Wearing ethnic Igorot attires, Miss Mountain Province 2015 Shella Tudlong and Jeyrick Sigmaton, dubbed the Carrot Man, visit a nipa hut in Bontoc, Mountain Province. (Photo : Facebook/Raymond Siano)
The Igorot tribe that inhabits the mountains of Luzon in the Philippines can be compared to the Native Americans and African-Americans. This is the tribe where Jeyrick Sigmaton, 21, famously known as the Carrot Man, belongs.
Like Native Americans and African-Americans in the United States, Igorots are victims of racism in a sense that some Filipinos tend to consider them second-class citizens.
While most African-Americans are easily identified through their skin color, the term Igorot is mistakenly used to refer to dark and short Filipinos with thick lips and curly hair. This is actually the description to the Aetas, the indigenous Filipino people who resemble African-Americans.
It must be noted, however, that regarding the Aetas as second-class citizens is wrong and correctly making the distinction between Aetas and Igorots does not make it right. Regarding any tribe as a group of second-class citizens, whatever the reason, is never right, and thinking that you are of a higher species than people who are darker than you is diabolical.
In addition, some misinformed Filipinos still think that Igorots are barbaric. They think that Igorots wear G-strings as their daily garment and still are headhunters like their ancestors and the ancestors of most Native Americans.
It is quite surprising that in this age when the internet is ubiquitous and education is expected to be of higher quality than it was in the past decade, these mistakes about Igorots are yet to be rectified. Among those to be blamed are the media itself and the parents and the teachers of the non-Igorots who tell their children that their Aeta brothers and sisters are called Igorots.
ALSO READ: Carrot Man's aquiline nose: Igorot race improved by Anglican missionaries?
Then came the Carrot Man, who is from Kadaclan, Barlig, Mountain Province. Like many of his fellow Igorots, Sigmaton belongs to a family of farmers.
Sigmaton's story is like that of most romantic stories with the protagonist being an innocent beauty from the countryside with charms that attracted people from the city. Aside from his unforced photogenic features, netizens fell in love with him for several reasons.
Misinformed that Igorots are dark and short and they have thick lips and curly hair, some non-Igorots were surprised that there is such a beauty among the people in the mountains of Luzon. They loved the fact that a farmer resembles several celebrities, including some K-pop stars as well as the "Game of Thrones" character Bran Stark played by Isaac Hempstead-Wright.
This is the perfect timing to educate non-Igorots about the real definition of the term Igorot. At this point, Sigmaton is the perfect representative of the tribe to help accomplish this.
Meanwhile, here is a trailer of a documentary about the Igorots by Lester Valle and Carla Ocampo:
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