Apo Anno

One of the most famous and revered mummies of the Philippines and among the Kankanaey people
from the Cordillera, Apo Anno is seen as both a revered ancestor and a demigod according to
Kankanaey legend.

According to oral tradition, Apo Anno was born from a human father, a hunter named Togtogaka, while
his mother was Kuyapon, a Tomongao (mountain spirit) who took on a human form during the time
when Apo Anno was conceived. However Kuyapon’s father rejected the child because of his human
scent thus he was given to Togtogaka by Kuyapon to raise the child as he wasn’t accepted by his
grandfather. Togtogaka took his son and brought him home to his wife whom he couldn’t bear a child
with. Both raised the child as their own and thus Anno was seen as a gift to the childless couple by the
goddess.

The people of Nabalicong have memories passed down orally throughout the community of the
disappearance of Apo Anno’s preserved body. To support their memories documents have also proven
the disappearance from somewhere around 1918 to 1920 when the Americans started to erect
structures in the Benguet region.

After his disappearance soon after there is evidence of him being shipped to the U.S. where he was put
on exhibits. One of those exhibits according to Linda De Leon in her article “The Mummies of Benguet”
published in the Philippine Panorama on August 8, 1976, was that Apo Anno was exhibited in a
museum in Seattle, Washington sometime in the late 1940’s.

In 1984, Ms. Conception Cortes donated the mummy to the National Museum in Manila. She reported
that she purchased the mummy in 1973 and that the mummy belonged to the late Don Antonio
Jimenez of Vigan, Ilocos Sur.

Sometime in the 1960’s a letter from a museum in the USA came to Benguet seeking the assistance of
the municipal government of Buguias and Kabayan to help in locating the kin of Apo Anno so that his
remains may be brought home. However, no action happened with regard to the letter since the
expected descendants did not follow up the case due to fear and due to their inability to understand
the paper works they had to accomplish.

In 1995, Mr. Sario Copas then councilor of Buguias passed a resolution in the municipal council for the
recovery of the Apo Anno. However, the resolution was not heard. It was only in 1998 during a seminar-
workshop on the conservation of Benguet mummies held in the Benguet Provincial Capitol that Mr.
Copas who became a provincial board member reasserted the return of Apo Anno to Buguias. From
there, the staff of National Museum in Manila gave the reassurance that the matter would be discussed
with their Director. Mr. Copas filed the petition at the provincial board, and the Provincial Resolution
No. 98-527 dated October 28, 1998 was passed and unanimously endorsed by the provincial board, and
then approved by then Governor Raul Molintas.

Apo Anno was eventually returned to the people of Benguet in the same year. In May 1999, the mummy
was officially sealed away from public view where he can live out his afterlife and finally peacefully rest.