PSU Revives Pangkat Kawayan

If you Google “bamboo band,” you get 600,000+ hits mostly referencing Filipino musician Bamboo Mañalac’s band. But there was a time when there was a real bamboo band in town, thanks to then Pangasinan State University-College of Education’s Pangkat Kawayan.

It was 1980 and, even then, it was already a novelty. Decades away from the personal computer and the Internet, smartphones, Google, YouTube, and Facebook, it was a time when Madonna, shoulder pads, hair gel and glitters, and the so-called New Wave rock music occupied the youth. But music professor Rufino Menor bucked the tide, so to speak, and insisted that extracting notes from bamboo was what constituted real music.

At the time, we haven’t even discovered Wordstar, Lotus and floppy diskettes yet, to say nothing of CDs, viral videos, trending news, and fake news; instead, what we had as cutting-edge technology were Betamax tapes and, in the field of sound, cassette tapes -- played, of course, in cassette players. Looking back, it’s funny how we used Mongol pencils to fix the cassette tape if it unspooled.

At the time, only the college students played the bamboo instruments made of the angklung (main bamboo tube instrument), bamboo xylophone, bamboo cymbals, and sibakong (bamboo base). Mr. Menor would explain that he borrowed the angklung concept from the Indonesians, but no one taught him how to make the instruments per se – he only caught the idea on TV and from then on, it was solo flight for him. He said it took him a huge amount of time to make his instruments because the bamboo tubes had to go through a painstaking treatment and adjustment process to emit the right sound when struck. The bamboos had to be submerged in seawater for a certain time, and to make a wooden tube emit the right note, Mr. Menor had to slowly chip off a part of it bit by patient bit. Then he’d varnish the pieces one by one.

Every time there was an important event on campus, Mr. Menor and his bamboo band were sure to be there, regaling the PSU community and guests with number after lively number. The bamboo band spurred high interest among all audiences because, when played in an ensemble, the instruments are a joy to behold and to listen to. Each and every note is assigned to a group of players who have to raise and shake the angklungs at exactly the right time when it is their turn. It takes a level of skill to play the instruments because a player needs to have a strong sense of being an indispensable part of a team. Gentle tinklings in unison and harmony are produced this way, and listeners are relaxed by the melodic tremolos because it is almost like listening to 'nature sound.'

At first the Pangkat Kawayan would perform folk songs such as “Bahay Kubo,” “Leron, Leron Sinta,” and “Malinac lay Labi,” then surprise the audience by performing the pop music hits of the day. The crowd would then roar and erupt in loud applause, apparently pleased by the disorienting effect of it.

The bamboo instruments would bring PSU’s Pangkat Kawayan outside home, performing around Pangasinan and the Ilocos region. Then, in 1987, the “singing bamboos” abruptly turned silent.

According to Prof. Januario Cuchapin, Mr. Menor’s superior at the time, it’s because the latter devoted himself to producing the bamboo instruments for sale, which of course took up a lot of time and energy. Mr. Cuchapin reveals that Mr. Menor’s unprecedented passion for his bamboo instruments was a product of his own professional research, which he turned into reality, thanks to some amount of government funding.

Mr. Menor himself recalls how it took him eight long years of research. And that there were only three of them in the entire Philippines working on a Pangkat Kawayan. He was the only one in Pangasinan.

Mr. Cuchapin also recounts that Mr. Menor used to buy all the bamboo stems from his native Malasiqui, but when he entered into mass production for commercial purposes, he began putting up bamboo farms. He would travel all the way to a mountain in Mayantoc, Tarlac to procure bamboos of all kinds – cauayan bolo, bayug, kiling, etc.

The demise of the bamboo band would deprive several batches of students of getting to know something that is uniquely a part of PSU’s identity and history. But the upside is that Mr. Menor found his new preoccupation quite lucrative, and even found a buyer from as far as Palawan.

It is thus gratifying to witness the bamboo band resurrect from the dead, so to speak, keeping alive Mr. Menor’s legacy. And who better to revive it from the catacombs starting August 2017 (in time for Linggo ng Wika) but his daughter, Leah M. Bumatay, herself a singer, composer, and music teacher teaching at PSU’s MAPEH Department and High School Department, now renamed PSU Integrated School. Bumatay says she revived her father’s band after Prof. Felipe Moreno, Chairman of PSU’s MAPEH Department, suggested to have the Pangkat Kawayan presented again to the public.

