14/02/2024
anya istorya ni Whang-od?
How did Whang-od's era as a most sought after tattoo artist in the Philippine Cordilleras begin?
Perhaps it started in 2009 when she was featured in a Discovery Channel episode of a tattoo documentary series that covered several Southeast Asian territories.
Maybe that time nobody knew she would get this popular. So at that time, nobody really cared about the details. Her age for one as recorded in the official birth certificate was an estimation. It was a common practice, because few or none of her contemporaries knew exactly when they were born under the Gregorian calendar.
Who said she was the last tattoo artist? That requires further digging, but we now know that travel agencies and magazine writes and vloggers want to sell a story that would be a hit. A little spice here and a little more over there and a story emerged.
Is it a consolation that they did not turn her into a warrior princess who never got to marry her true love under the light of a rice harvest full moon?
Her journey as we know it is not her real journey. It is merely a story of a woman based on a real person. But the story plucked from this real person is getting further away from the truth as each jeepney load of tourists arrive in the village.
