What is the story behind sakuting in the Philippines?

Training of males in traditional arts during a time of division into Christians and non-Christians under Spanish colonial rule is the story behind sakuting in the Philippines. The dance in question preserves a Martial Arts discipline, called arnis, prohibited by Spanish colonialists, through a struggle between lowland converts to Christianity and non-Christianized mountaineers in the Abra province of the Philippines' Ilocano cultural regions in northwestern Luzon under Spanish colonialism (1521-1898). The martial arts dance, to the guitar-like rondalla and with 1.5- to 2-foot- (0.46- to 0.61-meter-) long bamboo or wood sticks as arm extenders, will be pronounced "sa-KOO-tihng" in Tagalog.