RESEARCH DATA:

This set of Bagobo garments for men is composed of a shirt and trousers. Commonly referred to as ompak ka mama (man’s shirt; ompak or umpak is the general term for shirt among the Bagobo) and saroar/sawal (man’s trousers), these garments display the intricacy of Bagobo weaving, beadwork (pang-o-lo-bayan), and appliqué work. Both the ompak and the saroar have woven base textiles decorated with fine appliqué and beadwork. The shirt features resist-dye weaving, while the fabric is woven using the multi-heddle weaving technique.
Bagobo ikat is called binud-bud (Pastor-Roces, 1991). According to Pastor-Roces (as cited in Terando, 2023), binud-bud is a process of designing a garment by tying knots on the abaca or cotton threads before dyeing them. The tied sections of the threads become the ikat design on the woven textiles (Reyes, 1992).
Bagobo appliqué works are commonly applied on the ompak’s armpit-encircling sections, sleeves, and lower borders of the shirt and trousers, as well as on the saroar hems (Pastor-Roces, 1991), using patches and strips of cloth that vary in color. The entirety of the appliqué design is called the tutuk. Among the common patterns and elements of the tutuk are zigzags and the red cotton cloth appliqué called tugur (Pastor-Roces, 1991). According to Reyes (1992), the use of appliqué in Bagobo garments is a result of outside contacts through trade. Appliqué began to replace embroidery, which is now more commonly observed on older Bagobo textiles.