Walking thru the halls of the National Museum in time for the Dayaw Festival, we were able to spot a small trade fair in which a very interesting work of art caught our attention. Portrait of a child weaved in a banig.

A banig is a handwoven mat used for sleeping or sitting. The leaves are usually made of buri, tikog grass or pandan leaves, dried, dyed and cut into strips and woven into mats.

Usually the designs are plain or a simple abstract pattern with a couple of  color combination. But this particular mat made by Yolanda Galit, a local of Barangay Luyo, Basay, Samar is one of its kind. Being able to start weaving at the age of 12, she learned the craft from her mother and expand it a little further, that weaving portraits and landmarks in the banig made it to be a work of art. A banig hanged on the wall as a decorative and priceless piece.

“Noon ung nanay ko ang nag tra-trabaho, pag burda at pag lara ng banig. Ako rin pag laki ko, ganun din ginawa ko. Nag simula ang nanay ko sa bulaklak lang na design. Ako na ang gumawa ng portrait. May magpapadala sa akin ng picture, tapos pwedo ko na un iburda” (My mom used to do this kind of work. She embroiders and weave banigs. When I grew up, I did that as well. My mother started weaving banig with flowers, then I started doing portraits. People will send me their photos and I will weave the banig based on the photograph.)” Yolanda cited.

Now at 70 years old, she tries to teach the younger generation to learn this craft. But this takes years of experience, training, patience and the love of art to learn. So far, Yolanda was not able to mold anyone to follow her footsteps. Hopefully, somebody will take interest in this craft to keep the tradition alive.

A half bust portrait with frame, around 20 x 24 inches takes about a week to finish and costs about Php 5,000.00 per piece.