Ibalong Epic

The Ibálong, also known as Handiong or Handyong, is a 60-stanza fragment of a Bikol full-length folk epic of Bikol region of Philippines, based on the Indian Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharta. The epic is said to have been narrated in verse form by a native poet called Kadunung. It was passed on orally until it was presumably jotted down in its complete Bikol narrative by . The Ibalong portrays deeds in heroic proportions, centering on white men or tawong-lipod who were warrior-heroes named, among others, Baltog, Handyong, and Bantong. They came from Boltavara, settling and ruling Bikolandia and its inhabitants. The epic is set in the land of Aslon and Ibalong. The mountains Asog, Masaraga, Isarog, and Lingyon were prominent features of the area.

In its oldest known text, the folk epic does not have a title. The oldest existing account of it is written in Spanish.

A non religious festival is celebrated annually in honor of the epic Ibalong as a celebration of the geography of Ibalon. It is unusual because Spaniards introduced saints and fiestas and all religious-related activities except Ibalong. It is also a celebration of the province’s people and their resiliency, given the string calamities that regularly befall the region given its typhoon-prone geographical location.

The full-length narrative is presumably jotted down by (1815-1867), a Franciscan missionary in Guinobatan, Albay, when he got acquainted with an errant bard referred to in the epic as Kadunung. It was put afterwards into Spanish by Melendreras in Ibal, a 400-age manuscript in verse on the ancient customs of the Indios of Albay.

The sixty-stanza portion was later included in a treatise on the Bikol region by Fray Jose Castaño in 1895. However, no credit was given to Melendreras by Castaño in the work, and so students of the Ibalong have since presumed that it was recorded and translated by Castaño himself.

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