HUGOT

A couple of years ago, I learned about hugot. Directly translated, it means to pull, but the term refers to a distinct quality in Filipino love songs — a combination of longing, pleasure and pain. It’s what comes from ripping your guts out and laying everything on the line. Hugot is desperate and raw, honest, gripping; it builds up and tears down. And it is the easiest, most familiar thing for me to indulge in because its intensity is so much like the essence of ningas kugon. It’s something I have found in Western and European melodies and compositions but only recently realized was the cornerstone of my very own culture’s music.

Those who know me well are probably familiar with my struggle to find any sort of meaningful connection to my culture. I am Filipino, my parents are both Filipino; I have many memories of watching ASAP and Maalaala Mo Kaya, listening to Martin Nievera and Sarah Geronimo, trying (and, in my mother’s opinion, failing) to properly wrap lumpia. I am acutely familiar with the energy of riotous Filipino laughter, gossip and score-driven karaoke at a tito’s house.

I am Filipino, but I haven’t often felt Filipino. I speak Tagalog, but have never felt the kind of weight and strength I believe I should feel in the words I speak. Being Filipino has never felt like something I could ground myself in or properly identify myself with.

One thing that’s stuck with me is a Tagalog term my dad has used to describe me — ningas kugon. He says I can be like a spark from dry grass, burning intensely but dying out just as quickly as it ignites. He’s not wrong; I’ve fallen into periods of euphoria and intense fascination with so many things in my life—creative projects, running, books I’m reading, romantic relationships—then grown disillusioned or distracted not long after. But the one thing that I’ve always come back to and identified with is the music I listen to.

Hugot is at the heart of how I’ve come to define my own identity as a Filipina. It’s in everything I’ve found meaning in as I’ve gotten older — realness and humanity in all its facets, for all its faults. It’s given me a new appreciation for my culture and added a layer of passion to all of my pursuits. It gets me to come back to myself, as my spark lights and relights, to find something different in the flames time and time again. I’m learning that I can take hold of and be emboldened by my own spark; that I can find meaning in both its ignition and extinguishment, and appreciate that I’m able to feel it at all — even for just a moment, kahit isang saglit.

This is my ode to Filipino culture, to the fierce, unrelenting tenderness of existence, and the realization that I have a place in it all.