Pugad Baboy (literally, "swine's nest" in Tagalog) is a comic strip created by Filipino cartoonist Apolonio "Pol" Medina, Jr. The strip is about a Manila community of mostly obese people – "fat as pigs" (baboy is Tagalog for pig).

It started appearing in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 18, 1988, and was published exclusively in the Inquirer line of newspapers (Broadsheet Inquirer and its free concise sister tabloid called Inquirer Libre and tabloids Bandera and Tumbok.) Its popularity has spawned numerous compilations, a live-action television series, and merchandise such as T-shirts and figurines.

The strip not only showcases domestic life; occasionally, it features adventure, drama, and pure spoof sequences. More often, the strip mirrors the general sentiment of the Filipino people on relevant topics such as corruption in the government as well as Filipino pop culture. In this respect, the strip has been likened to Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury. Sometimes, political satire is woven into some ordinary strips and adventure stories.

History

right|400px|thumb|September 2006: Dagul mentions Wikipedia in the third panel from Pugad Baboy nineteen. An English approximation of his dialog would be: "[[Ragnarok Online|Ragnarok has replaced patintero (a traditional game), video conferencing has replaced lunch meetings, and Google and Wikipedia have replaced the library!"]]

Medina conceived the strip while working under contract in Iraq in 1986. On May 18, 1988, he pitched his strips to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. His strip, named after a friend's piggery in Bulacan, was accepted on the spot.

Medina originally spelled "Pugad-Baboy" with a hyphen in the strip itself, though not in the title.

For many years, the strip was exclusively a black-and-white daily. A full-color Sunday strip in the same paper debuted on October 3, 2004. The full-colored strips ended their run sometime in 2009. Before the tabloid Inquirer Libre debuted, the strip appeared exclusively in the Inquirer broadsheet.

In a strip published in September 2006, Medina commented on online life substituting for physical contact. He mentioned Wikipedia as one of the alternatives to library visits, the other being Google.

The Inquirer decided to discontinue carrying Pugad Baboy in its comics section beginning June 5, 2013, after a strip for the June 4 edition reportedly lambasted hypocrisy among Christians against homosexuals when certain sectarian schools condone such students among their ranks. The newspaper later clarified that the cartoonist was not actually fired and the strip would just be suspended from publication until an internal investigation had been carried out. However, Medina officially resigned from the paper on June 7, 2013. Online news website Rappler later hired him, with the strip being published as a webcomic on the site starting June 17, 2013. The new version offers readers alternative punchlines with the respective voting options.

Its final strip on Rappler, depicting a portal, appeared on March 1, 2018. The strip returned to print media with its first appearance in the Philippine Star and its sister publications, Pilipino Star Ngayon and Pang-Masa, on March 5, 2018.

Characters

The Sungcals

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The Sungcal family reflects aspects of traditional and stereotypical families, with a housewife and an overseas contract worker as members, with a domestic helper to supplement. "Sungkal" is a Tagalog word for the term "digging a hole with a (pig's) snout".

