The Subanen Princess

During my visit to Zamboanga Sibugay for the holidays last year, I sought out indigenous fabrics for a possible garment presentation/auction in an art gallery abroad. In my earliest collections, I incorporated fabrics such as the T’nalak from Davao and Langdap from Marawi into garments of clean, linear silhouettes. 


These fabrics were readily available through sources provided by my aunt Henrietta Ele who is the founding director of Darangan Dance Troop of The Mindanao State University. Her company globe-trotted for fashion presentations with Ben Farrales in the 80’s and today, she owns an extensive collection of indigenous fabrics from the South. She showed me this collection a couple of years ago and it sparked off an idea.

ms. piggy, so?

i was in Zamboanga Sibugay for christmas and how rejuvenated was i. old folks were there and so were siblings, nephews and nieces, and even pets. i’ll post a video of a view of Sibugay Province from the capitol and an interesting “pets playing” vid later. i have to do some editing work on them first.

 

anyway, i’m @ davao city now for the homecoming of Ateneo de Davao University. I’m staying at my high-school-friend’s house in Woodridge and, speaking about pets, guess what greeted me at their gate?

 

this adorable pup whom the friendly maids called “Piggy.”

 

weird name for a dog, i thought, but then again she’s kinda cutely fat. perhaps she has already slimmed down from a heavier frame.

 

i’m loving this adorable dog (a pug/shihtzu) hybrid and missing my sweet dharma (a fawn colored chihuahua) back in cebu. i kept playing with piggy at the couch gleefully calling her by her unusual name oblivious to my host, tonette, who had entered the room and burst out in laughter:

 

“oj, you’re just like the maids. the dog’s name is Peggy Sue.”