Buklog Ritual of Zamboanga’s Subanen Tribe Inscribed in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List

The Subanen indigenous people in the Zamboanga Peninsula do not have to bear fear anymore with regards to their thanksgiving ritual system Buklog faring behind the changing times, after the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) inscribed it on its List of Intangible Cultural Heritage In Need of Safeguarding.

By being on the list, the group fosters an all-encompassing support to preserve the highly-vulnerable ritual against gradual oblivion and amid situations that involve either natural disasters or human-inflicted ones.

This is notably the first Philippine element to be inscribed on the list, and one among the six elements around the world to be done so for this year.

Buklog is conducted by the Subanen tribe as a form of appeasement or thanksgiving that is directed to the spirits. It is done on an elevated stage that acts as their special space, whose inciting events include bountiful harvest, sickness or disaster recovery, and acknowledgment of a new leader.

This ritual is normally spearheaded by a particular Subanen family, led by the village chief dubbed as timuay, and facilitated by a religious leader called balyan.

Sadly, Buklog sees a one-time celebration in the usual span of seven to nine years.

But upon its formal inscription during the 14^th Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Meeting in Bogota, Colombia last December 9 to 14, 2019, UNESCO’s safeguarding measures that are founded on research await to strengthen the ritual’s preservation.

“As a part of the social fabric of Mindanao in the southern Philippines, we see this inscription as strengthening the bonds of fraternity and solidarity in a resilient region that seeks to permanently replace conflict and discontent, with peace, hope and sustainable development,” H.E. Ma. Theresa P. Lazaro, the Philippine Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO expressed.

Also read: UNESCO Names Cebu as New Creative City of Design

UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding is made up of intangible heritage elements requiring immediate safeguarding measures. This is then guided by the Intergovernmental Committee that prominently mold said measures.