In a remote mountain village in the Northern Philippines, Teofilo Garcia greets me outside his workshop. Atop his head, a finely polished, yellow-orange hat glints in the sunlight. His workshop contains an abundance of similar hats, all in various stages of completion. Strips of bamboo are strewn across the floor, and bundles of rattan are piled on the counters. Some of the hats are bright in color, while others are dull and grimy, still caked with mud.
Crafting the tabungaw from planting and harvesting the upo, refining the uway (rattan) that make up the lining of the tabungaw, weaving the puser (bamboo) that serves as the accent for the work, and finishing the work takes up a lot of time. It takes at least seven days to finish one tabungaw, assuming that all the materials are available. He uses only simple hand tools that he designed himself and he is involved in each stage of the production.
For centuries, the Ilocano people in Northern Luzon, where Garcia lives, have worn these hats, which are called, like the vegetable they are formed from, tabungaw. High-school children wore them for graduations. Farmers sheltered themselves under their brims while ploughing fields. They’ve even been donned by revolutionaries charging into battle against the Spanish. But, now, Garcia is one of the last tabungaw hat makers left in the Philippines. He may be the very last.
At 78 years old, Garcia has been crafting tabungaw hats for much of his life. In the workshop, after turning down the radio volume (he is deaf in one ear), he explains that his father taught him to make his first at age 15. “It’s a farmer’s hat and very practical for working in the sun,” he says. “When I was young, I remember everyone made them at home, but now it’s easier to buy a baseball cap at the market.”
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