  • Dagul (Adagulfo Sungcal Jr.), often referred to with the title Mang (Mister) – i.e. Mang Dagul – The patriarch of the family. He works as a chef in a five-star hotel where he specializes in unorthodox dishes. He is often shown at home, usually voicing out on the state of affairs in the Philippines. He is also highly xenophobic. Over the years, he studies different martial arts like karate, arnis and aikido (like Medina), and he also dabbles in tennis and golf. He calls his wife "Honeycured." "Dagul" is Filipino slang for someone or something big. At the end of The Returnee story arc, the Tangaras lend Dagul money so he can quit his job and start his own small restaurant in his house's front yard.
  • Debbie (Debra Anne Sungcal) – The matriarch of the family, a loving traditional housewife and mother. Her recurring traits include a love for bargain shopping, indecision regarding actual purchases (sometimes on purpose), and complaining about decisions she lets Dagul make (much to Dagul's annoyance and regret). Also, she extremely highly dislikes any honest opinion Dagul gives her about her figure and/or clothes she wears or tries on – to the point of throwing him out of the house, despite her demanding honest opinions in the first place. She is also the constant victim of disgusting table conversations between her husband, Polgas and sometimes with Utoy. She calls her husband "Sweet Ham."
  • Kules (Hercules Sungcal) – The eldest son, a building engineer in Saudi Arabia. When not working, he reads letters from pen pals, goes on blind dates (usually with funny consequences), hangs out with his friend 'Adre (short for compadre; see below), or thinks about the events back in the Philippines. Much like Kules, Medina was formerly a contract worker in Saudi Arabia. The origin of his name is often mistaken to be that of the legendary Greek hero of the same name, when in fact, he is named after the Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft. After marrying Mandana, Kules resigned from his overseas job and returned to Pugad Baboy for good, sporting longer hair.
  • Tiny (Cristina Sungcal) – The teenage daughter. Her name is not only an obvious misnomer, but also a testament to her vanity and denial regarding her size. She asserts herself as sexy and repeatedly insists that her waistline is 28&nbsp;inches (the last time this was true was when she was 9 or 10 years old). She does commit herself to diets that often end in failure. Her cooking leaves much to be desired by her family, and is sometimes inedible (in one strip, she naively uses papaya soap in place of the fruit). She studies in the University of Santo Tomas, where Medina graduated in 1983 with a degree in architecture. There, she takes up mass communication, a course the university does not actually offer. She is currently being courted by Brando, whose name is always mistaken by Bab and Dagul, and Tiny correcting them all the time. But in the beginning she allowed herself to be courted by Bab, and this happened only for a short period of time. She also is a cosplaying enthusiast.
  • Utoy (Adagulfo Sungcal III) – The youngest son. Intelligent and musically talented (playing the saxophone), he behaves much like other children his age. Medina initially depicted him as a clueless infant, but he later aged him to about eight years old probably to give a child's insight on current events (eight is also the age of most of the child characters in this strip). Despite his youth, he claims Jolen as his girlfriend. In a "Boy Scout" story arc, Medina gives him an absurdly versatile Swiss Army Knife (apart from the usual tools, his knife comes equipped with such things as a refrigerator, a Nintendo video game console complete with television, and an all-terrain vehicle). The tool returns in Pugad Baboy 25 with a mini-sniper rifle that fires foam pellets.
  • Mandana (Mandana Ahmadi-Sungcal) – Kules' wife, and a spy of Iranian origin. Known as the "most hated by the Muslims who give Islam a bad name," Mandana amassed a huge amount of fortune from collecting bounties of famous terrorists. Among her modus operandi is to convince wives of terrorists to betray them and become her informant. How and when she fell in love with Kules is unknown, but she ordered her partner Amir to offer Kules dowries to marry her. When a group of Islamists kidnapped Kules and ordered Mandana to bomb the US Embassy in exchange for her fiancé's life, she did not hesitate and obliged. She was assumed killed in action - Kules shot her to save the embassy, though the boat she was piloting still destroyed it. However, it was later revealed that she faked her death in order to deceive the Muslim extremists on her trail, and that what Kules shot was a dummy. It was heavily implied that non-terrorist casualties in the embassy destruction were faked also in order to throw off the Muslim extremists. She re-emerged and reunited with Kules after five years, marrying in a civil ceremony in Tagaytay. She can finally speak Tagalog fluently, as seen in the March 21, 2016, strip here and as of January 25, 2018 here, she's pregnant with her and Kules' first child. She gave birth to a girl, while Kules was away.
  • Zara (Lazara Armaiti Sungcal) – Kules and Mandana's infant daughter. She took a lot from her Iranian heritage and her mother's temperament. She never once cried since her birth, something that Mandana claimed she got from her while admitting that her first time crying was when she shot her father who forcefully arranged her to marry an old man.

thumb|right|175px| [[Book signing of Pugad Baboy]]

Polgas

Polgas (derived from the Spanish and Tagalog pulgas for "flea") is the Sungcals' anthropomorphic family dog. Notable for his human characteristics such as speech, optional bipedalism, use of clothing and general behavior, he is called ang asong hindi (the dog who isn't) in material outside the strip proper because of his human characteristics. He acts as an extra member of the Sungcals and is his master Dagul's drinking buddy. However, he still behaves like a typical dog when he chooses to, though usually when he takes a bite out of people or leaks on them, most often Dagul.

Polgas was initially a normal dog which walked on all fours, albeit one who wore shirts and undershirts like Dagul. Medina eventually gave him the ability to talk, followed by other human characteristics like a more humanlike physique. Originally, Brosia, a former ventriloquist, supplied Polgas's voice, but Medina was so dissatisfied with the idea that he abandoned it completely.

Medina eventually developed the character into a "man (dog) of action", humorously saving the human characters from danger during story arcs, and later a full-fledged action hero involved with more serious activities.

As an agent, Polgas was issued with a prototype garapata (tick) gun, which shoots droplets of tick sweat that causes itching that lasts for six months. and ballistic arnis sticks. Later he also acquired the Thunderpuppy, a Harley Davidson V-Rod motorcycle.

