Waling-waling

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

The ladies came in long, Visayan plaid skirts topped by the Visayan kimona so that even with just about 30 of them, they nevertheless stood out in the mall where a raucous throng of high school students had also gathered early last Saturday at Robinsons.

I thought the attire was appropriate and fitting, in more ways than one. You see, the ladies, members and officers of the Negros Occidental Orchid Society, were there to celebrate something that is truly Filipino, truly local if you please, that has bowled the world for over a century now. They were there to celebrate the waling-waling, the Philippines’ proud contribution to the global garden.

It was time for the annual Waling-Waling Festival, a celebration of the Philippine orchid from where most of the vandas of the world came, the flower that has its genes in varying degrees of intensity in most of the hybrids that the orchid world has developed during the last century.

First “discovered” by English orchidologists in the 1880s, the waling-waling is native to Mindanao where it was found before it was brought to London from where, it can be said, it conquered the world.

It is believed to be the orchid with the biggest flowers, with the most ideal floral form, making it a good material for hybridization. Among other things, Good Friend P pointed out how the petals are structured: they are almost of the same shapes and sizes, and they overlap so that there are no gaps in between them.

Of course, those Englishmen have named it Sanderiana, after the one who first found it growing in the trees in Mindanao. It has always been in Mindanao, however, and is part and parcel of Pinoy culture in that part of our country. The Bagobos believe the waling-waling is a diwata, a deity, and is so worshipped. Legends and myths have been spun around this flower.

It is sad that simply because the Englishmen were ahead in terms of flower breeding, the waling-waling must now be known throughout the world as Sanderiana. Just how many of the plants and flowers that God gave our islands are now on foreign islands, known by foreign names, and tragically, already “titled” by foreigners? There is talk that most of our scented flowers have already found their way to perfumeries and scent producers and that one of these days, we will just begin buying ilang-ilang scent as French or Italian perfume.

But the waling-waling has remained Pinoy all these years. Thanks to the valiant efforts of our orchid lovers, we are reclaiming it for our country as part of our patrimony. It is said that there have been Congressional initiatives in the past to declare it the national flower in lieu of the sampaguita, and maybe, we should spark the debate on this again.

P said that the NOOS festival is one of the three waling-waling events in the country that have kept interest in this flower alive all these years. The two are initiatives of the Philippine Orchid Society and Davao city, where the flowers are celebrated in the Kadayawan Festival every year.

Now on its 10th year, the Waling-Waling Festival is part of the personal advocacy of Negrense Julie Benedicto, herself an orchid lover.

While the waling-waling has spawned a lot of hybrids, the plant itself is now considered rare. There are those who say it is one difficult plant to grow and nurture to flowering.

But there are others who say that as long as the necessary conditions of sunlight and nutrients are met, waling-waling grows easily. It flowers just once a year, and the season has started.*

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