Sarangani seaside town's 'marinated bangsi' industry thriving

GENERAL SANTOS CITY, Philippines — What three women in Maitum, Sarangani started as an experiment in the early 1980s due to the abundance of “flying fish” from the sea along the municipality is now a thriving industry, a source of income for local residents.

Maitum, a seaside town at the border of Sarangani and Sultan Kudarat provinces, is now famous for its “marinated bangsi,” sold in markets and wet sections of grocery stores in malls in cities and provincial centers in central Mindanao.

Bangsi is a generic Visayan term for flying fish, a marine ray-finned fish of the Exocoetidae family, called pamugon in Maguindanaon and bengkeh in the Samah and Yakan vernaculars.

It was the neighbors Fortuna S. Bunalos, Concepcion D. Bruto and Conchita M. Ramos who started the marinated bangsi industry in Maitum, where fresh flying fishes are split like the typical daing na bangus (milkfish) and soaked in vinegar with pepper and salt overnight and dried outdoors.

Soon after, more neighbors of Bunalos, Bruto and Ramos started producing marinated bangsi via the process they discovered that they willingly shared, supposedly a trade secret that they could have kept only for themselves.

“We shall never forget the three of them, all deceased,” said Aileen Monte Sales, an entrepreneur.

Residents of Maitum celebrate every January their “Bangsi Festival” in recognition of the town’s marinated bangsi industry.

Maitum Mayor Alexander Bryan Basquinez Reganit said the marinated bangsi had been recognized as their municipality’s signature product under the One Town, One Product, or OTOP program of the Department of Industry-12.

Hazel Daze Flores, information officer of DTI-Sarangani, has confirmed that the marinated bangsi had indeed been tagged as Maitum’s OTOP and is now regarded as an “icon” of the municipality.

Reganit said the DTI-Sarangani and their local government unit are cooperating in expanding the industry that the Muslim and Christian residents in Maitum are doing their best to sustain.