As Wisedog/Dobermaxx, Polgas has fought many foes over the years, ranging from the mundane (drug pushers and most recently, magic mushroom courier. Medina himself has even appeared once in the strip proper, holding a cartooning workshop in Palawan, though he avoids breaking the fourth wall by not referring to himself as the strip's creator.

Major story arcs

As mentioned earlier in this article, the strip does not showcase domestic life alone as Medina has created story arcs which involve the various characters in adventurous, dramatic or other plotted situations.

There is no standard as how long a story arc may last, since it can run from several weeks to a few months. The story arc is only titled when it is included in a compilation.

This list below contains named story arcs that last at least 15 strips long and which compilation each appears.

  • Bakasyon (15 strips, The Best of Pugad Baboy) - The gang's vacation in La Union is rudely interrupted by Taokoy (mermen).
  • Baboy Scouts (24 strips, Pugad Baboy 3) - The kids go on a camping trip with their Scoutmaster, and are captured by a band of Amazons who want the Scoutmaster to impregnate their queen!
  • Wisedog (17 strips, Pugad Baboy 3) - Polgas, alias Wisedog, investigates a series of pet dog disappearances.
  • The Baguio Connection (51 strips, Pugad Baboy 3) - Kules, Tomas, Noli, Bab, Joboy and Pao, plus Wisedog, investigate ube jam spiked with cannabias sativa in Baguio.
  • Retraining (45 strips, Pugad Baboy 4) - Tomas is sent for retraining, and soon becomes involved in stopping a ring that sells children to gay pedophiles
  • The Malunggay Conflict (30 strips, Pugad Baboy 4) - in Ilocos, the gang must help Ka Kwate fight off the attempted annexation of his land by Ka Damuseyn (parody of the First Gulf War).
  • Ang Hiwaga ng Dueñas (52 strips, Pugad Baboy 4) - the gang's vacation in Dueñas turns into a rescue mission when Pao is mistaken for a pregnant woman, and kidnapped by supernatural beings to use as a human sacrifice.
  • Feminist (34 strips, PB5) - Barbie and Debbie take on Tomas and Dagul in a battle to prove who is the weaker sex.
  • Olympig Games (19 strips, PB5) - the Pugad Baby residents compete in a series of hilarious Olympic-style games featuring traditional Filipino events such as patintero, gagamba (spider) fighting, Tex and holen (marbles).
  • 2078 (45 strips, PB5) - the gang get transported to 2078, learning about the future of the Philippines. Polgas meets Dobermaxx, and helps him fight a gang of drug pushers.
  • Maidnappers (88 strips, PB5) - Tiny's Filipino-American cousin Gwen visits, accompanied by her yaya Gloria. Brosia and Gloria are mistaken for Gwen and kidnapped.
  • The Olongapo Caper (49 strips, Pugad Baboy 6) - Bab and Joboy's trip to Olongapo turns sour when they have to help their new friend Philip save his sister Pinky from a prostitution ring.
  • Oplan Paglalanse (23 strips, Pugad Baboy 7) - the Pugad Baboy kids (Utoy, Paltik and Joma) join Polgas in forming a vigilante group (The Walang Payat Gang) to punish the corrupt police officers preying on the citizens of Pugad Baboy.
  • Alamang Boy (26 strips, Pugad Baboy 7) - the disappearance of Tomas' goat leads to trouble when Senator Cabalfin's son is accused of the crime.
  • Col. Manyakis (35 strips, pugad baboy 8) - the tables are turned when Tomas' new superior, Lieutenant Colonel Violeta Kainam, begins sexually harassing him. Tomas soon has reason to suspect that she is involved in criminal activities.
  • Father Marty (21 strips, Pugad Baboy 9) - Bab's childhood friend Father Marty, a new Catholic priest, returns to Pugad Baboy.
  • Kulto (41 strips, Pugad Baboy 9) - the Walang Payat Gang suspect that Bong Cabalfin has become involved in a doomsday cult
  • James Bab (38 strips, Pugad Baboy X) - Polgas, as Dobermaxx, recruits Bab as a spy (spoof of James Bond). However, James Bab's first mission soon gets him involved in battling a gang of bank robbers.
  • Matrona (23 strips, Pugad Baboy X) - Bab gets the surprise of his life when Girlie, his mom's (Tita Cel's) friend, turns out to be a cougar who hits on him.
  • Apo Hikers (62 strips, Pugad Baboy XI) - the Pugad Baboy gang and Dobermaxx join forces with guide Mel and his bobcat named Bobcat to fight illegal loggers on Mount Apo.
  • Paraiso (54 strips, Pugad Baboy XII) - Dagul, Debbie and Khalid aid Dobermaxx in fighting off illegal fishermen from mainland China in Palawan.
  • Private Investigator! (77 strips, PB the 13th) - Dagul becomes Bardagul Kapote, private investigator. Assisted by sidekick Brossy (Brosia), they try to solve the mystery of a bombing in a mall cinema.
  • Babman (37 strips, Katorse) - Bab becomes Babman, the Pork Knight, as he tries to protect Gothom City from goons tying to scare them off.
  • Aso (88 strips, Kinse!) - Polgas' investigations of a dope farm in Pampanga take a crazy turn when a werewolf gets involved!
  • Benigno Ramos: Bounty Hunter (71 strips, Pugad Baboy Sunday Comics) - Igno is hired by the Ang brothers to catch Rudolf Cruz, but must use his wits to survive when the police try to bring him in alongside Rudolf!
  • Bodyguard (53 strips, Pugad Baboy 21) - Tomas has trouble guarding VIP Cris, the spoiled son of General Caldera.
  • Green Heroine (87 strips, PB 24) - Tiny, as Obesa Vanidosa, Pao and a Korean named Mr. Shin investigate a series of possible terrorist acts.
  • The Bourne Ambrosity (126 strips, 25) - an amnesiac Brosia suddenly gains crazy spy skills in a spoof of The Bourne Identity.
  • Ang Punyal ni Devlino (71 strips, 27) - Polgas, the Walang Payat Gang, Brosia and Coleen join forces to save the other Pugad Baboy residents from the revenge of the supernatural creatures.
  • The Girl from Persia (74 strips, 28) - Kules gets into all sorts of trouble on a vacation home when the Iranian girl he is courting, Mandana, turns out to be involved with terrorists!
  • Mad Mountain Nectar (57 strips, 29) - Dobermaxx investigates when he encounters a honey that boosts people's physical strength!
  • The Returnee (127 strips, XXX) - Tomas goes on the run when a military mission to retrieve a returnee turns sour.
  • Dugo ng Shinobi (115 strips, 31) - Bardagul Kapote, James Bab, and Igno investigate a string of murders that implicate the neighborhood scrap collector, Pablo.

