Venancio "Anciong" Bacon

Balintawak

Original Balintawak club members from left to right: [José Villasin], Johnny Chiuten, Venancio Bacon, and Teofelo Velez.
Also known as	Balintawak Eskrima
Focus	Stick fighting
Country of origin	Philippines
Creator	Venancio "Anciong" Bacon
Famous practitioners	Atty. Jose Villasin, Teofilo Velez, Timoteo Marangga, Teodorico "Teddy" Buot and Delfin Lopez]]
Official website	balintawak.org

Balintawak Eskrima or Balintawak Arnis is a Filipino martial art developed by Venancio Bacon in the 1950s to enhance and preserve the combative nature of arnis which he felt was being watered down by other styles of Philippine martial arts. It is named after a small street in Cebu where it was founded.

In 1932, the Doce Pares Club was formed, composed of eskrimadors from the Saavedra and the Cañete family. This was headed by Lorenzo Saavedra. Venancio Bacon was among the first members of the Doce Pares Club and became one of its best fighters. According to an interview in Bladed Hand, a Filipino documentary about Filipino martial arts, Grandmaster Ciriaco "Cacoy" Cañete said that Bacon was among the best fighters in the Doce Pares Club, second only to "Doring" Saavedra.

Bacon eventually left the Doce Pares Club, citing skepticism of the system's combat effectiveness. Per information provided by T. Buot, the reason why V. Bacon did not rejoin the Doces Pares group as he felt that his alone vote would not have any weight against the Canete family. In the 1950s, together with Delfin López Timoteo Maranga and others, Bacon established a new club, calling it the Balintawak Street Self-Defense Club. The newly formed club started training in the backyard of a watch shop owned by Eduardo Baculi, one of Bacon’s students, in the titular street, a small side street in the Colon St. area.

Ted Buot was the only student of GM Bacon to teach at his club in the back of the watch store. T. Buot would be teaching and Bacon would show up and Buot would hand him his stick to teach with. When Bacon was done he would hand the stick back to Buot and leave. During the 1950s and 1960s, eskrimadors from various camps, mainly Doce Pares and Balintawak, tested each other’s skills in all-out challenges, sometimes by arrangement and sometimes by ambush, often resulting in injuries and, more rarely, deaths. In one such ambush, Venancio Bacon was caught in the dark while walking to his home in Labangon, and killed his assailant by snapping his spine. Bacon was tried and imprisoned, with the judge ruling that Bacon’s martial arts skills could be considered a lethal weapon and should have been used with restraint. While in prison, he recruited further students, including Bob Silver Tabimina. Upon his release on parole in the mid-1970s, Bacon returned to Cebu and Balintawak. He did not resume leadership, but did regularly attended training sessions conducted by José Villasin and Teofilo Velez until his death a few years later. Per Buot, both Bacon and Buot were always welcome at many of the Doces Pares homes.