by Bonifacio F. Comandante, Jr. / Asia Social Institute

ABSTRACT
Miguel Lopez de Legaspi first experienced the linguistic diversity of the Philippine Archipelago on 1565. In the succeeding years, Catholic missionaries were heaping praises on the excellencies of Baybayin Language, not hesitating to compare it even to the Hebrew, Greek and Latin, the prestigious language of the letters and religion that time.

Fletcher Gardner in 1938 quoted Luyon wife of Yagao (Tribal Mangyan) as saying, “Our writing never changes as it is taught to the children.”  Extant Baybayin scripts such as Tagalog, Ilocano, Bisaya, Bohol, Bicol, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Hinunoo, Buhid, Bangon and Tagbanwa have been found very recently to predate the birth of Christ.

While Filipinos lost the ancient art of writing in favor of the Spanish Orthography, the spoken Baybayin language fortunately enough has flourished to this very day. Long before the arrival of the Spaniards, Baybayin has been used in detailing personal and domestic interests, postal scheme, writing poems, art works, healing modalities and conducting rituals for festivities and spirituality. Higher education back then was done by teachers called “Pantas.” 

BAYBAYIN LANGUAGE AND SCRIPT

COTABATO, the Philippines, Jun 21, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) by Ana Santos, Xu Lingui

Like many people living around the Liguasan wetland in southern Philippines, Aleem Siddiqui Guiapal grew up somewhat like a nomad, moving from place to place to dodge bullets and mortar shells. Now, at the age of 32 and after studying in the country's best schools, Guiapal decided to return to the central Mindanao region, where the same insurgency war between the military and Muslim separatists that displaced him decades ago is still going on.

"The conflict is older than I am," Guiapal said, recalling his childhood. "My family lost a lot of their land during the war. My mother also lost her brother, who was a rebel."

For the past four decades, Filipino Muslim insurgents have been waging a guerrilla war, aiming to establish a separate state in the south of the mainly Catholic country.

Clashes, especially fierce in places close to the rebel stronghold the Liguasan marsh, have left more than 120,000 people killed and many more repeatedly displaced. Economy growth, as a result, is stalled in the minerals-rich Mindanao.

Many of the Muslim youth have known no other Mindanao except one that is war-torn. They have never known a time of peace in their homeland.

"We had no choice, but to leave," Guiapal said.

Guiapal started to move around at the age of three and he finally managed to leave the conflict-intense zone by the time he was about to enter college.

Dr. Jose Nilo G. Binongo, a Filipino academician at Emory University in Atlanta, USA, who studied in Japan and was recognized as Rollins School of Public Health Professor of the Year in 2006 barely two years after taking his post at the university, passionately believes that man’s progress should not be constrained by what is written in his DNA. Below is an essay he wrote entitled, "After all, there is no gene for fate".