Federico Caballero
Definition
Federico Caballero is a Panay-Bukidnon (Sulod) epic chanter from Calinog, Iloilo, awarded the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (National Living Treasures Award) in 2000. He is the foremost living bearer of the Sugidanon, the epic cycle of the Sulod people of central Panay, which he committed to memory in the Sulod language, working with scholars to document chants that run to tens of thousands of lines.
Identities
| Source Type | Identity |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Federico Caballero |
| Wikidata | Q44026666 |
| DBpedia | N/A |
Also Known As
Tay Pedring
Examples and Analogies
Federico Caballero is to Panay’s epic tradition what a chief librarian is to a burned archive: because the Sugidanon existed only in memory, his recitations — later transcribed into volumes — converted an oral literature on the edge of silence into a shelf of books.
Usage Scenarios
He chants Sugidanon episodes at community gatherings and cultural events in Calinog; he worked with researchers of the Center for West Visayan Studies to transcribe and translate the epics; cultural agencies and the GAMABA program support his teaching of aspiring chanters, including family members.
Strategies
Transmission follows the old apprenticeship of listening and repeated performance, now paired with written transcription and school-based cultural programs so the epics can travel beyond individual memory.
Security and Safety Measures
Documentation in archives, publication of transcribed chants, and GAMABA support secured through RA 7355 protect the tradition against the death of any single chanter.
Historical Context
The Sulod of the Jalaur river hinterlands kept the Sugidanon epics through the colonial and American periods largely outside written record; anthropologist F. Landa Jocano documented Sulod epic material in the 1950s, and Caballero’s own collaboration with scholars from the 1990s onward preserved the cycle at book length.
Challenges and Controversies
Finding successors willing to master thousands of lines, the fading of Sulod-language fluency among the young, and competition from school and media culture make the tradition’s future dependent on deliberate institutional support.
Related Topic
Panay