Many people today, both ordinary Filipinos and some historians not acquainted with the
Philippines, are surprised when they learn that the ancient Filipinos actually had a writing system of their own. The complete absence of truly pre-Hispanic specimens of the baybayin script is puzzling and it has lead to a common misconception that fanatical Spanish priests must have burned or otherwise destroyed massive amounts of native documents as they did so

Social expediency was another reason for Filipinos to abandon the baybayin in favour of the alphabet. They found the alphabet easy to learn and it was a skill that helped them to get ahead in life under the Spanish regime, working in relatively prestigious jobs as clerks, scribes and secretaries. With his usual touch of exaggeration, Fr. Pedro Chirino made an observation in 1604 that shows how easily Filipinos took to the new alphabet.

But if reasons of practicality were behind the demise of the baybayin, why did it not survive as more than a curiosity? Why was it not retained for at least ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on buildings and monuments, or practiced as a traditional art like calligraphy in other Asian countries? The sad fact is that most forms of indigenous art in the Philippines were abandoned wherever the Spanish influence was strong and only exist today in the regions that were out of reach of the Spanish empire. Hector Santos, a researcher living in California, suggested that obligations to the Spanish conquerors prevented Filipinos from maintaining their traditions: Tributes were imposed on the native population. Having to produce more than they used to, they had less time to pass on traditional skills to their children, resulting in a tightening spiral of illiteracy in their ancient script.

Baybayin Found
In some parts of the Philippines the baybayin was never lost but developed into distinct styles.
The Tagbanuwa people of Palawan still remember their script today but they rarely use it. The
Buhid and especially the Hanunóo people of Mindoro still use their scripts as the ancient
Filipinos did 500 years ago, for communication and poetry. Dr. Harold Conklin described
Hanunóo literature in 1949:
Hanunóo inscriptions are never of magical import, nor are they on mythological or historical topics. Written messages (love letters, requests etc.,) are occasionally sent by means of inscribed bamboos, but by far the most common use of this script is for recording ambáhan [Hanunóo] and urúkai [Buhid] chants. Both of these types consist largely of metaphorical love songs

Dr. Fletcher Gardner described their postal system in 1943:

A bamboo letter is fastened in a cleft stick and placed by the trailside. The first passer-by, who is going in the direction of the addressee, carries it as far as his plans allow and leaves it again by the trail, to be carried on by some other person. Perhaps half a dozen volunteers may assist in conveying the letter to its designation.
Today there are small under-funded movements working to preserve these living scripts, such as the Mangyan Assistance & Research Center in Panaytayan, Mansalay, Mindoro, directed by
Antoon Postma and the Palawan State University Tagbanwa Script Project, aided by Dr. Jesus
Peralta jr. at the Philippine National Museum. In 1994, Hector Santos created several Hanunóo,
Buhid, and Tagbanuwa computer fonts for publishing and education as well as fonts for the ancient baybayin.
The information revolution has allowed Filipinos to learn more about the pre-Hispanic era on the
Internet than was ever taught in Philippine schools. As a result many Filipinos are taking a new interest in their own heritage and it is usually the baybayin that catches their attention first.
Through the use of computer fonts, the baybayin is now being used in graphic designs for web sites, multimedia art, jewellery, compact discs, T-shirts, and logos. And for some Pinoys, it

seems that the path has come full circle. Whereas long ago the Visayanpi nt ados were tattooed according to their status in the community, today a growing number of young Filipinos are getting tattooed with baybayin characters to show their pride in their heritage.

http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/bayeng1.htm [SOURCE]

authors: Andrino, Eduardo
Flores, Bryan Percival
Reyes, Stephen John 8-19-2010
Santos, Alain Joseph

title: alibata

Revival of the dead or conservation of the living?

