Bucaneg

Bucaneg is an Ilocano surname best known for Fray Pedro Bucaneg, a blind Ilocano poet and scribe who is said to have lived during the Spanish colonial era in the Ilocos region of the Philippines, in the 17th century. He is traditionally credited with transcribing the epic Biag ni Lam-ang from oral tradition, an act that helped establish Ilocano literature during the colonial period.

Biographical details about Bucaneg are scarce and often blend fact with legend. Traditional accounts describe him as a blind poet and scribe who lived in the Ilocos region in the 17th century. According to most sources, he transcribed Biag ni Lam-ang from an oral tradition, a preservation that allowed the work to survive in written form and to become a foundational text in Ilocano literature.

Because of this association, Bucaneg is widely regarded as a foundational figure in Ilocano literature, and the surname remains familiar among Ilocano communities in the Philippines. Scholarly assessments view him as a historical figure whose importance lies in preserving and disseminating an important epic, rather than in producing a large body of independent works. The figure of Bucaneg thus exemplifies how oral tradition was transformed into written literature in the Ilocos region.