Series: Game of Titos and Titas - Part 9
Key Takeaways
- Tubig-tubig is the Bisaya name for the game known in Tagalog areas as patintero
- The name comes from the water we used to draw the lines on a dusty road — the only game in this series whose name anybody could explain
- Attackers run the grid end to end and back; guards must keep both feet on their line
- Boys and girls played together, and the sides were whoever turned up
- There was no fixed forfeit — the losers’ punishment was agreed beforehand, like everything else
- The grid is drawn to fit the turnout — three cross-lines at minimum, more when more children come, so nobody is left out
- The captain liboter works the centre line and can reach the whole board
- One tag ends the turn for the entire attacking team
Some of my fondest memories are of long evenings on the dusty roads of our neighbourhood, playing with whoever lived nearby.
One game stood above the rest: tubig-tubig. In Tagalog-speaking areas you will know it as patintero.
The only game we could explain the name of
I always believed the name came from the water.
That is how we drew the grid. You take water and pour it in a line along the dust of the road, and the wet mark shows dark against the dry. That is your board. Tubig is water, and tubig-tubig is what you get when the water is the whole point.
I have written five of these posts now and this is the first time I have been able to tell you why a game is called what it is. Nobody could say what birus meant. The syatong punishment never had a name. Neither did the fighting game we played with our tops.
And even here, notice what the name is about. Not the running, not the tagging, not the winning. The name is about how you made the board. The most memorable part of tubig-tubig, memorable enough to become the name, was the part before anybody played.
Waiting for the moon
We played at night, and we waited for a full moon to do it.
That is the second time that has come up in this series. Birus was a full-moon game too, and for the same unremarkable reason: there was very little electric light, and a bright night was the difference between seeing the lines and guessing at them.
The moon was not romantic. It was the lighting rig.
Then the roads changed
In time the neighbourhood improved, and so did the surfaces.
We moved from dusty roads to concrete basketball courts, and from water to chalk. Chalk holds. It does not dry off and vanish the way a water line does, and it shows in daylight — so for the first time we could play in the afternoon instead of waiting for the sky to cooperate.
That was an improvement in every practical way. But I notice that a game named for water was now being drawn in chalk, and the name stayed anyway. We kept calling it tubig-tubig on a court where no water had ever been poured.
How to play tubig-tubig
The grid is a large rectangle divided by lines. To us it was a battlefield.
1. Draw the grid. Water on dust, or chalk on concrete. A large rectangle with lines dividing it across, and one line running down the middle from end to end.
Three cross-lines was the minimum. If more children turned up, you drew more — because every cross-line is a post for a defender, and the grid has to have somewhere to put everybody.
Draw the grid last, in other words, and draw it to fit. The board was not a fixed thing you played on; it was built each evening around however many people showed up. Turn up with twelve and you got a longer, harder board than you would have had with eight.
I like that nobody was ever surplus. There was no bench and no waiting your turn, and no question of whether you were the right sort of child for it — boys and girls played together and the sides were simply whoever had come out that evening. If you turned up, there was a line for you to stand on, because the board had not been drawn yet when you arrived.
2. Split into two teams. As many a side as there are children to fill them, boys and girls together. There was no fixed number and nobody was left out — you counted who had turned up, halved it, and drew the grid to match.
One team attacks, the other defends. They swap when the attacking turn ends.
3. Guards take the lines. Each defender is assigned a line and must keep both feet on it at all times. That is the constraint the whole game hangs on — a guard can move along his line freely, but he cannot step off it to chase you.
4. The captain liboter takes the centre. One defender works the middle line, which runs the length of the grid. Because that line touches every other, the captain liboter can reach anywhere on the board. He is the most dangerous player on the field, and the position went to whoever was quickest.
The name is worth pausing on. Liboter carries the sense of roaming or going about — of not being tied to one spot — which is exactly what separates this player from the rest of the defence. Everybody else is pinned to a single line. He is the one who goes around.
5. Attackers run the grid. Passers must get from one end to the other, crossing every line, and then make it all the way back.
6. A completed round trip is one point.
7. One tag ends the turn — for everybody. The moment a single passer is touched, the attacking team’s turn is over. Not just that player. The whole side.