Not included in the list above is Planet of the Dogs, Medina's homage/parody to Planet of the Apes. This story arc (which appeared in Disi-Sais!) is relatively short at only nine strips long. Since that arc, it took Medina three years before he came up with Benigno Ramos: Bounty Hunter, and then another three with Bodyguard.

Books and merchandise

The first compilation of Pugad Baboy comic strips was originally part of a thesis by Frank Aldana, a student of De La Salle University. This compilation became so popular that Medina himself made more. Typically, a new compilation is released near the start of each year. Including Aldana's compilation, there are currently 34 Pugad Baboy compilation books:

  • Pugad Baboy One (originally, The Very Best of Pugad Baboy)
  • The Best of Pugad Baboy (officially, this is the second compilation)
  • Pugad Baboy 3
  • Pugad Baboy 4
  • PB5 (Pugad Baboy 5)
  • Pugad Baboy 6
  • Pugad Baboy 7
  • pugad baboy eight
  • Pugad baboy 9
  • Pugad Baboy X (commemorating the tenth anniversary of the comic strip)
  • Pugad Baboy XI
  • Pugad Baboy XII
  • PB the 13th (Pugad Baboy 13)
  • Katorse (Pugad Baboy 14)
  • Kinse! (Pugad Baboy 15)
  • Disi-Sais! (Pugad Baboy 16)
  • 17 (Pugad Baboy 17)
  • 18 eighteen (Pugad Baboy 18)
  • Pugad Baboy Sunday Comics (first one in full color)
  • Pugad Baboy nineteen
  • Pugad Baboy XX (commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the comic strip)
  • Pugad Baboy 21
  • Pugad Baboy 22
  • Pugad Baboy Sunday Comics 2 (second one in full color)
  • Pugad Baboy 23
  • Pugad Baboy 24
  • 25 (Pugad Baboy 25)
  • Pugad Baboy Sunday Comics 3 (half colored, half not colored. This is the last of the Sunday Comics Series)
  • 26 (Pugad Baboy 26)
  • 27 (Pugad Baboy 27)
  • 28 (Pugad Baboy 28)
  • 29 (Pugad Baboy 29)
  • XXX (Pugad Baboy 30th Anniversary Special)
  • Pugad Baboy 31
  • Pugad Baboy 32
  • Pugad Baboy 33
  • Pugad Baboy 34

Medina also made other Pugad Baboy original works:

