HAJA AMINA APPI

Birth date – Death date: June 25, 1925 – April 2, 2013

Place: Tandubas, Tawi - Tawi
Local Community: Tandubas
Category: Weaver (mat)
Year Awarded: 2004
Contributions:
 She is recognized as the best mat weaver among the Sama indigenous community.
 She is respected throughout her community for her unique designs, the straightness of her
edging and the fineness of her of her craftsmanship.
 Her female children and grandchildren from her female descendants have taken the art of
weaving and she looks forward to share the art with other weavers especially to the younger
generations.

Techniques
She relies on her innate sense of mathematical progression to calculate when and how the colored fibers
will eventually join to create symmetrical geometric designs. Despite the number of calculations
involved to ensure that the geometric patterns will mirror, or at least complement, each other, she is
not armed with any list or any mathematical formula other than working on a base of ten and twenty
strips. Instead, she only has her amazing memory, an instinct and a lifetime of experience. What sets
Haja Appi apart from her fellow mat weavers is the exceptional evenness of her weave and the startling
creativity of her patterns. Although she uses a traditional repertoire of weaving techniques to create
delicate, precise, and minutely detailed patterns, her simple geometric designs are dramatic bursts of
color that both defy and celebrate tradition and also, she has come up with some of her own modern
designs
TEOFILO GARCIA

Birth date – Death date: March 27, 1941

Place: San Quintin, Abra
Local Community: San Quintin
Category: Casque maker (tabungaw)
Year Awarded: 2012
Contributions:
he takes pride in wearing his creations, Teofilo has gotten many orders as a result.

Its a tedious process. After harvesting, the upos are cut and the insides cleared. The upper part goes into
the tabungaw making while the base he processes and sells as a shallow pan used to hold just anything,
but especially in the kitchen or dining area.
Once dried, he cleans and varnishes the exterior, then prepares the interior lining which is made of
rattan, bamboo and nito, a kind of vine with a dark color which is also used in basketry. These are
woven.

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.