Naga City Science High School Entry - Tigsik:Pagsalingoy sa Lengwaheng Bikolnon

TIGSIK is one of a kind; it is a form of literature unique only to the Bicolano folks, one that has managed to survive through decades, perhaps even longer, with nothing more than the continued use of the people. But lately, it seems as if this beautiful masterpiece is starting to fade – the loss of which may create an irreversible hole in the pages of Bikol culture.

Language and culture are inseparable, and are part and parcel of fabric of people’s identity. People need to identify themselves to identify their roles in the society and their worth, being people. Without identity people will not be able to see the significance of envisioning themselves in the future and the society they form. This is close to being chaotic existence, something no one will ever desire to live. For this language and culture play pivotal role. They provide a landscape for what is to become of everyone in the future to face. They answer questions of what people are and what they will become.

Bikol is blessed with this utterly unique literature that gave tremendous contribution to the rise of Bikol culture. To see it die because there are no more users is to cut the veins of Bikol culture. Its veins cut, Bikol culture is on the cliff of extinction. As the culture dies, so does every one living it no more. By then, Bikolanos will never able to tell the world who they are. In that they are no different from the dead.

More than reviving tigsik, this research ambitiously aims to heed and reverberate the call for restoring whatever has made us, those great and mighty in the six provinces and seven cities in the land of Handiong, really great and mighty –our identity.