is a developing database of approx. 300 pages, groups, and profiles dedicated to alternative medicine, folk belief, and contemporary spirituality in the Philippines. With Simulasi and in three (3) parts (presented as I, II, and III below), the Directory’s invites its organizers, co-exhibitors, and audiences to further explore the Directory’s initial and possible connections with Japan and SEA by contributing their own links inspired by their local contexts and by joining in a Digital Campfire towards the end of Simulasi #1.

* “Bawang” is the Tagalog word for “garlic” while “baoang” is an intentional misspelling created for the database. It is also almost the same word (“bawang putih”) in Bahasa.
🧄🧄🧄

AMULET, USUALLY OF A PROTECTIVE (?)
AND/OR EMPOWERING FUNCTION

POSSIBLY ORIGINATES FROM THE WORD “HERBALIST” OR
THE SPANISH “ARBOL” (TREES); A FAITH HEALER INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO SHAMANS, WHITE AND
BLACK MAGICIANS, AND WITCHES

A FORM OF HEX (?), USUALLY ASSIGNING SOME
(MALICIOUS) FATE TO THE RECEIVER


01:00 (PHT) / 00:00 (WIB)


11:59 (PHT) / 10:59 (WIB)

 

You are invited to help build a database of alternative medicine, folk belief, and contemporary spirituality from your side of the Internet!

Check out our Directory (via Google Sheets or as Read-only on this page) and see if it inspires you to send in your own links. Click on the links to visit pages. Comment, DM, email, or directly fill in the Directory to participate in our !


    A FORM OF HEX (?), USUALLY MEDIATED BY A PRACTITIONER
    THROUGH A CLIENT’S INTENTION     TO AFFECT A THIRD PARTY FOR
    VARIOUS INTENTIONS (LOVE, PUNISHMENT, ETC.)

    INCANTATION, USUALLY  WITH QUASI-
    CHRISTIAN (?) ELEMENTS

    HOROSCOPE, WITH GAY LINGO MODIFIER
    🧄🧄🧄

    All submissions will be featured below throughout Simulasi #1 and via Instagram. Contributions to the Directory can remain anonymous.


    22:00 (PHT) / 21:00 (WIB)

     

    Everyone is invited to join the Digital Campfire to talk about all the submissions. Patterns, instances, findings, and surprises from the month-long gathering will be discussed and exchanged! It will be livestreamed and archived below as the culmination of the Directory’s . Stay tuned!

    Meeting ID: 856 9848 9533
    Passcode: 749997

    Conceptualized alongside Artists for Digital Rights Network and inspired by a hazy memory of the artist seeing an old man juggling three bulbs of garlic in Katipunan, the B.A.O.A.N.G Directory can be situated in the Philippines’s coping mechanism of conjuring medical, social, and personal solutions overlooked by established institutional forces. While the garlic’s efficacy of warding off aswangs and other supernatural entities locally can be traced back to more colonial traditions of fighting vampires1, its indigenous and scientific health benefits continue to spark the imagination of people as an antidote to COVID-19, going as far as having the World

    Health Organization (WHO) disseminate a counter-disinformational notice2 alongside other equally strange remedies and causes such as bleach, houseflies, and 5G mobile networks.

    Disinformation also finds parallels in the power asymmetries mapped by Filipino historian Reynaldo Ileto’s Pasyon and Revolution (1979) where millenarian movements acted on a left-field – and ultimately quasi-religious – motivation towards self-determination that nevertheless helped spark liberation movements across the nation as early as the 17th century. Ileto’s call for a better understanding of the folk psyche underscores the eventual roots and disastrous effects of the 2016 (and possibly, the 2022) elections.

    As the Philippines continues to embrace the Information Age in ways foreign and/or more ingenious to the middle class and the Global North, the B.A.O.A.N.G Directory invites its audiences to play, engage, and familiarize themselves with people, objects, solutions, and communities thriving online in particular and fascinating belief systems across Asian archipelagos that do not always resonate with normative or algorithmic systems, but have the potential to defy existing attitudes towards truth-seeking.

    1 In a now defunct article, historian Ambeth Ocampo dispelled the myth that Filipinos often used garlic to overcome local spirits and creatures because one instance in the senate saw politician Mar Roxas bring a necklace of garlic to supposedly counter the congressmen (considered in his argument as aswangs) in the controversial Constituent Assembly back in 2009. Ocampo insisted that Filipinos often used salt. Retelling of these can be found here: https://bahaytalinhaga.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/aswangs-garlic-culture/
    2 WHO employs informational videos from experts to host their ‘Mythbuster’ section on their website here: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters#garlic

     

     


    Special thanks to Manel Solsoloy (@metromanela) for contributing greatly to the initial directory entries; to Austin Beaulier for the 3D garlic model; to A4DRN for supporting the project; and to the entire Hoppla Team for keeping it alive.