As if by miracle, things fell into place. New to the service and lacking in financial capacity, Bumatay encountered a lot of obstacles, but PSU's then Campus Executive Director Dr. Cesar Della helped her secure financial assistance from Mayor Cezar T. Quiambao through Levin Uy -- incidentally, both Mayor Quiambao and Uy are into bamboo farming. And when Dr. Della was replaced by Dr. Rhodora Malicdem, Malicdem inspired Bumatay to carry on by assisting her each time she encountered a new problem. Soon, PSU Prof. Salome M. Montemayor became a consultant and wrote the bylaws of the Pangkat Kawayan. Along the way, other people gave help when needed.

And thanks to this chain of events, referring to the Pangkat Kawayan can now be made in the present tense instead of past. Luckily, her father had passed on the technology by this time to a group of workers. Playing during the recently held 1st Pangasinan Rizal Youth Leadership Institute, the band is now composed of not just MAPEH Department college students but also high schoolers, and they played the latest hits such as Michael Buble’s “Sway” under Ms. Bumatay’s baton. The old bamboo magic is kept intact!

Bumatay reveals that the band needs a minimum of 30 players, but she is planning to add more instruments to the ensemble.

Mr. Menor -- who happens to be the composer of the PSU Hymn, the creator of the PSU Kitchenette Symphony Orchestra, Rhythm Band, Ukelele, Harmonica, Bottle Xylophone Ensemble, Elementary Rondalla, Children’s Choir, Elementary Drum & Bugle Corps, Drum & Lyre Corps, and the organizer of PSU Band -- is now 80 years old and has retired from all of his former preoccupations, but his passion for music remains aflame. He is now an active member of Bayambang Municipal Council for Culture and the Arts, sharing wisdom and experience gained from his field whenever he can.

To us who grew up watching PSU’s Pangkat Kawayan and the rest of the bands he had put up, it is like going back to the days when we were listening to the now-obscure New Wave acts like New Order, Seona Dancing, and Psychedelic Furs (to randomly name a few) while obsessing with our crushes and the latest outbreak of pimples on our face. And then the singing bamboos stopped us on our tracks, disorienting our thoroughly Westernized worldview.

How Bayambang town was founded

The present town of Bayambang was originally known as Malunguey or Balunguey, its location being west of the current position of the town. According to historical accounts, the original settlement was near the Agno River, and the soil was conducive to farming. The very first mention of this settlement appeared in the Actas Capitulares of the Dominican Order in the year 1614 when it was included among the visitas of Binalatongan, which is what is known today as San Carlos City. A visita is a community which has a chapel and is visited once in a while by a priest to say mass, baptize or officiate weddings. 

The visita of Malunguey later on became the nucleus of a new parish when it was accepted by the Provincial Chapter of 1619 as one of the vicariates of the Dominican Order, putting it under the patronage of Saint Vincent Ferrer. Its first vicar was Fr. Raimundo Vasquez. 

It can be deduced that Malunguey at this time was already a town because a parish cannot be established first if a town was not yet organized because priests who were subsequently assigned to the parish were supported by state funds. Part of these funds would come from the taxes collected from the townspeople.

A few years later, a church and a convent made of wood were constructed. However, between 1649 and 1690, the religious administration of Malunguey was reverted to the vicar of Binalatongan. This was so probably because of the difficulty of securing new parish priests who could be assigned full time in the area.

In 1741, the church and the convent was transferred to a place called Bayambang because Malunguey was prone to flooding and parishioners from far-flung places were complaining that pagan Negritos were attacking them whenever they went to church to hear mass. It was said that the place called Bayambang was far better than Malunguey because it was located on a higher ground and was also near the Agno River. From thereon, the town of Bayambang was never transferred.

As for the origin of the word Malunguey or Balunguey, no document so far has been found to explain its meaning. Even in the Pangasinan language, no word exists that will point to its meaning. Even in the oral tradition of the town, the word Malunguey/Balunguey is unheard of.

