I must have been five years old the first time I attended a grand buklog. At that time I did not have any idea what it was all about except that there was much cooking and eating going on, and chanting which to me did not have any meaning at all.  I remember the house moved like a giant trampoline and there was a great mixture of strange sounds of people in jubilation, of the sound of gongs and shields, of voices of chanters and singers and the sonorous sounds of anklets and bronze bells and of the rustling of the  rattan leaves.
Much later, when I was High School in another town and boarding with the distant cousin of my mother, a Chavacano, she told me stories of month-long buklog in the house of my great grandfather, Thumuay Imbing who ruled the Subanos in Baganian Peninsula and what presently makes up the first and second districts of the Province of Zamboanga del Sur. The house of my great-grandfather was in Sung Lupa which was then  the seat of Subanen power. Today Sung Lupa is an eerie and “mesena” place, that is, a forbidden place held sacred by the people for here is found the burial place of Thimuay Imbing and his wives and other relatives.  It was in this place where Thimuay Imbing received Governor General Leonard Wood who was escorted by white and black American soldiers on horseback. As my grandfather, Datu Purohan Imbing tells it, the sight of the strange animals with black men on top of them sent the Subanen running into the forest. Only when the black men alighted from the horse that they realized that the horse and the black man were two separate beings. And that the black men were really black because when they took a bath in the river, the skin color did not wash off. Lola Loleng Domingo, my landlady, during my high school days (she is still alive and living in Zamboanga City has described vividly to me the food, the merrymaking on the khogan (buklog platform) and the whole town across Dumanquilas Bay being fetched in a kumpit and brought to Sung Lupa. This town is Margosatubig and it is the mother-town of all municipalities in Zamboanga del Sur. Margosatubig has been a town since the Spanish times when Pagadian City was not yet on the map. Lola Loleng says that the sound of the buklog can be heard across the bay, its rhythmic cadence melting with the night air, seeming to embrace one with a warm invitation.
Much later, I learned that it was during a buklog in Shelembuyan that my mother, a Chavacano pioneer teacher, was paired off with my father. At that time, my father was only 17 but before that year ended, my dad and mom got married, first in a Catholic ceremony and then later in a Protestant ceremony.

As I was growing up my father used to go on long trips – to distant Subanen communities to attend buklog festivals. The journey was usually done on foot since during those days good roads were rare or non-existent. In 1969, my father’s cousin Guinonghop I. Sia sponsored a buklog but her death the following year was attributed to the non-observance of the complete rituals attendant upon the celebration of the buklog. This particular buklog was held to welcome then Executive Secretary Ernesto Maceda who was proclaimed an adopted brother to the Subanens and conferred the title of Thimuay Lenghap. Then in the early 70’s, my dad’s cousin, Mayor Coco I. Sia was “in charge” of a buklog held in Pagadian City. The occasion was the anniversary of the foundation of the Province and at that time the honored guests was headed by the Australian ambassador. Expenses for the buklog was shouldered by the Governor.
The following year after this buklog, Uncle Coco died, and again the people in Lapuyan pointed to the buklog as the cause of his death. Some people say that the buklog is sacred and it is held in honor of the gods in thanksgiving or supplication and that, there-fore, it is sacrilege to hold it purely for display and entertainment. It is amusing to note here that within the week of Uncle Coco’s death, his cousin Manonggilid Imbing also died, barely a few months after he sponsored a 3-day buklog, the purpose of which was to secure healing of his arthritis.

In 1976, my paternal grandfather, Datu Purohan ordered the excavation of heirloom jars which lay buried for 53 years. The jars were originally a collection of 500 pieces and which were buried often the end of a one-month buklog, celebrating the first death anniversary of Thimuay Imbing. But we unearthed only 59 pieces, 13 of these damaged and broken by robbers. We found out the robbers were excavating under cover of darkness for the last 20 years or so.

The “last” buklog held in the family was that sponsored by Lantay Imbing sometime in 1975(?). It was a 3-day affair held to prove his worth to take on the leadership.

This was the buklog Joy and Tony Enriquez filmed on video. In the history of the Subanens, this was the very first time that a buklog was documented on video, camera and tapes. This is a turning point for the tribe. As I watched the video in this hall, I am overwhelmed with nostalgia and great sadness. The chanter shows on film, Si King Bagutao is one of the last of her kind alive. Perhaps in the years to come, a Subanen with some buklog blood in his veins will raise up anew the “khogan“. Chanters will surely be absent. In their place, will be high-tech equipments. As my Apu Dlibun used to exclaim, “Sugghata!”