Sarimanok

The supreme signifier of the Muslim South is the legendary bird of the Maranaos of Lanao in Mindanao is the Sarimanok. The word is derived from sari, meaning cloth or garment, and manok, or chicken.

The first National Artist to hail from Mindanao, Abdulmari Imao, obsessively subsumed the image and story of the sarimanok as his motif into his visual and sculptural art, thereby gaining credit for its nationwide popularity, achieving in the mind of his countrymen a synonymity of artist and image. Before Imao, however, there was one other artist-sculptor who gloried in the sarimanok and, more impressively, in a medium that had not heretofore contained it: stained glass. The artist is Antonio Gonzales Dumlao, creator of the FEU mural on progress.

In 2009, FEU acquired Dumlao’s Sarimanok from the estate of Don Vicente Lopez, Jr. The purchase resonates with immense significance: taking pride of place within the seal and coat of arms of the university is the sarimanok, a fitting signifier of nationalism and patriotism by which its founder Dr. Nicanor Reyes lived and died.