On the other hand, there are many theories as to the origin of the word “bayambang.” According to oral tradition, it came from the word “balangbang” which means “waist.” The story goes that a Spaniard was asking a native what the name of the place was and since they were speaking different languages, the native thought that the Spaniard was asking for the local word for “waist” and so he answered “balangbang” and the latter understood it to be the name of the place. The problem with this version is that there is no relation between the concept of “waist” and “town." The second story states that the word ‘bayambang” came from “colibangbang,” a tree with butterfly-like leaves. It was believed that in the olden times, trees of this kind abounded in the southern portion of the town. It is said that its young leaves can be used to sour dishes. The problem with this story, however, is that the word “colibangbang” does not sound closely to “bayambang.”   The third story claims that it came from the word “bayang bayang,” which pertains to the scarecrows used by farmers in driving away the anuyais and other birds that feast on ripening palay.

It is clear, however, that by 1614, Malunguey was already existing as a pre-Spanish settlement. This was made more evident when the Dominican Orders made it a visita of Binalatongan in the said year. As a visita, it was periodically visited by a priest assigned in Binalatongan. Second, by 1619, Malunguey was made into a parish by virtue of the Provincial Chapter of 1619, which accepted the casa of Malunguey into the Dominican Order. This action, in effect, led to the assigning of a separate parish priest who looked into the spiritual administration of the people of Malunguey.

Accounts by Dominican friars point to 1619 as the foundation year of the town of Malunguey which was the founding of the parish or when it became a separate vicariate. However, it is also clear that, by 1614, Malunguey was already recognized by Spanish friars as a pre-Spanish settlement. The fact that it was made a visita of Binalatongan confirms its status as an independent settlement even before the arrival of the colonizers. This means that even in the absence of documentary evidences, it can be gleaned that Malunguey was already a socio-political unit however rudimentary it was. The presence of a leader and a defined territory will further affirm the independence of the area. This ran counter to the claim of some Spaniards that the natives whom they encountered upon their arrival in the archipelago were “barbaric and uncivilized.” It can also be inferred that Malunguey must have contacts with other nearby settlements such as that of Telbang which was also identified by the friars themselves as already existing in 1614.

However, in the absence of documents that will point to the exact day of the town’s foundation, the NHCP’s policy of adopting the feast day of a town’s patron saint, Saint Vincent Ferrer on April 5, can be applied. Therefore Bayambang’s foundation date can be put into the books as April 5, 1614. Malunguey, which was the precursor of the present town of Bayambang, is thus one of the oldest towns in Pangasinan. 

[This account is based on "A RESEARCH AND STUDY COMMITTEE REPORT IN DETERMINING THE EXACT DATE OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF BAYAMBANG, PROVINCE OF PANGASINAN (2010)]

REFERENCES

A.   Primary

1.   Unpublished

Philippine National Archives. Ereccion de Pueblos Pangasinan. “Ano de 1879. Expediente sobre creacion de una parroquia de Alcala, Provincia de Pangasinan.” Legajo 96, Numero 33.

PNA. Ereccion de Pueblos.”Memoria de la Provincia de Pangasinan de 1883 por El Don Jose Ruiz de Castro.” Leg.79,No.43.

PNA. Ereccion de Pueblos. “Memoria de la Provincia de Pangasinan por el Sr. Don Carlos de Penaranda, ano de 1891.Lingayen,12 de Febrero.”Leg.79, No.42.

PNA. Ereccion de Pueblos.”Ano de 1892.Expediente sobre la traslacion de la cabecera de la Provincia de Pangasinan propuesta por el Jefe de la misma.” Leg.79, No.45.

University of Santo Tomas Archives. Seccion de Pangasinan Tomo 3. “Visita Episcopal Minusciosa, e inventarios de la Iglesias de Pangasinan, 1803.” Fols.249-334.

UST Archives. Seccion Pangasinan Tomo 3. “Padron de Pangasinan en 1804.” Doc.No.26.

UST Archives. Seccion de Pangasinan Tomo 4. “Peticion para que Camiling desmembrado de Bayambang, 1835.” Fols.221-226.