  • Pugad Baboy: Endangered Species - a coloring book by Pol Medina.
  • Pugad Baboy: Philippine Games - another coloring book by Medina.
  • Pirata – an original graphic novel about Polgas befriending a reformed Muslim pirate named Khalid and their quest for the pirate group to surrender. It was intended to be the first of a graphic novel series called Polgas – Ang Asong Hindi, but was made a stand-alone graphic novel because of the time and effort given to its creation, as well as the seriousness and darkness of its story compared to the hilarity of Pugad Baboy itself.
  • Two Polgas – Ang Asong Hindi books actually appeared, sporting a smaller, regular-sized format than Pirata. Printed in black and white, unlike Pirata, they were produced as a joint effort between Medina and the Alamat Comics Group, an independent comics company. These books were Baboyani (a portmanteau of baboy and bayani, Filipino for "hero") an alternate universe adventure which recasts the characters as rebels in the late-19th century Philippine Revolution against Spanish rule; and Conspigracy, a story that takes place during an excursion in Laguna. Nolan Clemente (who is credited as Medina's inspiration for the character Ka Noli) wrote the scripts for both books. In actuality, Medina only contributed the art for the covers and title pages; the rest of the art was done by other artists. The afterword for the second book teased the production of a third story which would supposedly see the Pugad Baboy characters go into space, but this was never produced.<br/>150px|right|thumb|Christmas-themed Polgas P-gurine c. 1995
  • Pugad Baboy Adbyenturs featuring an original story called Gayuma, set sometime after Pugad Baboy 5. The story had Bab finally succeed in convincing Tiny to fall in love with him, while also coming up against a familiar foe. The comic was illustrated in full color by artists from Alamat, where Medina was only somewhat involved. The story was written by Eric Santos, who also co-wrote Conspigracy.
  • Polgas comics – a "magazine" of original strips by Medina and other artists which also contained a spoof "horoscope" and some exotic recipes, saw at least two issues.
  • Green Papaya - a full-colored strip focusing on the character of Pablo, one of the five missing siblings of Polgas, who resides in Hawaii. The short-lived strip was created for a publication marketed for Overseas Filipino Workers in the United States. The few strips that saw publication were included in the 20th Pugad Baboy book.
  • Pugad Baboy: Marcos Special - a full-color compilation of Pugad Baboy strips focused around the topic of Ferdinand Marcos and the issue of Martial Law in the Philippines.
  • The Blood Of The Shinobi - The very 1st all original English comic book series by Pol Medina, Jr. was launched in 2018.
  • Pugad Baboy Presents: Dagul X Brando: A Cook Book - The very 1st all original Tagalog cook book created also by Pol Medina, Jr. was launched in 2024
  • Green Village: A Pugad Baboy Prequel - A full-color series of strips set prior to the events of the main Pugad Baboy series. The story focuses on the Pugad Baboy kids befriending a group of orphans and a rescued dog who happens to be one of the five missing siblings of the character of Polgas. The strip began serialization in the first issue of the Komiket Magazine published and released on February 28, 2026 and will continue to run throughout the next few issues of the magazine.

The popularity of Pugad Baboy also spawned some merchandise such as DogStyle Apparel and Polgas P-gurines (a set of figurines depicting Polgas and some Polgas characters). They are currently distributed by Medina's company, Pol Medina Jr. Novelties.

On September 25, 1993, Pugad Baboy was made into a live-action TV show called Rated PB (Pang-Bayan) – Pugad Baboy Sa TV. Directed by Leo Martinez, the show featured Edgar Mortiz (Bab), Giselle Sanchez (Brosia) and Rudy Meyer (Mang Dagul) among the cast. Though the show was live-action, the opening logo featured limited animation. Some of the episodes were based upon earlier plots in the strip, while others followed a skit show format. It was aired on GMA 7 and lasted only two seasons, 15 episodes in all.

In the ninth book, Medina states that he dreams of making a Pugad Baboy cartoon.

Besides Pugad Baboy books, Medina has also published compilations of his editorial cartoons for the Philippine Daily Inquirer, called the Ink and Politics series. The cartoons sometimes feature Pugad Baboy characters. Polgas always appears on covers of these books. Three books were initially published as the newspaper stopped hiring him as substitute political cartoonist in around 2006, but Medina later created a fourth compilation based upon political illustrations he created during his brief time with Philippine Star.

Medina includes photos and caricatures of himself in some of the strip's compilations.

Some Pugad Baboy characters can be seen on the ads of Dencio's, a notable restaurant chain in the Philippines. They are also featured as endorsers of Quake Overload Cakes, a line of pastries made by snack company Jack 'N Jill. Animation has been done by another great Pinoy artist, Arnold Arre

References

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  • Pol Medina's official website