Behind the Scenes: The Ancestral Practice of Batok

Through a simple Google search for Batok practitioners, I was able to meet Francis (Kiko) San Diego and can say now that I have gained new family. There aren’t many practitioners here in the U.S. and there are only a handful here in California. Tribal Korner, Kiko and his wife’s business has been around since 2020. The two artists who also work as full time nurses represent what it means to be Filipino through their passion for connecting others with their culture.

As Kiko said, “Sometimes in order to do these traditional practices, we need to go outside of what society considers the norm and we just gotta do the work.