UST Archives. Seccion de Pangasinan Tomo 7. “Expedientes de ereccion de pueblos en Pangasinan.” Fols 83-105.

2.   Published

__________. Estado General de los Religiosos y Religiosas Existentes en los Diversos Conventos, Colegios, Parroquias, Misiones y Demas Casas. Manila: Colegio de Santo Tomas, 1895.

Fernandez Cosgaya, Lorenzo, O.P. Diccionario Pangasinan-Espanol. Manila: Tip.Del Colegio de Santo Tomas,1865.

B.   Secondary

Cortes, Rosario M. Pangasinan,1572-1800. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1987.

Fernandez, Pablo, O.P. History of the Church in the Philippines, 1521-1898. Manila: Navotas Press, c.1979.

__________. “Dominican Towns in Pangasinan: An Overall View (1587-1898),” Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas, Vol.642-643, May-June, 1983, pp.335-349.

__________. “The Dominicans in Pangasinan,” Boletin Eclesiastico de Filipinas, Vol.60, Nos.654-655, May-June, 1984, pp.375-382.

Gonzalez, Jose Ma., O.P. Labor Evangelica y Civilizadora de los Religiosos Dominico en Pangasinan (1587-1898). Manila: UST Press, 1946.

Marin, Valentin,O.P. Ensayo de una sintesis de los trabajos realizados por las Corporaciones Religiosas de Filipinas. Manila: Imprenta de Universidad de Santo Tomas, 1901.

Ocio, Hilario M. O.P. Resena Biografico de los Religiosos de la Provincia del Santisimo Rosario de Filipinas. Manila: Colegio de Santo Tomas, 1895.

From husk to handbag

"Corn husk bags?"

"Yeah, those are corn husk bags!"

That is the typical exchange triggered by the sight of these curiosities to hit town of late. How did they come to be?

Well, Bayambang is often called the “cornbelt of Pangasinan,” so the Local Council of Women of Bayambang headed by Niña Jose-Quiambao took advantage of this huge resource of the town by thinking of ways of turning the equally huge refuse of the corn farming industry -- corn husks -- into something profitable. The result is LCW's corn husk bag project.

Founded last year for non-working mothers, the project is envisioned not just to give livelihood to the women but also to promote environment-friendly livelihoods.

Otherwise making up mountains of garbage, in Bayambang, corn husks are now being used as raw material for making not just quality women's handbags but also handicrafts of excellent design as well as strings and ropes, etc.

LCW officer Jocelyn S. Espejo recounts that LCW had brought in trainors who are experts in handcrafts design to teach their women workers who are often homemakers and mothers with a lot of free time in their hands. Showing how some of the workers do their craft, Espejo explains that 16 strings of corn husks can make a small bag, and the bag can be finished from just half a day up to one day. A big bag, she says, can be finished within three days.

Noting how evidently stylish their work products are, one would never think they are made of corn farm byproducts. But with the LCW's pluck and creativity, their workers prove that it is possible.

Inlubi: Food for the goths

Outsiders often say that it is only in Pangasinan where black rice cake is a preferred delicacy. They rightly observe that, in other places, it is simply shunned – the color black is routinely associated with darkness, death and even the devil.

In Bayambang, people don’t buy that idea – black is beautiful. In fact, it used to be that the black rice cake delicacy was prepared only during All Saints’ Day, but nowadays it seems to be available all-year-round. People eat it as snack and nothing untoward ever happens, except perhaps spikes in blood sugar levels.

Truth be told, black rice cake is just like the regular rice cake called biko. And a note to outsiders: it is not actually made of black rice per se but blackened rice. It is basically glutinous white rice boiled in freshly pressed coconut milk and sugar with a sprinkling of anise -- except that the rice used is immature grains that were burned in the field and then pounded using wooden mortar and pestle until the grains are flattened. The pounded grains are then winnowed using a woven winnowing basket to separate the chaff from the grains. The finished product looks somewhat like black oatmeal except that the grains are thicker and very chewy even when still in that form, their edges nicely toasted.

