From goods to dishes

Close contact between Guam and the Philippines after Spanish rule brought not only Filipinos to Guam, but also flora, fauna, food, and other cultural goods and practices.

Fauna

Perhaps the most popular animal brought from the Philippines is the carabao (in Tagalog kalabaw) or water buffalo. Filipino farmers traditionally use these very strong, lumbering, water-loving, slow-moving animals to pull carts for travel, to draw soil tillers in rice and other farm cultivation, and to provide very rich and creamy-tasting milk. Because Filipino conscript laborers were also Guam farmers, they were most probably instrumental in bringing the animal over, though some are recorded to have been brought to Guam from Malaysia.

Filipino farmers most probably also brought with them the practice of cockfighting around the first half of the 19th century even though the CHamoru word for it is the Spanish gallera, whereas Filipinos call it sabong. Other betting terminologies used in this practice are most probably from the Philippines. CHamorus and other locals raise cocks and hold cockfights in cockfight in private farms and properties, though the practice has been outlawed in the United States.

Food and flora

CHamorus speak fondly of “carabao” mangoes, a special species of mangoes brought over to Guam from the Philippines. CHamorus developed a taste for these fragrant and sweet golden yellow fruit after they were brought to the island. Unfortunately, super typhoons destroyed most of the trees. Today, local supermarkets import carabao mangoes from Guimaras Island, Iloilo, Philippines.

Filipino farmers introduced the making of tuba, or coconut sap liquor, to Guam. In tuba making, farmers cut off the coconut tree’s inflorescence tip in increments to allow the sap to drip into a bamboo container. This results in about four quarts of collected sap daily. When allowed to ferment, the sap becomes sweet tuba liqueur. Left to ferment longer, the sap turns to vinegar.

CHamorus also distilled tuba to produce aguajente (from Spanish aguardiente), described as similar to raw rum served during fiestas and other festivities. Another sweet concoction is what old CHamorus called Almibad, prepared by boiling sweet coconut juice.

Guam’s dialect of English has numerous borrowed words for food that reflect the island inhabitants’ rich and varied backgrounds and diet. A number of these words are Filipino in origin. Among the fruit that probably came from or via the Philippines are atis, siniguelas, kayomito, balimbing or bilimbinis, duhat, and camachile. Younger CHamorus may no longer familiar with duhat or camachile.

Among the dishes brought to Guam by Filipinos are pancit, Chinese noodles introduced to Guam from the Philippines; lumpia or fried spring rolls; lechon or pit-fired whole roast pig; paksiw, meat or fish boiled in water with vinegar, salt and hot pepper; banana lumpia for turon; and potu for white rice cakes.

Other Filipino dishes and pastries served in Guam’s hotels and restaurants, or sold in local stores, have not yet been fully integrated into Guam’s dialect of English. Among them are: karekare, the Filipino version of the Spanish callos; halo halo, a dessert made with sweet preserved fruit and beans, served with shaved ice and milk; leche flan or the Spanish crème brulé; sticky rice cakes and puddings of various kinds – kuchinta, maja blanca, pichipichi, bibingka; pastries called ensaimada; mamon; and the Filipino pungent caviar called bago’ong.

Modes of dress and games

In the 19th century up to prewar Guam, Filipinos and Guamanians dressed alike in the Spanish-influenced “Filipino” mestiza style of dress, with its bell-shaped, transparent, sometimes richly beaded blouse made of pineapple fiber (piña), and long cotton skirt. Both people’s mode of dress became more “American” after 1898, but older women in both places still dressed in the Spanish-influenced traditional way up to the 1980s. Worn with this dress was footwear made of the natural fiber called abaca or richly beaded colorful slippers that much older women still wear today.

Tschongka, a game played with small shells placed in a carved oblong wooden board with seven facing holes and two big holes on either end, most probably came from the Philippines too. Many of these boards are carved from solid pieces of wood in the Philippines’ Mountain Province. Filipinos call this game sungkâ.

Religion

Iglesia ni Kristo (Church of Christ) is a Filipino independent church that has a very active congregation on Guam. Established by Felix Manalo in the Philippines in 1914, Iglesia is one of two groups that separated from the Filipino Catholic Church. About three percent of the Philippines’ 76 million population belong to this church. CHamoru members of the church on Guam are those married to Filipino members.

Celebrations held on Guam

Filipinos on Guam celebrate the Philippine Independence Day on June 12th. On this day, Philippine dignitaries visit Guam to give speeches to various Filipino ethnic and provincial organizations, as well as the umbrella group, The Filipino American Community of Guam.

Additionally, each May, the Santa Cruzan, a religious folk parade, is celebrated along Ypao Road, with young men and women participating. Sometimes, local organizers fly in beauty queens and performing artists from the Philippines to give the celebration parade an extra boost and appeal.

The University of Guam’s Fieldhouse, as well as local hotels, have been typical venues for visiting Filipino performing artists, designers, and groups. Past performers include the Ateneo Choir, Broadway artist Lea Salonga, Filipino singers Sharon Cuneta, Pops Fernandez, Philippine designer Pitoy Moreno, and the renowned Bayanihan Dance Group.

By Clarisa G. Quan, PhD

For further reading

Achútegui, Pedro S. de, and Miguel Bernad. Religious Revolution in the Philippines: The Life and Church of Gregorio Aglipay, 1860-1960. Vol. 2. Manila: Ateneo de Manila, 1960.

Alkire, William H. An Introduction to the Peoples and Cultures of Micronesia. 2nd ed. Menlo Park: Cummings Publishing Co., 1977.

Campbell, Bruce L. “The Filipino Community of Guam (1945-1975).” MA thesis, University of Hawai’i, 1987.

Hezel, Francis X., SJ. From Conquest to Colonization: Spain in the Marianas 1690-1740. Saipan: Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Division of Historic Preservation, 1989.