The mistaken belief that the Spanish used the word Indios to describe Filipinos and others because they thought they were in India in the 16th century has to be corrected.
The word Indio , India to call natives is still widely used in South America .
The word India or Indio comes from the Spanish Indigen (Indi-hen) meaning indigenous.
In this case the word Indio or Indian is appropriate to describe a native or an Aboriginal.
The name of the country of India came from the word Hindustan with an H .
In the same breath , My parents were Ilocanos who migrated to Baguio city 60 years ago. I was born and I grew up there and non Baguioans would often times derisively call me Igorot.
Native folks meanwhile used to not like that term . They say its not their tribal name and the word was used by others to mean uncivilised.
Of course there are still a lot of ignorant Filipinos who don’t know who is who. But after finding out the root of the word Igorot ( Golot, mountain chain in local dialect , Gulod , or mountain in tagalog) I readily accepted that I am also an Igorot.
Whether Ibalois , Kankanaeys or other tribes like it or not , I was born and grew up in the mountains of Benguet. I am an Igorot.
Its the same as a Filipino may feel if he was American by birth and thought.
I’m proud to be an Igorot and an Indio.
I am very sorry to learn that Eduard Folayang , one of our best , if not the best fighter we have , lost to Tuck of Saipan.
His hard fall surely contributed to his worst loss so far.
I just hope he did not suffer serious concussion and will fight again another day.
In any contact sports (boxing, ufc/mma, kickboxing), one solid hit or takedown is all it takes for someone to be disoriented and lose the match.
Pakyaw had been lucky at this point not to had been hit hard in the head. Agree he is good and wish him well. I just despise people who always proclaim before his fights that HE WILL WIN. If that’s the case; bet your house or car – after he wins, you will have two houses and two cars. So easy to make money on Pakyaw.
i would like to say you can call your self igorot just cause your born in baguio but came from the ilokos but you also have to speak kankanaye so is mean your really igorot i would difinetly agree with you their blue but boxing is all about pride and pakyaw just only fight hard fighter but no pride when you fight is about pride is not about money house materialistic thing when you fight is come from your country heart like i fight a white guy of course am going to win just all of my biggest pride i am really sure folayang is going to be the biggest champion in the world also other igorot will be coming out of the fighting road will be the greatest fighter
Folayang is one of the best mma fghter in the philippine..I read one article about the last fight of folayang in saipan vs john tuck..He lost because he fought wthout rest…can u imagine fighting 6 hours after coming out from the plane from the philippines..maybe its time for us to join hand to support our athletes.Mabuhay ang mga Igorot