At this partially cooked stage, the rice grains are called deremen. But because it is already precooked from the burning, the toasted grains are somewhat edible in this state and taste sweetish with a bitter edge and have a fragrant smell, like that of pinipig, another native farm-processed glutinous rice product, with a light green color. Deremen is thus likened to the Pampango duman. In the rest of the Ilocos region, it closely resembles what they call binagkal.

As a child, I would often steal a handful of deremen bought from the market and eat it on the sly. My grandmother was the one who presided over the cooking of this black biko because she alone knew how to make it the perfect way – it was a big risk to allow the other members of the family to try. Year in and year out, she went busy with this ritual, and she constantly ordered us children to help her grate and press the coconut or wash the dishes used. My stealing, though uncaught, would be punished with a bad stomach later on, and I would regret my misdeed.

After the deremen goes over the fire and is stirred to taste, the resulting rice cake is now called inlubi. My lola would always cook the sticky black rice cakes in two ways: the first would be boiled in coconut milk and sugar until the concoction solidifies into a cake, with a full body glistening from all that coconut oil. The second appears half-cooked and soupy as the grains are steeped in boiling water, with the thick coconut milk, grated young coconut strips, and sugar added much later. Each version has a different taste and texture. Lola would often exchange her versions of black ricecake with those of the neighbors, and so we would often have what looked like an impromptu Inlubi Festival, complete with a secret compare-and-contrast observations. We would praise in whispers those gifts that passed her high standards and mercilessly criticized those that did not. The scene reminds me of Chinese Mooncake Festival and Chinese New Year, or even the Filipino New Year scene, when people wish one another well by exchanging the same thing, whether mooncake, tikoy, or fruitcake.

Maybe one way to package inlubi for the market is to treat it as one of the novelty items for any event or group of people that takes to anything black like it's the normal thing. For example, since All Saints' Day in the Philippines have been hopelessly Americanized into Halloween celebration, we could take advantage of it by staging parties with food items that are unapologetically black or blackish in hue: maybe a black beans dish here, a blood sausage there, some dinuguan here, then skewered tiles of blood here studded perhaps with black sesame seeds, and of course for dessert, we have black grapes and what else but inlubi? 

A special target group would be the punk and goth subcultures, those whose members dig punk music and love to put on anything black, from wristbands to earrings to lipstick and fingernail paint. I figure they would find it cool to be caught eating inlubi when they are not wolfing down black burger.

Kidding aside, we locals do not in the slightest feel a need to promote inlubi outside Bayambang or Pangasinan. What is important is to satisfy our cravings for the dark glutinous treat, especially come All Saint's Day. If one or two outsiders make the discovery someday and share our enthusiasm with the rest of the world, that would be a nice bonus.

Innovation hits the buro

This one’s got quite a bad reputation, and we can’t blame its hordes of non-fans. Its reputation simply precedes itself, as its infamous smell wafts in the air. In this regard, it is not unlike the durian fruit, whose distinctive odor is compared to hell.

As a town blessed with the bounty of malangsi or freshwater fish, thanks to Mangabul Lake and its rivers and creeks, it is only logical that its inhabitants would find ways of preserving their catch. And they found it through not just drying them in salt under the sun but also through fermentation.

Unlike today, there was a time when it is very easy to find people around the town who knew how to prepare buro. The best fish buro I've ever had was the one my grandmother used to make from time to time. As a child, I used to watch her busy herself making it using gurami or tilapia. She would degut and thoroughly clean up the freshly caught fish, then rub them with a generous amount of salt. She would neatly arrange the salted fish inside the huge buyog or clay pot and seal the pot for some three weeks of fermentation. When this part was done, the fetid excess water was discarded and the fish were stuffed with newly steamed rice and, in my lola’s recipe, bamboo shoots.

My role was to make sure not a single housefly would get near her prized buro, for she claimed that just one tiny contact would affect the taste of the finished product.

I remember how it took me years before I finally tried her dish because I was too shocked the first time it was prepared as relish (that is, not the main course, but a siding or appetizer). How people could ingest anything that reeked of rot is beyond me. But years of observation at how much other people enjoyed it despite itself while I scrunched my nose at  one corner, got me curious, if not envious.

And when I finally mustered the courage to try – especially with steamed eggplant, okra, and fried fish –  it’s like a religious conversion story.

