"Each second counts, and each second that has passed means losing another second of their generation."

People come and go, and so culture. Daily, there are people who are born, and people who die. While for culture, it could die after a generation, replaced by the next generation with new set of norms. It is so dynamic that it is just out of control. These are the things I was thinking upon seeing the last generation of Bontok Igorot women in Bontoc who show-off their traditional identity overtly.

Bontok Woman with tattoo, turban and traditionally woven skirt

I spent a time just sitting beside a street in #BONTOC and observe, feel the place, see people, appreciate people. Learn new ways and understand the old ways. This was a joyful way of spending time, wisely. I didn't need to stay in a designer hotel to do this because the learning is located outside, there at the street.

The town of Bontoc is a cultural treasure in itself. But the ways of the past is slowly diminishing away from the bracket of what is considered normal this age. Who would dare wear a tattoo on the upper extremities, then wear a turban, colorful porcelain beads around the neck and a skirt only used nowadays as a costume in school activities?

A culture that's turning blurry

These women were born to unwittingly set the border of what is old and what is new. A lot of young girls in Bontoc has turned fashionistas, mimicking what their favorite popstar is wearing and these old Bontoc women has just set, obviously, the borderline.

Their generation is slowly, but surely ending soon. Bye tattoos, bye snake-bone coronets. Those artworks could be strange as it may seem, but honesty, just culturally fascinating.

Saying bye to bright, colorful, predominantly red skirts; bye turban, oh where have all the turbans gone? Girls now wear make-up, treat their hairs for good to make it shiny and straight and put highlights. Well, no issue for that. I'm just saying that the tradition is surely decaying, from head to foot; replaced by new ways, new culture, trendy pop culture.

With three Bontok Igorots, the gap in culture is wide clear, right?

Meeting the last generation of this tribe that still overtly wear the marks of their identity was priceless. The tradition and culture is signing off swiftly that it can no longer handle the strength and influence of new elements signing up to the social database of new trends in lifestyle and living.

Having photographed these people is like a school graduation accomplishing something. I know, once these old women are gone, it will be forever. Unless a new civilization shall arise with the same format in 6-digit years time. And, the extinction of their generation is just certain. They lived to put an end to something they are not supposed to be doing. It was fate that set them to live this way.

Wearing the beads with pride, some use snake bone, a very rare scenario

How I wish they understand what's happening around; on why young girls are not following their ways. It was a lifetime of continually shrinking space of culture. Each second counts, and each second that has passed means losing another second of their generation.

Their time is now so thin. It seems like the new generation is not aware of what they are losing. The new ways have just arrived, alluring everyone with glitz and glamour, encouraging everyone to get out of the old world and it appears that no one (or a little, if any) is brave enough to save the dying heritage.

Lolo Bernard, 2nd oldest Bontok man in Alab Oriente

While in a village called ALAB ORIENTE, I met Lolo Bernard. He speaks in his native dialect while the younger men speak Ilocano or Taglish. My ears were focused to this old Bontok man. Every word he was saying is just beautiful. I can't understand, but beautiful to my ears. It is about my love for learning new things.

He also has a head-wear with suako in between his lips. No one in the village do it now. Lolo Bernard's generation is so fragile. In every air he breathes in with that suaco also means a generation breathing the last air stored for them.

With a beautiful elder in Bontoc wearing batek

With Lolo Bernard, 2nd oldest in Alab Oriente

Spending a short moment with them was like running on a long road of gold. That's how precious it was. They are the last and I'm just lucky to have seen them.

After 10 years, this experience would become on it's rarest, and more years, could be an extinction. These people are on 80+ years old range. Well, the Igorot culture will still be there. They have loved their identity so much. I appreciate that. But the culture that brings visual feast, overtly, before the eyes of many will never be the same again. However I'm sure it will still show up -- but that would be only on books, and these photographs I have taken ./end