A Game Taught Me a Lot of Isinay Words

AS A BOY growing up in Dupax when it was still a far-fetched dream for us residents to have electricity, I played a game that taught me a lot of Isinay words many of which are no longer used.

We called it “prisiner” – a corruption of Prisoner of War. I guess they don’t play it now but it was a favorite when the Dupax Elementary School (a.k.a. Gabaldon) was still not full of buildings as it is now and pupils had a wide and grassy school yard both in front and at the back to play team games on.

Prisoner was a game that consisted of two competing teams with at least five players each. It was sort of a tinnoran (catch-me-if-you-can) game where both teams have a base each and a "prison" of sort some meters away from the base.

In my case, my favorite base was the school's flagpole as it enabled one to sneak into the Gabaldon building, run behind Home Economics and then the Pre-Fab buildings, and then crawl behind the enemy's base.

One team assigns one runner to go on midfield or even beyond an imaginary border with the other team. The latter team in turn fields its own tonnor (catcher) to run after the intruder. If this second runner is able to ti^dun (tap) the shoulder or any part of the batang (body) of the intruding first runner, the latter would be taken in as prisoner.

The prisoner would be allowed to manme-ong (sit) a few meters from the arresting team's base. The object now for the prisoner's team is to rescue him by sending another runner to invade the prison and tap the prisoner's body. If successful, the prisoner would be taken back to his team's base.

The thrill here is that 1) the rescuer may risk himself being caught by the enemy and becomes an additional prisoner, or that 2) the rescuer may not only be able to get back his imprisoned teammate but even get a bonus of catching the prison guard/s if the guard/s happened to have left their base earlier than the rescuer.

This means that the license to catch is given to the one who left his base later than the object of the catch. There is thus a need for both teams to selev (watch) who in the opposing team has not touched his base before running out to the field so that it could send someone to catch him.

To win, a team has to have good runners as well as ones who know how to mangikulkulepot (run zigzag or evasively or in a way that makes him difficult to tap). It would also help if beforehand one team already knows who are the weakest runner or runners of the other team. It is these weak runners in one team who would be matalenan (the object of interest) by the opposing team.

One strategy is also to send a runner to surreptitiously go behind the enemy line and when no one is looking he would manduuru^ (crawl) then quickly run and tap the prisoner and thus set him free.

Another effective move is for a team to field out a supposedly weak runner as papan (bait) to tempt the opposing team to send a catcher. And when it does, the first team would send a follow-up runner, usually the fastest, to go tap the catcher before he could get near and touch the bait.

A variation is for one team to send out three or more runners all at the same time. The target is to divert the attention of the enemy and leave the prisoner unguarded, in which case another follow-up runner would be sent to either rescue the prisoner or to catch the catchers of the opposing team.

How long does one game of Prisoners last? It depends on how long the participating players are free from their classes or school assignments. The game is often held in the afternoon before official school dismissal time, or when there are emergency teacher meetings and the pupils have no better things to do.

Depending on the number of players, the team that has more players left on base becomes the nanambut (winner). Conversely, the team that gets more members caught and imprisoned is the nasambut (loser).

Normally there would be accusations from both sides of being a maagu^ (cheat). There would also be cases of a maviyaw (cry baby or oversensitive) player who would quit the game if he stumbles or if his shirt gets torn during the game.

On rare occasions, there would be heated arguments and, fanned by durdurug (eggers, jeerers), the concerned pupils would engage in sinnintuhan (fist fight) along with unung (wrestling), or pinna^tilan (sweeping one another off balance with the feet).

Often, too, the game would end without any team being adjudged winner. This was when both teams had equally good and evasive runners -- or when the school bell rings to signal it's time for pupils to go home.


LOOKING BACK, I know of no other game in the Gabaldon school that I enjoyed participating most than this one. It increased my circle of Isinay friends and taught me such words as tonnorom, ikulkulepot, selevam, ti^dunom, talenam.

Equally important was that the game taught me and my schoolmates the value of team work and the advantages of running fast and barefoot at that.