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The Origins of Inting and Butud: An Interview with Mr. Dwight Gaston

When the Esturya app series made its debut in late 2013, our first release was an app for kids: The Cowboy Inting and the Carabao Butud — an interactive storybook that helps Filipino families abroad teach their children our local languages. We started with our own mother tongue, Hiligaynon (often called Ilonggo), eventually expanding to Filipino and Cebuano, the most spoken dialects in the Philippines.

Today we'll get to know more about how Inting and Butud were brought to life, through art and storytelling, by our own fellow Negrense, Mr. Dwight Gaston.

Mr. Gaston has made his mark on various fields of art — from painting and concept art, to acting and film production. He co-wrote the screenplays for films like Gagamboy (2004), Pa-Siyam (2004), and Yanggaw (2008). Most recently, he was recognized alongside director Jay Abello at the Cinema One Originals in 2014, winning Best Screenplay for the film Red, in which he also played a role.

Let's get started!

Please tell us how you started the story. Was it written specifically for the Esturya app, or was it an existing story that you had already written prior to the project? Did you have any previous ideas that you considered to write about?

As a little boy growing up in rural Silay (a city in Negros Occidental known for many hispanic ancestral houses and where the Bacolod-Silay International Airport is located), I became friends with several bakero or cowboys of my age, whose job was to watch over their carabaos every day. They would bring their carabaos to our subdivision which had some fallow rice fields. I would hang out with these kids and they taught me how to ride these huge but gentle beasts. Often we would just lie relaxed on their itchy backs, looking up at the thick cumulus clouds. I never forgot my friends and although Inting was written specifically for the app, I had always wanted to do a story about them. I wanted to express the bittersweet divide between the freedom to do anything you want with your time vis-à-vis the wonder and excitement of the process of education as experienced by children. 

I had two other stories, one very specific in its Ilonggo-ness as it centered around a beautiful lantern festival that is now all but extinct in rural Negros. The other was a Christmas story set near an informal settlers’ community.

How did you decide to make the main characters a boy and a farm animal?

Even then, I was impressed by how close the boys were with their carabaos, treating them like they were their brothers. Not talking to them, specifically, but communicating their affection through casual caresses or pats or gentle grunts and clucks.

How long did it take you to write the story? To storyboard/illustrate the chapters? 

Um, a couple of months, I think. I’m a slow worker. About two weeks for the story, and the rest for the illustrations. Or maybe it was longer. I think it was longer.

You've made so many traditional paintings and art work over the years. How has the digital painting process for Inting and Butud been like for you?

Oh, it was a joy, as always. It’s always so much easier for me to draw or paint than to write. When I paint my surreal paintings or design a sci-fi costume or whatever, my subconscious takes over and the ideas just well up even while I’m talking or listening to music. Whereas creating a universe through language demands a more precise imagining process. You become necessarily schizophrenic; you listen to conversations that occur wholly inside your head. So I need a lot more concentration and silence when I write.

As a self-taught artist, I find digital painting to be more forgiving; it’s so much easier to correct mistakes than an oil painting or worse, a watercolor. However, I always start my digital paintings with an actual sketch, followed, if necessary, by inks, which I then scan to the computer. I’ve found that I can control a pencil and pen much better than a tablet pen, maybe because I learned to use a tablet late in life.

Which part of the story did you find the most difficult to write and/or illustrate?

All of them were equally hard AND easy. The real challenge was to word the story in such a way as to fully exploit the possibilities of the app. 

A bonus question — if Butud weren't a carabao, what animal would he be? 

A dog, I guess. But it would be so much less interesting. Most boys have dog friends, specially in first world countries – which, after all, is the target for the app. But how many AmBoys have carabao friends? ☺

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From Tagalog to Filipino

Ask any Pinoy what their national language is, and they would be forgiven if they happen to answer Tagalog, instead of Filipino. There's barely any difference in grammar or syntax between the two, and yet, Article XIV, Section 6 of our current Constitution officially labels Filipino, not the former, as our national language. Now you might ask, how did that happen?