Today, there are frequent calls for the revival of the Tagalog script as a symbol of national pride and identity.Unfortunately, the Tagalog script died a long time ago while the spoken language continued to evolve andthey are very much out of step with each other today.On the other hand, we have living scripts in the Philippines today that have been in continuous use for almosta millennium. The same people who call for the revival of the Tagalog script have not shown any interest inpropagating and maintaining the living Philippine scripts used by our "second-class" citizens. These scriptsare in danger of disappearing because of cultural contamination.This is a sad but accurate commentary on the divisions within Philippine society today: lowlanders vs.highlanders, Christians vs. non-Christians, urban vs. taga-bundok, western vs. traditional, pants vs. bahags,blouses vs. bare breasts, and so on.Could it be that the disappearance of the Tagalog script marked that point in history when the Filipinos'cultural will was finally broken? Are we now forever fragmented as a nation grasping for empty symbols whenthere are so many real things that we should be proud of?

6.) The Three Surviving Baybayins: Buhid, Hanunoo & Tagbanwa
Two Philippine scripts which remarkably differed from the scripts employed by the Ilocanos and Tagalogs onLuzon Island, were those of the Mangyans (of Mindoro Island) and the Tagbanuas (of Palawan Island).Because of the relative isolation of these ethnic groups, their scripts have fluorished. The Mangyan script isstill used to this day.http://iloko.tripod.com/scripts.htmlAlthough the Tagalog script quickly faded from the Philippine scene after the Spaniards arrived, three relatedscripts survived. They are the scripts of the Hanunóos and Buhids of Mindoro and the Tagbanwas of Palawan.http://www.bibingka.com/dahon/living/living.htmfromhttp://www.bibingka.com/dahon/tagalog/tagalog.htmIn some parts of the Philippines the baybayin was never lost but developed into distinct styles. TheTagbanuwa people of Palawan still remember their script today but they rarely use it. The Buhid andespecially the Hanunóo people of Mindoro still use their scripts as the ancient Filipinos did 500 years ago, forcommunication and poetry. Dr. Harold Conklin described Hanunóo literature in 1949:Hanunóo inscriptions are never of magical import, nor are they on mythological or historical topics. Writtenmessages (love letters, requests etc.,) are occasionally sent by means of inscribed bamboos, but by far themost common use of this script is for recording ambáhan [Hanunóo] and urúkai [Buhid] chants. Both of thesetypes consist largely of metaphorical love songs.http://www.mts.net/~pmorrow/bayeng1.htm
19

These three cultural groups originally lived on coastal shores along the ancient trade and migration routebetween Borneo and Manila on the western flanks of Mindoro and Palawan. They were incessantly forced tomove inland by raiders until they occupied only the highlands of their respective islands. By fleeing andrefusing to give up their way of life, they were able to preserve their knowledge of the ancient scripts.Not much was known about them until recently. Knowledge that they had writing systems only came about atthe end of the 19th century.Their scripts’ similarity to the Tagalog script was not only in the shapes of their symbols. They had the samekudlits, had the same orthographic rule about dropping the final consonant in a CVC syllable, and had thesame uses for their scripts: writing poetry and personal communication. These facts reinforce and verifyearlier accounts of friar-historians regarding features of the Tagalog script.Before we proceed further, let us enjoy some actual literature from these people some lowlanders consider “primitive.” I especially enjoy poems from the Mangyans: urukay from the Buhids and ambahan from the Hanunóos. Their imagery is quite contemporary and the ambahan spoken by a stillborn child reminds me of the poems of Robert Herrick

There may have been a time long ago when these people were culturally close to the Tagalogs. Isolation and differentinfluences could have made the Tagalogs, Buhids, Hanunóos, and Tagbanwas develop along divergent cultural paths.There is new evidence (the Laguna Copperplate Inscription) that ancient Philippines may have been more politically unitedthan was the case when the Spaniards came, that linked settlements rather than independent barangays were the norm, andthat material culture was at a higher level than at the time of contact with the West. But like Mycenaean Greece whichdegenerated into independent city-states, some unknown event caused the breakup of the older Philippine civilization intoindependent barangays. Greece eventually bounced back and reinvented most of her material culture, developing into theclassical Greece that we know of. The Philippines was on its way to new levels of cultural development when Westerncivilization intervened