Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa

Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa (born October 9, 1942) is a Filipino dancer and academic known for her studies and promotion of the pangalay dance tradition of the southern Philippines and is a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

She was nominated by former senator Miriam Defensor Santiago to be included in the list of National Living Treasures or Gawad Manlilika ng Bayan (GAMABA), the highest honor bestowed on individuals who have contributed immensely on indigenous culture and arts.

Early life Fernando-Amilbangsa was born in 1942. She was born to a prominent Catholic political family in Marikina, Metro Manila, Philippines with her father being Gil Estanislao Fernando Sr. who served as Mayor of Marikina for several years and her younger brother Bayani Fernando who would also become Mayor of Marikina and head of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA). Her mother, Remedios Flores Fernando, was a pianist.

She entered the Far Eastern University as an English major in 1959 where she also met her future husband, Datu Punjungan Amilbangsa. She described Pangalay as "pure dancing." She stayed in Jolo for four years.

In 1973 she moved to Bongao, Tawi-Tawi where she taught at the Mindanao State University – Tawi-Tawi College of Technology and Oceanography. Despite growing up in a prominent Catholic family, Fernando-Amilbangsa lived in the Muslim South for three decades, specifically the Sulu Archipelago, along with her husband until he died in 1987.

Their daughter, Dayang-dayang Grace Amilbangsa, became a theatre actress and filmmaker in the 1980s.