To answer why Tagalog and Filipino are different would mean talking a little bit of our history. Since it is National Language Month, let's take a closer look at these two languages.

The Pre-Hispanic Tagalog

Unlike the famous chicken or the egg dilemma, it's easy to point out which of the two languages came first. Tagalog was an old language, mainly used in central or southern Luzon, and spoken by an ethnic group that was known to settle near rivers, like the Pasig River. They were part of the Kingdom of Maynila before the Spanish conquest began in the early 16th century. The people, and the language they spoke, were called Tagalog based on the local word taga-ilog, literally meaning 'river dwellers'.

However, Tagalog looked very different on paper in the old days. The language was written in an ancient, alpha-syllabic script called Baybayin — a script that shared many traits with the Kawi script in Java and some of India's oldest writing systems. In Baybayin, certain characters can represent either a single sound like a vowel or a consonant, or an entire syllable, not unlike Chinese characters.

It was not until the hispanic colonization that the Spanish language was used, especially by the higher class. We know these Spaniards introduced us to many things, from bay leaves and Christianity, to the Latin alphabet. Things took a turn then: Baybayin began to decline in use, with majority of the people gradually preferring to write Tagalog in this new alphabet. However, despite its nonuse, Baybayin still serves as an icon of Filipino heritage — we find them in logo designs, art pieces, books. It even exists as a security feature on modern Philippine bills!

A unifying language

It is a lesser known fact that, a few years before his death, Jose Rizal devoted some time to study the Tagalog alphabet and structure; local words at the time were mostly spelled Spanish-style, like the use of c and q, instead of k, for example. A year after his death, Emilio Aguinaldo led the Philippines to its first declaration of independence as the Republic of Biak-na-Bato, with our first-ever constitution declaring Tagalog as the official language. Granted, this period barely saw two full moons, but Rizal's studies would come in handy decades later.

In the 1930s, our Commonwealth Constitution assigned English and Spanish as our official languages, showing that Spanish influence remained high. The Abakada alphabet was presented at this time as well by Lope K. Santos, the Father of Filipino Grammar, and was heavily inspired by Rizal's suggestions. But our people were now more determined to find a way to bridge our individual cultures. So a mandate was made to develop one national language.

By then, Tagalog was widely used in Manila, the politico-economic heart of the country, and its nearby areas. This has always been the case, pre-colonization. In the end, it wasn't very hard to choose: in 1937, President Manuel Quezon proclaimed Tagalog as the foundation to create our Wikang Pambansa.

A Tagalog 2.0

It is not very surprising that after centuries of hispanic control, Spanish words have leaked deep into our languages. The wikang pambansa was renamed Pilipino in 1959, and eventually, under President Marcos' guidance, many attempts were made to turn it into a more native vocabulary: silya (chair), for example, is Spanish in origin, and was to be replaced with the more local word, salumpuwit.

But society was comfortable with the status quo by then, and had already adapted too much to accept this version of Pilipino.

And so our government needed to adapt as well. Today, we still follow the 1987 Constitution, which now officially rebrands the Tagalog-based national language as Filipino.

So what sets apart the two languages? With Filipino, we're able to adapt foreign words into the language. While we easily call a dictionary diksyunaryo in Filipino, a Tagalog purist would refer to it as a talatinigan. Because the modern Filipino alphabet also contains more letters, we are open to more phonetics and free to accept many transliterations. This is why we now commonly use foreign-based words like kompyuter, aksyon, and even doktor ("manggagamot").

Endlessly evolving

Many have pointed out that, especially for people outside the country, Tagalog, Filipino, and Pilipino are often used interchangeably. It may also be more likely to find an English-to-Tagalog dictionary in a bookstore, than an English-to-Filipino one.

Indeed, besides the tendency for transliteration, there is no strict difference between the Tagalog and Filipino languages. But as the national language, Filipino, in many ways, would have to constantly adapt and evolve, just like its people.

