#16. Cofreros, James Karlo M.

11-Bulkhead

Critique Paper

The Sugidanon Bayluhay is a tradition of people in Panay

called Ati/Aeta where the Malays asked for some help for their
living and as exchange they gave them some things that are
made of gold. A barter of living traded with gold occurred during
that day.

13th of February 2017, a Musical was conducted at Western

Visayas State University (WVSU) about the Sugidanon Bayluhay. A
local group aptly named The Irong-Irong Dance Group was
responsible for that said event. The goal of the group was to
spread the traditions and previous culture of our ancestors. They
started by explaining how the Aetas live before the Bayluhay
occurred, then they changed the scenes from how the Aetas live
to why and how the Malays ended up in Panay, then to the point
where the Sugidanon Bayluhay occurred. The Aetas and the
present generations have some sort of similarities especially
when it comes to courting. There was a scene explaining that as a
man courting a woman, you must impress her with your strength,
skills and charms. There was another interesting scene that really
piqued my interest, the scene where the sultan (the leader of the
mayans) uses slaves to entertain his self, he threatens them that
hell kill them if they wont follow his orders. Datu puti and the
others decided to fight back for their freedom, and they
succeeded. They travelled from their home up to Panay where
they met the Aetas and due to the long travel just to find a place
to stay, the Malays were starving and they decided to exchange
their things for a place to stay and live and that barter was named
Bayluhay.

Overall the story and the play itself was nice, but due to
some technical errors and technical difficulties some parts were
ruined. Conversations cant be heard because of the broken
microphones, spot lights cant focus on the main event on a
certain scene and some of the audios are distorted due to the
broken speakers. But all in all, I loved the play. It was entertaining
and at the same time thrilling, from how the Aetas sing their
everyday lives up to how the slaves were freed and many more. I
respect the good lesson that the play gave to us about the
traditions and history of our country. To entertain our generations,
we who are the so-called millenials is not easy nowadays
especially when we are talking about history. Like Ive said it was
a nice play.