Mabuhay Kampilan!

Most people who know me likely know that I play the ukulele. I got my first ukulele as a present for my 16th birthday in 2011, and traveled all over the world with it. While an exchange student in France, I gave it the name Praliné, a flavor I greatly enjoyed in French pastries. Traveling took a toll on Praliné, however, to the point where had to get a crack repaired by a violinmaker who was a good friend of my dad’s. My tour of South America last year was the last big trip I took Praliné on, and from here on out Praliné will probably enjoy being a house ukulele. 

In 2017, when I went to live in Bolivia for two months, I didn’t take Praliné with me. While it was hard not having my companion, the reason was because I wanted to get a charango, and I did not want to travel back with two small stringed instruments. With that in mind, I got a beautiful charango custom made by a luthier from Cochabamba, and named it Tunari after the mountain range that surrounds the city. 

These last few years, I started thinking about getting another ukulele, one that was concert-sized so as to be different from soprano-sized Praliné. I had known for a while that Mactan Island in Cebu was the guitar-making capital of the Philippines and thought it would be a good idea to get one from there. Since I am a sucker for designing my own things and commissioning custom-made goods, I figured I should get one made for me. I Googled custom ukulele makers on Mactan Island and found Ferangeli Guitars. The shop stood out to me because of the custom shell inlays that the luthiers could include on the instrument, and I knew that that was where I wanted to get my new ukulele whenever I made it back to the Philippines. 

As I pondered what to commission as a shell inlay, I realized that the Lapu-Lapu Monument would be a fitting design. After all, the instrument would be made in Lapu-Lapu City. Furthermore, as you can probably tell from the amount of times I have mentioned the Battle of Mactan in this blog, it would be a great way to have an instrument that I could be inspired by and one that embodies the Filipino revolutionary spirit. I was a bit worried that maybe the monument would be a little complex to be rendered in a recognizable way on the instrument, but the team at Ferangeli did not seem to share my concerns, so I let them run with it. After they sent me a mockup and I requested to add the symbolic sun and three stars, I was eager to see the final result. Nearly three months after I placed the order, I went to pick it up. It blew me away.

Spot the body made of mango wood, abalone shell borders, and of course Lapu Lapu with the sun and three stars to mark the frets!

Love having the date and signature of the ukulele's creator inside

Nothing like a beach day with a ukulele!

James and me with one of the shopkeepers

Me with Jade, a family friend, who also got a new ukulele for her daughter and ordered a custom one for herself

As for a name, I decided I wouldn’t figure out what to call it until close to the last minute. I felt like the new addition to my instrument family should have a name in Cebuano to reflect where it is (and I am) from, and kept an eye and ear out for potential names while in Cebu. In the car on the way to Ferangeli, I looked up the Battle of Mactan on Wikipedia to see if there were any Cebuano words mentioned that were used at the time. One of them was “kampilan,” and it was a word widely used throughout the archipelago to refer to a sword that precolonial Filipinos used in warfare. It was highly likely that the sword that led to Magellan’s demise was a kampilan. Although not a specifically Cebuano word, it was at least used in the region and other regions in the Philippines, which I thought was cool. I sounded it out, learning that the stress was on the second syllable. I decided that it would make a fitting name for an instrument that, hopefully, could also serve as an implement for collective resistance–resistance against forces that deem my people and others like me inferior, that tell us that we are only worth how productive we are, and that privilege exploitation in the name of mass production over dignity in labor and skilled craftsmanship. 

With that, I am excited to have a new addition to my family of stringed instruments. In particular, I am proud that two of these instruments come from two of my favorite countries and that I even got to meet the people who created them. Hopefully, you can visit me and James in our new home and check out my art and music corner. Praliné, Tunari, and Kampilan will be happy to welcome you!