References:

The Origin of the Filipino Language (Wikang Filipino). (2013, January 22). Retrieved from http://ffemagazine.com/the-origin-of-the-filipino-language-wikang-filipino

Ramos, Teresita V. (n.d.). Intro to Tagalog Language. Retrieved from http://www.seasite.niu.edu/tagalog/tagalog_homepage99/the_tagalog_language.htm

Gumban, Geoff. (2014, May 21). You Say Tagalog, We Say Filipino. Retrieved from https://www.smartling.com/2014/05/21/tagalog-filipino

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How adobo was created

The recipe changes when you go from one household to the next: it can be salty, or sweet, or sometimes fiery with chili peppers or cooked in coconut milk. It's the taste of home for many Filipinos working abroad, and often the kind of dish only our mother or grandmother can cook best.

There are as many ways to prepare the classic adobo as there are islands in this country, and despite that, or perhaps because of it, the adobo has always been the typical Pinoy favorite. But as a country with centuries worth of Spanish influence, did we simply copy the adobo from the colonizers? Just how authentically Filipino is our (unofficial) national dish?

A History

You and I are lucky to live at a time when refrigerators and freezers were already invented; our ancestors, not so much. Food preservation was barely a recognized concept back then, and in a land with naturally warm climate — and long before the 16th century colonization — they had to be creative to keep food fresh for more than a few days.

And so they discovered vinegar, which, science later tells us, keeps the bacteria at bay. They stewed pork in vinegar and added salt for flavor, and the resulting dish reputably could last up to five days.

Soon, the Spanish community took over. With them, they brought corn, garlic, peanuts, peppercorns, and bay leaves — some of which found their way to the recipe that we're more familiar with today. One of the first records of the dish dates back to 1613, made by Pedro de San Buenaventura.

It was the Spanish who named the Filipinos' vinegar-braised cooking process adobo — a term derived from the word adobar, which meant marinade. What the Filipinos used to call the dish itself is now lost in history; over time, people started to call dishes prepared this way the adobo.

Adobo Today

The best thing about cooking adobo may also be the worst thing about it: there's really no fixed set of ingredients. Sure, the vinegar is the heart of any adobo — but even families and cooks debate over the best kind of vinegar to use, how much pepper or soy sauce to add, the addition of pineapples, kang kong, or calamansi, or how saucy or crispy it should be.

In general, the typical adobo is a meat dish — usually pork, chicken, or both. Less common versions make use of liver, or even squid. The meat is usually soaked in a marinade of vinegar and soy sauce to tenderize and give it flavor and color. Some choose to marinate for only a few minutes, others overnight. Then the meat is cooked slowly, with garlic, bay leaves, and pepper. Since many households or cookbooks tend to use different techniques, the fun often starts here.

More variations of the adobo are made as people experiment with ingredients and sauces (there's even a White House version). You might also want to try our own chicken adobo recipe, featured in the Sabor Filipino Cookbook app with 24 other regional recipes (Sabor is available on the App Store, for free).

While not on the same level of popularity as our Asian neighbors, Filipino cuisine steadily gains recognition on the international scene, mainly thanks to Filipinos abroad and their home cooking, and to the growing number of restaurants popping up in cities like New York or Dubai.

But at the end of the day, it hardly matters how our favorite dish began, or whether it is 100% Filipino. That our culture is a colorful blend of foreign and native has never been secret. Through a simple dish like adobo, we celebrate how we as a country continue to play with our mixed cultures and turn it into a distinct Filipino identity.

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5 Things About Jose Rizal You May Not Know

Today we celebrate the birthday of an important man in our country’s history. We know the basics — he armed himself with words to fight for equal rights, he studied medicine, he was executed at Bagumbayan. But today let’s take a closer look at a lesser known side of Jose Rizal’s life and legacy.

Rizal or Mercado? 

Rizal initially used his complete surname, Jose Rizal Mercado But then his brother, Paciano, got the Spanish leaders’ attention for his links to the martyred priests Gomburza. He encouraged Rizal to drop his second surname to disassociate himself from him, and since then, he identified as Jose Rizal.