Why one tag ends it for everyone
That last rule is worth sitting with, because it changes what the game is.
If a tag only took out the player tagged, tubig-tubig would be a game about your own skill. You would take your chances, and if you were caught, that was your problem.
But a tag ends it for the whole team. So the boy who gets greedy, who tries the gap that is not quite there, has not lost his own turn. He has lost everybody’s — including the teammate who was two steps from completing a round trip.
Which is why we shouted at each other so much.
Feints and shouting
Mastering tubig-tubig meant learning to lie with your body.
A feint is a small deceptive movement — a dip of the head, a shift of weight onto the wrong foot — offered to a guard in the hope that he commits to it. He only has to overextend a little. Both his feet must stay on his line, so if he leans too far one way, there is a moment when he cannot recover, and that moment is your gap.
On defence we were just as tactical. The captain liboter ranged along the centre while the rest of us locked down our own stretches. And all of it ran on noise — constant shouted warnings, telling each other where the passers were and which route was open.
Looking back, tubig-tubig was never really a game of tag. It was an exercise in coordination, played at speed, by children who had no way of communicating except by yelling.
The punishment was whatever you said it was
Every game in this series has a forfeit for the losing side. The syatong losers run the field shouting until their breath gives out. The tigso losers crawl through everyone’s legs. A fumbling jackstone player is called baboy, and a takyan loser has to stand there and be thrown to.
Each of those is fixed. It is part of the game, and it is the same every time you play.
Tubig-tubig had no such thing. There was a punishment — there was always a punishment — but what it consisted of was decided beforehand by the two teams, along with everything else.
Which makes it one of the games where even the humiliation was negotiable. You did not merely agree how to win. You agreed what losing would cost — and you agreed it while you still did not know which side you would be on.
I cannot now remember a single one of them, and I think that is the reason. Nothing was repeated often enough to stick. The syatong run I remember because it was always the syatong run.
Frequently asked questions
What is tubig-tubig? Tubig-tubig is the Bisaya name for the Filipino street game known in Tagalog areas as patintero. Two teams play on a drawn grid: one tries to run the length of it and back, while the other guards the lines.
Why is it called tubig-tubig? Tubig means water. The grid was traditionally drawn by pouring water onto a dusty road, where the wet line showed dark against the dry ground.
Is tubig-tubig the same as patintero? Yes. Tubig-tubig is the Bisaya term and patintero the Tagalog one.
What is a captain liboter? The defender who works the centre line of the grid in tubig-tubig. Because that line meets every cross-line, the captain liboter can reach any part of the board and is usually the strongest player on the defending team. Liboter carries the sense of roaming, in contrast to the other guards, who are each pinned to a single line.
How big is the tubig-tubig grid? A large rectangle with at least three cross-lines and one line running down the middle from end to end. More cross-lines are added when there are more players, since each one is a post for a defender.
How many players do you need for tubig-tubig? There is no fixed number. Teams are as large as the turnout allows, and the grid is drawn afterwards with enough cross-lines to give every defender a line to stand on.
Who plays tubig-tubig? Everyone. It was played by boys and girls together, with the teams made up from whoever came out to play.
What is the punishment for losing at tubig-tubig? There is no fixed one. Unlike most traditional Filipino games, where the forfeit is part of the rules, the two teams agreed what the losers would have to do before play began.
What are the rules for guards in tubig-tubig? A guard must keep both feet on his assigned line at all times. He can move along it, but he cannot step off it to chase an attacker.
How do you score in tubig-tubig? One point for each attacker who completes a full round trip — down the grid and back — without being tagged.
For the bona fide titos and titas out there — did you play tubig-tubig, or patintero, or something else again? Did you draw yours with water? And what did you call the player on the centre line? Tell me in the comments.
Game of Titos and Titas — the full series
- Lastiko: The Filipino Rubber Band Games We Played as Kids
- Birus: The Filipino Hide-and-Seek Played by Moonlight
- Holen: How to Play the Filipino Marble Game
- Syatong: How to Play the Filipino Stick Game
- Jackstone: The Game of Skill and Flair
- Tumba Lata: What We Called Tumbang Preso Back Home
- Tubig-Tubig: The Game We Drew With Water (you are here)
