Humabon: Quintessential Filipino ‘pulitiko’

WHEN I first visited Cebu City in 2014, I went to see this monument that I used to show students in my PowerPoint presentations. Not too many people visit him, unlike Lapulapu’s monument at the Liberty Shrine in Mactan. In a city full of monuments, this one was just another one.

But I find some affinity with the person represented by the seated monument because like me, he was described as fat. To be exact, this was how he was described by someone who saw him: “He was seated on a palm mat on the ground with only a cotton cloth before his privies and a scarf embroidered with the needle about his head, a necklace of great value hanging from his neck and two large gold earrings fastened in his ears set round with precious gems. He was fat and short, and tattooed with fire in various designs. From another mat on the ground he was eating turtle eggs which were in two porcelain dishes, and he had four jars full of palm wine in front of him covered with sweet-smelling herbs and arranged with four small reeds in each jar by means of which he drank.”