Small body, big head

Literally — it has been said that Rizal’s mother, Teodora Alonzo, had the hardest childbirth with him. He had allegedly a larger head than usual, and only grew to roughly 5’3” tall as an adult. Obviously his physicality did not hinder his accomplishment in many fields.

Words and comics

Some people say Jose Rizal was the father of Filipino comics. In the 1880s, Rizal was asked to contribute a fable to a magazine — he wrote The Monkey and the Tortoise, and even drew a comic strip to go with the fable.

Face of cigarettes

There was a time when cigarette labels were mediums of art and propaganda: near the 20th century, the labels featured the likes of Manuel Quezon, Sergio Osmena, Rizal himself, and even geishas and scenery like Mt. Mayon. This was also a testament to how much Filipinos loved to smoke.

Draco rizali

Well-immersed in science, Rizal also dealt with preserving and classifying animals like snakes, lizards, birds, and even shells. He was the namesake for a native lizard species, the draco rizali, known elsewhere as the Guenther’s flying lizard.

Sources Paojournal · Inquirer · Positively Filipino · PhilStar

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(Updated) — We finally wrapped up the Esturya Summer App Camp, a 5-day code workshop on basic iOS app development with Xcode. It’s our first event under Esturya and we’re happy to have welcomed 9 participants, who are either in high school or entering college this school year!

Day 1 starts with only 7 participants (the others came in the next day due to prior schedule conflicts). Here, our main developer at Esturya, Reggie Cabalo, introduces them to the Xcode UI, the jargons, and the basic lines of code. It’s all lecture for day 1, but the hands-on practice comes in soon!

When you design a website, write a story, or even draw a comic strip, an outline will always be part of the process. Same thing with apps: on Day 2, our participants learned how to make wireframes to see how their ideal app's layout will look like and how it will work.

The participants were eventually divided into two teams with the same goal: build a simple, working quiz game app on Xcode.

There were a few minor setbacks, but so far everything went better than our expectations! We’re looking forward to making everything much better by the second App Camp. Thank you to everyone who joined, shared the news, and supported the Summer App Camp! :-)

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Summer, coding, and apps

If you’re interested in writing your own app for the iPad, then stay tuned. We’ll be releasing some exciting news this week!

Follow us on Facebook to get the latest updates!

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The Sabor Filipino Cookbook

Besides their hospitality, singing, selfies, and even Manny Pacquiao, Filipinos are known around the world for one more thing: a love for food.

While not as widely recognized as their Asian neighbors', Filipino cuisine has a lot more to offer than chickenjoy or the balut. This is why we want to showcase the flavors of the Philippines with our new app — Sabor Filipino Cookbook, now available for free on the App Store!

Every region has its flavors

Sabor is a collection of 25 recipes, from the adobo to regional favorites like the Ilocanos' pinakbet and the sticky rice dessert tabirak. Readers can also sort recipes by type, region, or ingredients, set the cooking timer, view a recipe one step at a time, bookmark their favorites, and even read descriptions of local terms in the glossary.

A cookbook by Filipinos, for Filipinos

Do you have your own version of the adobo? An original recipe? A mysterious dish native to your region? Send them to Sabor! With Sabor, help us showcase the best of Philippine food to the world!

Visit our website: www.esturya.com | Like us on Facebook.

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Filipino food lovers, we have something special coming up for you! Stay tuned and follow us to get updates about our upcoming app!

Like our Facebook page (fb.me/esturya.apps) Visit our website www.esturya.com

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New year, new identity

With the new year comes a (small) update on our identity.

In 2014 – our first year – we released two interactive iOS apps for kids under the name Esturya for Kids.

But as we shared these learning tools to more parts of the Filipino community, it soon became clear to us that these have turned into a bridge between Filipinos across the world and our homeland.

Suddenly, this digital playground is not exclusively for mere children anymore.

So, this year, we are happy to announce that we have now begun to call ourselves, simply and freely, Esturya.

Cheers to a more fruitful 2015!