Don Juan Panganiban is the father of the epic hero Lam-ang. In the opening of Biag ni Lam-ang he leaves his pregnant wife Namongan to go up into the mountains to fight the Igorot headhunters, and is killed and beheaded before his son is born. His death sets the epic in motion: it is to avenge Don Juan that the newborn, miraculously articulate Lam-ang sets out on his first exploit. His Christianised name reflects the Hispanic overlay that the epic, though rooted in older oral tradition, carries in its recorded forms.