Ibaloi elder hits Robin wedding

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – A direct descendant of the Ibaloi tribe has expressed disappointment over the supposed tribal wedding rites of actors Robin Padilla and Mariel Rodriguez.

“There was no wedding. The mambunong (native priest) was fake,” said 90-year-old Cecile Afable, a direct descendant of the Cariño clan, one of the first Ibaloi families in Baguio.    

Afable, the editor-in-chief of the Baguio Midland Courier, said Ibalois “might have been duped by Padilla and his staff to perform a ritual for whatever purpose it served them.”

Last Sept. 13, Padilla and Rodriguez were supposedly wed in Ibaloi rites in Barangay Camp 7. Later in the week, however, Padilla himself denied that the ceremony that took place was a real wedding.

There have been speculations that the Ibaloi wedding is being used as a publicity stunt for a new show on ABS-CBN, the network of the two actors.

Carol Tibayan, Padilla’s cousin and staff who arranged the event, said the ceremony was only a “blessing of some sort.”

“It was supposedly a closed door affair among family members for Robin’s son Ali and Kylie to witness Cordillera culture,” she said. “There was really no wedding, but a blessing of some sort.”

Afable said the supposed wedding that took only several hours was a “bastardized” version of the traditional wedding ceremony that takes a week to complete.

Tibayan said the Ibaloi tribe should not be upset over the incident because a real wedding did not take place.