Ye Gas of Lake Sebu

There are journeys where you arrive as a visitor, and others where you arrive as a witness. Sometimes the difference is only clear in hindsight, like a photograph slowly appearing in a tray of developer.

I travelled to Lake Sebu in South Cotabato, Philippines, with my father, a documentary filmmaker who has spent decades working across the country recording traditional knowledge and cultural practices. His work is driven by a long-standing commitment to cultural preservation, often taking him to remote communities and regions rarely visited by outsiders.

travel, philippines

FEB 24, 2026

We were in Lake Sebu to photograph cultural bearers - National Living Treasures formally recognised for keeping ancestral traditions alive. Over several days we documented three awardees from the region.

But dad was looking for someone else.

Fifteen years earlier he had heard a Tboli chanter named Ye Gas, a woman remembered in the community simply as the chanter. Her performances were improvised, guided by spirit and shaped by intuition. Words and melody emerged in the moment, forming songs that existed only for the duration of the performance.

When he asked about her, the responses were uncertain. Some people believed she had died.

The day before we went looking for her, I found myself imagining a photograph I wanted to make. I pictured a Tboli woman standing on a mountain top, and beside her, a horse. It felt less like a plan than an image waiting to be discovered.

We were told Ye Gas lived higher up in the mountain.

Our van carried us as far as the road allowed. From there we continued on foot uphill, following a woman who introduced herself as Ye Gas’s cousin and neighbour. The path climbed gradually through the terrain as the air grew quieter and the world narrowed to the rhythm of footsteps on dirt.

When we reached her nipa hut, a horse was grazing just outside.

Ye Gas greeted us with a careful reserve, unsure why anyone had come looking for her. Dad explained that he had heard her perform years earlier and remembered her voice. We told her we had come to photograph cultural bearers in the region and had hoped to find her as well. After a moment’s hesitation, she agreed.

She disappeared to change into the traditional red Tboli dress. When she returned, something shifted. Her posture lifted and her eyes sharpened, as if to claim a story that had been waiting for her return.

Outside, the horse lingered nearby, and I made the photograph I had already seen in my mind the day before.

Later she sang for us and told us her story. Our guide said she had never spoken so openly with visitors before.

At one point she explained that when people had come looking for her in the past, they had been told she was dead. The whispers travelled faster than correction ever could, and over time the visits stopped. With them went the recognition she once carried as a chanter. A voice that had filled gatherings and ceremonies receded into the background of a mountain, until even the memory of it grew faint. We just listened.

Before we left, she reached into her belongings and pressed a small gift into my hands: a pair of earrings made from horse tail. The gesture felt like the closing of a loop - the horse in my imagined photograph, the horse outside her home, and now this small object carried away with me.

Travel sometimes offers fleeting encounters, but occasionally it offers something rarer: the chance to witness someone’s story while it is still being lived.

Ye Gas is still alive. And her voice still moves through the mountains.