For those of you who do not read the Inquirer, here’s the story written by Vincent Cabreza. He quotes Bugan and this blog towards the end of the article.
Statue of pissing Igorot removed amid blog protests
By Vincent CabrezaBAGUIO CITY—Owners of a restaurant here have removed a statue of a urinating Igorot man, a week after Cordillerans based abroad learned of and protested the statue’s existence.
Acting Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. asked the restaurant owners to remove the statue of the Igorot that stood unnoticed for years behind a wall where the sign “Bawal Umihi Dito” was posted. Also removed was the statue of a security guard pointing at the statue.
Bautista said he talked to the restaurant owners because he did not want the online campaign to become a full blown scandal for the city right after staging this year’s Baguio Flower Festival. The owners quickly obliged, the mayor said.
Bloggers identified with the Bibak network, a group of Cordillerans, cheered their success and vowed to pursue more online crusades, including one against a public TV series that allegedly misrepresents Igorot artifacts and culture.
“For members of minority groups like us who are often inaccurately written about by the mainstream press, cyberspace can be our best avenue for advocacy work,” wrote a female blogger who identifies herself as Bugan (www.splasher.halukay.com). “What I just did not expect is that I’d witness its immense power in just a matter of days. Simply amazing. Time to fiesta! Pun intended,” she said.
The blogger, who uses the pseudonym Bill Billig (www.igorotblogger.blogspot.com), said the restaurant’s decision to surrender to the bloggers’ demands was clearly “an easy victory” for online Igorots. [Source: PDI]
So it’s pretty much a straightforward report and it adds some important facts on the mayor’s decision to intervene on the matter.
Although I’m sure you know this already, I just wanted to state for the record that Bugan is not Splasher. Bugan is the one who took the before [here] and after [here] photos of the site where the statue was located. Splasher, on the other hand, is the one who first blogged about how Igorots are being portrayed in GMA-7’s Asian Treasures [here and here] .
Now, here’s another clarification: We admit saying that the victory was an easy one and we stated that it was easy because we were dealing with businessmen. So when we said it was easy it’s not like we said: “Wow, talong talo sila! Nag surrender sila! Kayang kaya natin sila!” It’s more like: “We were dealing with businessmen who can be rational and sensitive to feedback from the community so it was easy.”
Having made the above clarifications, we thank Vincent Cabreza for picking up this story. He also has a very apt description of who we are, “online Igorots”. I guess you will agree that it is a nice label for us, no?
RELATED POSTS: Man Oh Man; Let’s Have Fun; More on That Barrio Fiesta Peeing Statue; Let’s Have More Fun; It’s No Longer There; The Peeing Statue: A Postcript. INFO SOURCE: Inquirer. IMAGE CREDIT: Inquirer via Webshotspro.com.
‘Goodness Bill!!! You made the news! 🙂 MABUHAY ANG MGA IGOROTS ONLINE!
Let me add also, go to utube, type ‘noypi’, then scroll to “Noypi – bawal umihi dito”. Here, you see bunches of men relieving themselves everywhere, anywhere, even where the sign “bawal” is printed on huge letters at the brickwalls! There was even a lady!Please Bugan or Bill, download this video and send it to Ongpauco!!!! Da peeing statue is pure degradation on our culture and I took deep offense to that.
Like many of us, anyone of us igoys can maim just for such act.
Thx Bill for the advise on the blogging thing. Will try my luck one of these nites…am very new this blog community
TruBlue
hei there! COngratualtions and waiting for your (plural) next victory!
Go IGOROTS ONLINE!
Hi Ferri,
We all did 🙂
Hi TruBlue,
Thanks for the Youtube tip. Although there might be no need to send it to Barrio Fiesta anymore because they adequately responded to our concern. But as you said, offensive talaga siya. Welcome to the blogging community: it’s educational, entertaining, and you get to know people 🙂
Hi Anon,
Thanks. I like that plural thing because talaga namang plural. Go Igorots Online indeed. Thanks for visiting the blog pala 🙂
Hey,
Would you believe that there are Igorots who seem to dismiss the significance of the efforts that culminated in the eradication of that eye sore in Barrio Fiesta? They ask, what do we want to do next? Demand the removal of the Barrio Fiesta statue of an Igorot woman with exposed breasts? Someone even fell short of calling us hypocrites for not being affronted by the statue of the woman when that of the peeing man offended our collective sensibility.
The peeing Igorot statue and the naked Igorota do not belong to the same genre. The former constructed a flawed image of Igorots (wayward, dirty, uncivilized) while the latter inspires a noble emotion and hardly summons prurient thoughts. It does not put us Igorots in a bad light. There is a plethora of artworks depicting naked women of whatever race or creed. But, except for the statues of peeing cherubic boys whose ethnicities are not discernible, I have yet to see statues of peeing grown men that can be identified with particular cultures similar to that eye sore in Barrio Fiesta.
Oh, well, what do we say? There is still hope when among 10,000 monkeys, there are 100 wise ones.
Congratulations, Bill. It was by all means a tremendous feat!
Hi Chyt,
Oo nga eh. Expected naman that we will not agree on everything. What I didn’t expect was that some would be jeering at us while we are trying to do something. But we do all have the right to do what we want to do.
I pretty much agree with your assessment in the difference between the naked Igorota and that peeing man. They just are not at the same level. And, as you said, that peeing man is a flawed image of us. Thanks again.