I would crave buro when I left Bayambang and lived in Manila for 25 years. Now and then I would ask someone from home to bring me some if they were lucky to find a good one in the market.

Now back in town, I’ve learned of an innovation they have done to my now-beloved fermented fish delicacy: Shellflex's odorless buro, or at least a version with the unwanted smell much-reduced. And it comes neatly bottled too, complete with a brand name and smart labeling. I thought the buro has come a long way from buyog to glass bottle.

Developed through the painstaking work of the Pangasinan State University-Food Innovation Center’s researchers, with assistance from the Department of Science and Technology, the Bongato East-based buro processing company calls its product Nanay Doray’s Sauteed Buro, which comes in tilapia or dalag varieties. They say the key to ‘dearomatization' lies in removing the fish heads.

The Nanay Doray brand is now being sold for export, with some of the produce vacuum-packed in plastic bags instead of being bottled. With coworkers, I’ve tried this bottled buro the usual way – sautéed in lots of garlic and tomatoes  –  and all the old warm memories of my grandmother making her own buro came flooding back in my mind. The former persona non grata at the dining table has now become not just a novelty from home but a certified comfort food.

Sancagulis rice cracker: Fruit of the coop

It is not fish cracker; it is rice cracker. A customer who happens to be vegetarian rejoiced upon learning that the rice crackers are indeed just made of rice.

Intrigued by this difference and, of course, the novelty of the concept, we feel like we just have to go and see it for ourselves.

One day, we happened to have some curious travel bloggers and mediamen from Manila who wanted to feature lesser-known towns in Pangasinan. It proved to be the perfect opportunity, and so together we hie off to Barangay Sancagulis to the place of Romulo Castillo. Around an unassuming residence-sized factory are scattered nets filled with raw crackers laid out under the sun. The aroma of red chili stings our noses.

After seeing the unassuming signage "Sancagulis Multi-Purpose Cooperative" on the facade of an unassuming factory, we quickly learn that Castillo is not alone at it.

We hear the story of how, one day in some distant past, Castillo and his coworkers found themselves laid off from their job in Bulacan as fish cracker factory workers. They went back home to Sancagulis with no idea what to do when a lightbulb idea soon came to them: What if we put into good use our knowledge and experience in making fish crackers?

It was during President Arroyo's administration when Castillo and company decided to seek the help of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE). Luckily they learned about its Adjustment Measure Program or AMP, which is "a safety net program that provides package of assistance and other forms of intervention as a means of helping workers and companies cope with economic and social disruptions."

Started in 2005 with 124 members, the registered workers' organization was able to procure P1.1 million in DOLE assistance.  On top of this, the Department of Science and Technology also stepped into the picture, providing help in packaging and labeling the product.

And so the Sancagulis rice cracker was born. 

The response of the locals to the product was positive. We could say it's the Filipino answer to senbei, the traditional Japanese rice cracker.

The no-fish, no-gluten cracker now comes in  plain (orange color and curly shaped), turmeric (yellow and square-shaped), and spicy varieties. Travel blogger Maria Rona Beltran managed to uncover some secrets from Castillo: the cracker is indeed made of plain rice but it is fortified with some corn and cassava; the rice is first steamed, then run through a food processor to flatten it and remove excess water, and then dried out in the sun and finally fried. 

Currently, the factory employs 20 people working in shifts.

Carrying the barangay’s name, it can’t be helped that the Sancagulis rice cracker is now closely associated with the place. But with their clientele  reaching as far as places outside town where beer drinkers are looking for some cheap pulutan (bar chow), it comes as no surprise that the Sancagulis rice cracker eventually gets associated with the town of Bayambang itself.

But more than these realizations is that the Sancagulis rice cracker brand shows what building a cooperative can do.

Gipang: Bricks you can eat

What is dark, crunchy, and sweet, and no other town makes it? Clue: It is sometimes mistaken for pinipig or pop rice but it is neither of the two, for it has its own identity. And because it is unique to Bayambang, it also gets to be associated with it.

The answer, of course, is gipang. Every Bayambangueño is most likely familiar with it as that delicacy that comes in brick shape and sold in separate plastic bags in the market. But very few know where exactly it is made and how it is made.

