What was the "shoe" of your Generation?

We take shoes for granted. But what most don’t realize is that shoes have always been there throughout history - in the most significant moments of our country’s history, from the absence of shoes in pre-colonial Philippine society, to the change of that society upon the arrival of the shoe-clad Spanish colonizers who labeled our barefooted forefathers “uncivilized” indios.

Shoes or footwear have inspired early artists, musicians and poets, that’s why our music, poems and folklore are riddled with reference to the lowly “bakya”, “tsinelas” and “sapatos”. In time, shoes have subliminally become an instrument for labeling and separating people in our society according to their economic class, social status and even differing ideologies. The “bakya” for example is now used to label individuals of low cultural taste and social status. The “tsinelas” have for a time been used to categorize the “aktibista”. I remember when I was in elementary school you will not be part of the “in” group if you don’t sport “Sperry” topsiders and later on “blah-blah” shoes. Then in high school, it was black “stick-out-flap” Reeboks that makes you part of the “barkada”. Come to think of it, if you look at pictures and statues of Rizal and Bonifacio, you will notice that Rizal always wears his European shoes and Bonifacio, the plebian, is almost always portrayed barefoot...well, except for the statue in Tutuban of course.

Today, the shoes we wear not only project our personality and our beliefs, it also unjustly brands and labels us the way we discriminately use it to unjustly label others as well. It is really ironic how shoes, in a way have symbolized both the Filipino’s fight for a national identity and the loss of it. This was why I made a documentary about it before, and is why I am doing this web log now.

So I ask you…what was the shoe of your generation?

Earliest Accounts of Shoes in the Philippines

“The dress which these natives of Luzon wore before the advent of the Spaniards in the land, consisted of the following: for the men, clothes made of cangan fabric without collar, sewn in front with short sleeves extending down to beyond the waist, some blue and some black, while the headmen used red ones which they called chininas and a colored blanket wrapped around the waist and between the legs, in order to cover their private parts. In the middle of the waist they wore the bahague, the legs being bare and the feet also bare. The men and women go out without any outer garments and barefooted, but well adorned with gold chains and engraved earrings and bracelets.

After the Spaniards came to the land, many native men ceased to wear gee-strings and instead they wore baloon-trousers made out of the same blanket and clothes, also hats on their heads...and many of them wear shoes. Likewise, the principal women were curiously shod and many of them wear velvet shoes with gold trimmings, also white sheets as undershirts.”

Antonio de Morga, Sucesos de las islas Filipinas, 1609



"The women wear a kind of little shift, which scarcely reaches to the navel, with a handkerchief loosely covering the neck, a white linen cloth encircles the, body, and is fastened by a button at the waist: they throw over this a coloured stuff manufactured by the inhabitants of Panay. Over all is worn a mantle, for the most part black, which covers the body from head to foot. Their hair, which is black and highly beautiful, sometimes reaches to the ground: they bestow the greatest care on it, anoint it with cocoa-nut oil, plait it in the Chinese fashion, and, towards the crown of the head, form it into a knot, fastened with a gold or silver pin. They wear embroidered slippers, so very small that they only cover the toes. "

Pierre Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes orientales et à la Chine, 1774-1781



"..her slippers (Ines Cannoyan) embroidered with gold, her wedding ring capped on with pearlstone, her five combs, and her two bracelets. Brave Lam-ang put on his laced trousers, embroidered camisa, kerchief with sambiri, embroidered slippers, and his hat."

Pedro Bucaneg, "Biag ti Lam-Ang" Ilocano Epic 17th Century (some studies even suggest a pre-colonial origin)