Because he is from that place, former teacher and now Municipal Senior Tourism Officer Rafael Saygo tipped us off for the answer: gipang is being made in Brgy. Amanperez and it is where it was invented.

According to the residents there, they have been making gipang since they were young, and that the tradition of making gipang came from their ancestors. According to their own estimate, it started since the 1950s-1960s, when all households produced or cooked gipang.

Saygo led us to the house of Rosita Manlongat de Vera, where we find a makeshift production area.

Gipang, it turns out, is a hybrid of pop rice, rice crispies, pinipig, and deremen. It is essentially made of deremen, i.e., glutinous rice that is toasted at immature stage and blackened with charcoal, giving it a smoky flavor. It is traditionally used on All Saint's Day to make a rice cake called inlubi, which is cooked in honor of the dearly departed. 

Now, to make gipang, the deremen is made into binotang deremen, deremen that is puffed a bit by frying it in oil with molten molasses on an arms-length flatbed steel fryer and, once done, the whole thing is quickly partitioned into blocks and hauled off.  Timing is reportedly important, so as to achieve the desired degree of doneness. The result is a wonderful combination of flavors and consistency: chewy and crunchy at the same time, and smoky and sweet too. Reminiscent of pinipig but not flattened into flakes, this greenish-gray treat is often squashed as topping in halo-halo or eaten as is.

“It’s only here in Bayambang that gipang is made!” Aling Rosita proudly claims. "The ones sold in Guagua, Pampanga? Those  are from Amanperez."

Chelsea Peanut Butter: Tastes just right

Being likened to Skippy, a well-known imported brand of peanut butter, is perhaps the best kind of  endorsement Marjorie Lacap can ever dream to have.  Yet she routinely gets it. And that's through word of mouth, with not a single centavo spent on advertisement.

We are talking of her well-regarded Chelsea’s Peanut Butter, a home-made peanut butter that has less sodium and low sugar content and uses premium peanuts. Produced at her family's starkly modern home in Tococ East, it is a product of science and passion for invention.

Lacap is Ma'am Lacap' to batches of Bayambangueño students, for she is a high school physics and chemistry teacher at the Pangasinan State University-Bayambang Campus. And take note, she has a doctorate degree. Because she works in an environment friendly to creative thinking and innovation, peanut butter production took her interest one day until she actually tried manufacturing it at home. With assistance from the Department of Science and Technology and corresponding support from the Food Innovation Center of PSU Bayambang, not to mention her husband, a triathlete who's a dead-ringer for actor Michael de Mesa, she found possibilities with her find, until in 2017, she went full blast on it and actually sold her bottled products out there.



Why the name Chelsea? Well, the idea of turning to peanut butter for livelihood came to Lacap when she was carrying her first child, Chelsea.

Among Lacap's other revelations is that the peanuts are imported from India and China, because the local supply cannot cope with the demand when production starts. Chelsea Peanut Butter, she adds, is different from the other brands in the market because corn oil is used instead of coconut oil.

"Many customers like the product because it’s not salty, yet not so sweet," she observes. "Also, unlike other brands, Chelsea's Peanut Butter do not settle and harden that much at the bottom."

"As for the oil, we are working on it, so as to minimize it from gathering on the surface." "By the way, we use lecithin as emulsifier," she volunteers.

To date, they have two varieties: regular and chunky. "Some people like their peanut butter chunky," she explains. They also plan to add more variety in their product offerings, like peanut butter cookies and chocolate.

Why peanut butter and not other products, especially non-food products? Lacap answers, "Because we have observed that the market is active when it comes to food. There is no dormant month or season for food."

"The product was first sold in Tarlac," she continues. "Now we also deliver in Bacnotan, La Union." 

And how do they promote the product? "We just display them in seminars, coops, etc.," she says. We think that is another way of saying they are letting the quality of the product speak for itself.

Packaged with a classy design, customers are often surprised when they find out that Chelsea Peanut Butter is locally made. The implication is, if it is this good, then it must be imported. But Marjorie Lacap and her family have proven that, with hard work, resourcefulness, dedication, and the right knowledge and technology, locals are capable of crafting excellent products, and excellent products that sell.